Trip Coming into Focus

The camera setups for my coming trip to Thai are coming into focus. I want to use 2 cameras to do on location shooting with flash at night. The 2 cameras will be a Mamiya twin reflex with Vivitar flash and my Bananarama 4x5 with Quantum T2 flash.

I expect to shoot 90% b/w film with the 4x5 and 90% color film with the twin reflex. I have the Mamiya pretty much figured out but the 4x5 continues to be elusive. I got the flash/bag/holder setup but I am having some light leaking problems with the Grafmatic backs as well as some composition issues with the converted Polaroid rangefinder. I have to figure out which areas of the view finder are showing the true image area and which areas are not! My last test shoot I ended up cutting the heads off my subjects!

I also have to decide exactly what I need to take with me to Thailand this includes regular gear, backups for the breakdowns and how much film I need. I expect to only have 2 weeks to do the ladyboy sex worker shots and might spend another week traveling the countryside making portraits of ordinary folk.

Damn, I wish I had more money and time to devote to my photographs. I have to figure out a way!