The level visible on the left in the image above was a way to 'shovel' a recently exposed plate out of the way, but the photographer still needed to open the back to position the next plateholder for exposure.

The steel plateholders coupled with glass plates make this a very heavy camera when fully loaded - enough to strain a lightweight wooden tripod, or photographer's back, for certain. An "Adlake Special" model was also offered (see advertisement below) with aluminum plateholders instead of steel, which cut down on weight considerably. There were no other differences between the Adlake Regular and Special otherwise.