Horizon 202 Panoramic Camera.
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Harlequin565
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I think @Kevin Allan has one...
FishyFish
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@Kevin Allan has posted some nice images from one recently, so he may be able to offer some thoughts.
EDIT: Beaten to it by speedy Ian!
EDIT: Beaten to it by speedy Ian!
PeterSpencer
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I have one and I really like it. I got it from Peter Loy with its case, instructions and other bits. It takes nice photos but my camera does have a very slight problem at one end of the lens swing the last bit of the frame is slightly blurred. It doesn't reall detract from my enjoyment of it it to be honest, I like the cinematic effect, especially with pictures of people. Here's a shot I posted before, you can see the slight blurryness on the rhs of the frame, but the exposure seems to be consistent across the frame. Without getting it out I can't remember if it scans from left to right or vice versa so I don't know if the problem is at the beginning or start of the scan. Might be a 'feature' of the camera. Actually, you interest prompted me to consult the interweb and I found this reference http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/articles/horizon-202.html, which states ' All the shots on the first roll were blurred on the right hand side due to the film not being taut inside the camera (or perhaps due being loaded incorrectly) ', so maybe I just need to be more careful about loading the camera?
By the way, have you ever looked at one of Jeff Bridges' books of panoramic pictures taken on film sets? Outstanding. He uses a Widelux, similar format on 35mm film, which works on the same principle as the Horizon but is a tad more expensive!
By the way, have you ever looked at one of Jeff Bridges' books of panoramic pictures taken on film sets? Outstanding. He uses a Widelux, similar format on 35mm film, which works on the same principle as the Horizon but is a tad more expensive!
Harlequin565
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Hafta say that as a movie fan and even bigger Lebowski fan I snapped this up as soon as I heard of it. Fab book, fascinating images. He was also interviewed on Analog Talk (about his photography) which was also really cool. Podcasts are hard to link to but "Jeff Bridges Analog Talk" should find it.
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Kevin Allan
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I received a Horizon 202 at Xmas and I've run 3 or 4 films through so far. The experience has been largely positive but not wholly without trouble.
a) Most of my images have more than a bit of blur on the right hand side of the image. If you're determined to use the whole image this will be troublesome although I find that the field of view is a little wider than I really want so I don't mind cropping the worst effected part out. There may be sample variation so another camera might not affected so much.
b) The camera has a complicated film loading route which makes it more fiddly to load than most 35mm cameras and seems to make it more likely that there will be a jam. The very first time I used the camera, it jammed after one frame, and in the effort to wind on, the outer plastic element of the wind-on lever flew off (I retrieved it and glued it in place). On another roll, the film snapped after exposure; I should have taken it into the darkroom to unload but I was stupid enough to open the door and ruined the film. In both these cases, the film was bulk loaded and the tape joining the film to the cassette failed under the pressure.
c) Linked to (b) above, the rewind handle isn't really chunky enough to comfortably crank the film back through the curved film plane; I've developed a method of winding slowly to avoid jamming which works but isn't recommended with arthritis.
d) In terms of handling, there are two issues:
i ) Keeping the camera level - there is a spirit level visible in the viewfinder, which is very sensitive, and doing so while handholding the camera is problematic. Much easier on a tripod.
ii) Keeping your fingers out the shot as the field of view is so wide (120 degrees in the horizontal plane.
Having said all the above, once you get used to the quirks of the camera, it can be used to good effect and of course the price point is much lower than most of the alternatives. I paid £150 for mine from a Russian eBay seller as "New Old Stock".
My images so far can be seen here:
a) Most of my images have more than a bit of blur on the right hand side of the image. If you're determined to use the whole image this will be troublesome although I find that the field of view is a little wider than I really want so I don't mind cropping the worst effected part out. There may be sample variation so another camera might not affected so much.
b) The camera has a complicated film loading route which makes it more fiddly to load than most 35mm cameras and seems to make it more likely that there will be a jam. The very first time I used the camera, it jammed after one frame, and in the effort to wind on, the outer plastic element of the wind-on lever flew off (I retrieved it and glued it in place). On another roll, the film snapped after exposure; I should have taken it into the darkroom to unload but I was stupid enough to open the door and ruined the film. In both these cases, the film was bulk loaded and the tape joining the film to the cassette failed under the pressure.
c) Linked to (b) above, the rewind handle isn't really chunky enough to comfortably crank the film back through the curved film plane; I've developed a method of winding slowly to avoid jamming which works but isn't recommended with arthritis.
d) In terms of handling, there are two issues:
i ) Keeping the camera level - there is a spirit level visible in the viewfinder, which is very sensitive, and doing so while handholding the camera is problematic. Much easier on a tripod.
ii) Keeping your fingers out the shot as the field of view is so wide (120 degrees in the horizontal plane.
Having said all the above, once you get used to the quirks of the camera, it can be used to good effect and of course the price point is much lower than most of the alternatives. I paid £150 for mine from a Russian eBay seller as "New Old Stock".
My images so far can be seen here:
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MrDrizz
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Thanks Peter,
You've almost convinced me to get one [emoji38]
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MrDrizz
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Wow, thanks Kevin.I received a Horizon 202 at Xmas and I've run 3 or 4 films through so far. The experience has been largely positive but not wholly without trouble.
a) Most of my images have more than a bit of blur on the right hand side of the image. If you're determined to use the whole image this will be troublesome although I find that the field of view is a little wider than I really want so I don't mind cropping the worst effected part out. There may be sample variation so another camera might not affected so much.
b) The camera has a complicated film loading route which makes it more fiddly to load than most 35mm cameras and seems to make it more likely that there will be a jam. The very first time I used the camera, it jammed after one frame, and in the effort to wind on, the outer plastic element of the wind-on lever flew off (I retrieved it and glued it in place). On another roll, the film snapped after exposure; I should have taken it into the darkroom to unload but I was stupid enough to open the door and ruined the film. In both these cases, the film was bulk loaded and the tape joining the film to the cassette failed under the pressure.
c) Linked to (b) above, the rewind handle isn't really chunky enough to comfortably crank the film back through the curved film plane; I've developed a method of winding slowly to avoid jamming which works but isn't recommended with arthritis.
d) In terms of handling, there are two issues:
i ) Keeping the camera level - there is a spirit level visible in the viewfinder, which is very sensitive, and doing so while handholding the camera is problematic. Much easier on a tripod.
ii) Keeping your fingers out the shot as the field of view is so wide (120 degrees in the horizontal plane.
Having said all the above, once you get used to the quirks of the camera, it can be used to good effect and of course the price point is much lower than most of the alternatives. I paid £150 for mine from a Russian eBay seller as "New Old Stock".
My images so far can be seen here:
I'll have a look on the tubes for how to load film.
Kevin Allan
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I use an Epson v700 with an add-on film holder which has anti-Newton glass. It takes three strips of 35mm, which are 6 frames each for normal 35mm or three Horizon frames.
PeterSpencer
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I use a V700 with the standard film holder and Epson Scan in Normal mode as it is incapable of detection the frames in Thumbnail mode, just as it seems to be with medium format negatives.
Kevin Allan
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With medium format I use the EpsonScan "Configuration" button which allows you to specify the size of the negative (eg 645, 66) and the amount of border to leave around the image, when working in thumbnail mode. But it does get fooled if there are large areas of dark around the edges of the image.
PeterSpencer
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Thanks for the tip, I've been using it for ages without knowing this!