[Leica] OT panorama stuff

[henningw at archiphoto.com (Henning Wulff)]

At 12:39 PM -0600 3/20/04, Matthew Powell wrote:
>On Mar 20, 2004, at 10:14 AM, Bill wrote:
>
>>Ok, all this pano stuff got my attention.  I can not justify the one I'm
>>lusting for, the XPan II to The One Who Must Be Obeyed because of some
>>impending large expenses.  While using Brian's superior product to wander
>>about the web I came across the Horizon 202 Panoramic camera and was
>>wondering if anyone has actually used this camera.  Price is great but are
>>you getting what you paid for? That is, the lens is recycled Pepsi bottles
>>and the mechanics a bad joke.
>>Thanks,
>>Bill
>
>I've seen quite a bit of discussion on the Horizon at the 
>ToyCamera.com forums, but never really paid attention. Several 
>people have posted images, one is having a problem with sharpness on 
>the right quarter of the image - everything else is sharp.

It's a nicely designed but crudely constructed camera that is a steal 
for what you get. It isn't a Noblex, but it definitely works. The 
lens is quite good.

This is a lot better camera for taking pictures than the various 
Widelux models. The latter almost always caused banding problems, so 
I had to dry shoot about 50 frames before I loaded a roll of film, 
and then shoot it within a day to (generally) avoid banding. I owned 
two different models, and used about 10 different cameras between the 
late 60's and the mid 90's, and pretty well all had the same problem. 
The lens in the Horizon 202 is about equal to that in the Widelux, or 
possibly better. The Horizon has more sample variation. The Horizon 
also has slower speeds, so is much more useful. I now use one of 
those as well as a Noblex 150U, which is definitely the class of the 
field, and costs correspondingly.

Avoid the old metal Horizont. This one was worse than the Widelux in every 
way.

If you can get a Horizon cheaply, or buy one new from Jan-Willem 
Markerink in the Netherlands, go for it. I can open new horizons :-).

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