Horizon 202

It is somewhat ironic that it was a member of HUG, the internet discussion group for Hasselblad users, who posted this Q&A joke recently:
Q: What is the difference between a photographer and an artist?
A: Artists don't talk about their brushes.

Oh well. Photographers do talk an awful lot about equipment. I guess this is because we brood a lot over our equipment, and we always search for the ultimate tool for any given task.

For over a year, I considered buying a panoramic camera, and/or a rangefinder camera. Of course, the ideal compromise, Hasselblad's XPan comes to mind - but together with the lens I think would be most useful for me, the 30mm, this is a huge investment. The medium format panoramic alternative I thought about, the Linhof Technorama III with the 72mm lens is in the same price range. I also looked at the Noblex-type rotating slit (rotating lens) cameras, but thought the "undistorted" or rather uncorrected perspective took some getting used to - too much of that, if you consider the price we are looking at for a Noblex. (You can find two somewhat contradictory reviews of the Noblex 135u at Michael Reichmann's "Luminous Landscape".)

On my recent trip to Prague, I saw a Noblex - or was it? In fact, is was a "Horizon 202", and the price tag said 11000 Czech Crowns - about 270 US$. (In a german discount photo-seller, I found it for 1000 Marks - over 400 US$). I called a dealer in Austria and found that there no longer was a representative in Austria, and that a 35mm model had cost about 11000 ATS until about 3 years ago - roughly three times the Czech price. After verifying that this Horizon was actually new (the had several in stock), I got myself a Russian rotating slit true panoramic camera. To be correct, I should say I got the camera from the third box the shop owner opened for me. The reason? Someone had translated the Russian manual and typed it in Czech, and the shop owner looked for a box where they had not yet replaced the Russian manual with the Czech. She apologized while doing so and said she hoped I would not mind, as I did not speak Czech anyway. I did not tell her I speak a tiny little bit of Russian. There are some things you should not tell a Czech, even if they deal with Russian cameras.

Now, what did I buy? Here's some technical information:

Film Format: 35 mm
Image size: 24x58mm, i.e.: 22 exposures on a roll of 36
Angle of view: 120° horizontal, 45° vertical
Lens: MC (?) 2,8/28; Apertures: 2,8-16
Shutter speeds: slow: 1/2, 1/4, 1/8; fast: 1/60, 1/125, 1/250*
Built-in spirit level, visible in viewfinder
Dimension: 117 x 146 x 73mm
Weight: 700g (1,5 pounds)

*The rotating cylinder moves at two speeds. The slower speed takes about 3 seconds for a rotation cicle, the fast takes about 1/4th. On the film side of the rotating drum, a slit moves across the film during exposure. This slit is partially covered and thus reduced in effective size for "faster" shutter speeds. Despite this simple mechanics, exposures have been pretty accurate for me so far.

Other than the Noblex, the Horizon requires no batteries. The rotation is coil wound, advancing the film also winds the coil (hence no double exposures possible), and there is no exposure meter built in.

All right, the Horizon is a rotating slit (or lens) design. Which means the lens is mounted on the front side of a cylinder, the film is placed around the rear side. (Loading the film actually requires some sleight of hand.) When a picture is taken, the cylinder rotates clockwise, which means that both the lens rotates in the front and also a vertical slit opening on the rear of the cylinder, mounted directly opposite the lens, rotates. This slit functions as a shutter, exposing the film to light as it travels across 58mm of film area. These 58 mms lie curved against the back of the cylinder, guaranteeing that every part of the film has the same distance from the lens. Hence no light fall-off in the corners. But...

...but the images taken with such a rotating design look quite different from "normal" panoramic, fixed wide angle lens images that we are used to, as the above exapmle of the Vienna Hofburg shows. Since any part of the film basically receives light coming through the very center of the lens, there is no distortion - but also no optical correction. In fact, the lens can be (and is for the Horizon) a very simple design. Yet, the first test shots indicate that the lens quality is very good, if not excellent. Since most of us are used to viewing optically corrected images, we are at first surprised, maybe even appalled by rotating lens images. What makes them different? Well, imagine standing centrally in front of a long building. Turn left and view the end of the building straight on. Measure the "height" of the building you see with your fingers. Now turn to the center of the building and look straight at it. Measure the "height" here - it will be much bigger than what you measured for the edge. Now turn right and see that the "height" of the right end - it will be as small as the left side. Now imagine turning slowly from left to right, with your fingers measuring the height of the building the whole time. You will see that the finger open up towards the center, and close towards the end of the building. Well, this is exactly how a rotation lens sees the image. Put simply: Any horizontal line which is not in the dead horizontal center of the image will curve, just as the line of your fingers curved along the buildings upper and lower horizontal lines.

This unusual perspective gave me the idea that a Noblex type camera is nothing more than an expensive effect camera. Well, for architecture on anything that involves straight horizontal lines off center, it surely is. But in landscape photography, I think you can take pictures where this curvature is not at all obvious, as long as you keep the horizon in the center of the image.

But there is a more important shortcoming of my Horizon 202, which may be corrected in the Noblex, but I doubt it: With the swinging lens, all bright lights in an image become streaks of light. Look at the lights (particularly the flood lights on the left) in December's PoM:

This seems to be the system shortcoming rather than the sign of a poor lens quality. Also, on some images taken at this location there was a shadow thrown over the lens from one of the flood lights, as soon as the lens turned away from the light source. This resulted in abrupt darkening of the image:

If the electronic exposure correction available for some Noblex models could correct such an effect totally or to a certain degree, I honestly don't know.

Another small problem is easily fixed: I miss half-steps in setting exposure values. So I decided to use negativ film exclusively with this camera, which has a wider exposure latitude and should therefore compensate for any exposure being a half step off. Also, my first results with the Horizon hand-held have shown me that the light weight and ease of use are deceiving. Tripod use is (as mostly in photography) strongly recommended!

The Horizon, at the given price, is a cheap effect (no pun) camera, and I thought was well worth a try. Thus far, having taken only non-critical city pictures with the Horizon, I am quite impressed and tend to think I will eventually regard this camera as more than a toy. It certainly looks to be a welcome addition if I go landscape shooting with my medium format equipment. I plan to go to the southwestern United States in March2002 during Spring break, and might bring the Horizon to capture the grandeur of places such as the Grand Canyon or Monument Valley in a single "swing".

(First) Conclusion: I think I made a steal. I got myself a nice new toy, and educational tool at the same time, which has soon taught me I would eventually need to invest in a XPan system (and did), since I really like panoramic photography, but could do without the limitations the rotation camera has.

January 2002, © Günter K. Haika