Panorama shots with a 1970s Widelux

I am not a photographer. Not even a hobbyist. The last time I played with film was forty years ago. My gear consisted of one Zenith TTL camera, a bunch of plastic containers, some chemicals, and a makeshift dark room. When I was a teenager, photography was a real profession. Mum and dad would dress up nicely and take us kids to the 'studio' of the best (and only!) photographer in town. A serious family affair. And every Slavic village had its own gospodin Kern, Schmidt or Laszlo; a non-Slavic master photographer from pre-socialist Austro-Hungarian era. In the 50s and 60s you wouldn't see a hobbyist walking around town with a camera around their neck; that was not just too bourgeois, but plainly too dangerous - one could be easily perceived as either a spy or pervert - or both. Luckily for photography and photographers, the 70s brought the long awaited change. Socialism went out of fashion, replaced by Levi's, trips to Italy and glossy Nikon magazines. Cool kids played basketball and nerds joined photo and radio clubs.  There are number of reasons why vintage cameras are back in fashion: attraction to fine mechanical engineering, the coolness of capturing photons in a unique, magic way; the artistry of creative expression and investment potential of a historical artefact no longer in production, disappearing fast. To a sophisticated photographer - all of the above and much more. I got drawn into film thanks to Bobby’s enthusiasm. The idea of creating a 'special place' in our office devoted to fine vintage cameras sounded like an interesting project. After all, the similarities between vintage watches and vintage cameras are too obvious. Making those fine cameras available for sale as well as preserving them for Bobby’s' generation and beyond sounds simply irresistible.  Taking the Widelux for a stroll to Dee Why beach was my first film camera 'event' in forty years. Widelux is panorama camera - it captures the scene in wide angle. Manufactured in the 1970s, it is a heavy and gutsy camera. A kind of conversation starter that will make strangers walk to you wanting to find out 'what the hell this that?'. The trick with Widelux is to take it easy. Composition is everything. Zero randomness. A standard film roll would allow you 21 shots, but taking more than 1 photo per hour means that you are rushing. There are a couple of technical 'must get it right' points: keeping the camera absolutely horizontal so watching the spirit levelling 'bubble' is essential. Not easy! Paying attention to light requires some basic understanding of shutter speed and aperture and will make the difference between properly exposed and overexposed shots. And the third thing is to keep your fingers out of the frame - which means holding the camera body literally as far from swinging lens as possible.  Here are two bad shots: the first one ‘capturing’ the finger and second showing good horizontal alignment, but with undesirable vertical tilt.

Yet once you take your first shots, Widelux slowly becomes a friendly machine.  Setting expectations means being prepared that the first role will go to waste. A professional photographer told me once that one printable shot in one hundred is a good result; so this is really what one should aim for. Like with any panorama camera: be prepared for long beach walks and hill climbs. My first experience with Widelux was definitely 'different than anticipated' in a hard to explain way, but I simply can't wait to take it for another beach trip, hopefully this weekend. Taking a shot or two, then waiting for a few days to see the end result is relaxingly stoic. Film photography is not a cheap hobby. With a ratio of one in one hundred for a single printable photo, it could end up costing anywhere between $30-$100. However, that does not mean that you should print every single shot taken; and sharing every photo is simply senseless. Time is precious!  I'll be brave enough to share two 'good' photos from the single Widelux roll of film. Shoot away!

For a Widelux tutorial check YouTube videos. A final word of warning: inserting the film is not very intuitive, and rewinding it back is really hard work. Have fun.

1976 selfie.

What do NASA, Stanley Kubrick and Jeff Bridges have in common?

No - it's not faking the moon landing, you conspiracy nutters. Started in 1952 by Nakayama Shozo, Panon was an independent camera brand dedicated to a very niche market, panoramic film cameras. Many brands have attempted to make panoramic cameras with most of them just adjusting the film exposure frame so that it doesn't expose the top and bottom, but Panon made a camera with a mechanical ‘sweeping’ lens which covers the entire 35mm film strip. The result is a peculiar but fascinating piece of technology which over its lifetime made quite a mark on the camera world. It was known as the 'WIDELUX'. During the 1960’s, NASA was preparing itself for the soon to be history making Apollo missions; these were known as the Gemini missions, the precursor to landing on the moon. NASA was looking into a variety of cameras and equipment to take on these missions to capture some of the first sets of high quality images from space and one of the cameras they chose was the WIDELUX panoramic camera. The camera would be mounted pointing out the cockpit window. Here is an exert from the press release mission report for Gemini 10: Gemini 10 crew - Michael Collins and John Young, inspecting the camera payload before their mission. Photo: NASA

Stanley Kubrick's films have been watched and loved, far and wide, with his unique stories and cinematography being extremely characteristic in his films. Although being world famous as a director, he also prided himself on his photographic skills and knowledge, with a large camera collection and photographic portfolio that spanned all the way back to his childhood, he was a photographer before anything else. Shortly after he passed away in the late nineties, his wife released the book 'Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures' containing a lot of his photographic work which had never been shared before, some of the photos included in this book were shots taken on the Panon WIDELUX. These photos included behind the scenes shots of pre-production and set pieces on 2001: A Space Odyssey. Interestingly, Kubrick wouldn’t be the only celebrity to take their WIDELUX behind the scenes of film productions. The most notable WIDELUX shooter and a long-time fan of the camera, Jeff Bridges, has been using his camera on almost all of the 80+ film sets he has been a part of since 1984. Including such films as The Big Lebowski, True grit, Tron: Legacy, Crazy Heart, Seabiscuit, and RIPD. These photos included pictures of unique set pieces, intimate candid shots of actors behind the scenes, portrait photography of celebrities, and many ‘selfies’. Bridges decided to release countless shots in two photography books, part one being released in 2004 and part two in 2019. He has an extremely passionate connection with this camera and describes it as being able to ‘see like the human eye’ with peripheral vision. I recommend watching the interview Jeff Bridges did with Jimmy Kimmel about the camera and his photography linked below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-yVCv5Uj_8 While this camera made its mark on history, being chosen by scientists, filmmakers, and celebrities alike, to capture incredibly unique images, the camera company Panon was only a small independent manufacturer. Over the nearly 50 years they were in business, they made just over 20,000 cameras in total. A decline in film camera sales and a tragic factory fire is to blame for Panon’s demise, but the cameras they built are like tanks and their reputation and historic achievements will live on with them. Check out this small forum of ‘WIDELUX shooters’ on Flickr who have uploaded thousands of unique images that will absolutely amaze you: https://www.flickr.com/groups/widelux/pool/ At the moment, this WideLux and its story is too much for us to part with, so the camera will remain on display in our shop. Good news, we are working hard to find another one. If you are interested in a WIDELUX for your collection or for shooting, do let us know.