Horizon 202 Panoramas



I've recently purchased a Horizon 202, a Russian 35mm panoramic swing-lens camera with a 28mm lens. This gives a 120 degree field of view with an image size of 58x24mm, a ratio of 2.4 to 1. I've had the first two test films back and here are the results. 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). All shots were taken on Velvia (using a tripod unless otherwise specified), scanned with an Epson Perfection 2450 Photo scanner (another recent purchase) and post processed with Photoshop.

Swansea Docks, evening, very high tide - 11th September 2002
 Two shots joined together, giving a 200 degree field of view. 1/60-f8 handheld.
Swansea from Townhill, late afternoon
The very first photo I took with my new camera. Too much of the foreground is in shadow unfortunately.
Cropped to a 3:1 ratio. 1/60-f11.		 Swansea Bay Sunset
Post processing in Photoshop has altered the colouring somewhat and I can't seem to recreate the original colours without re-scanning. Mumbles Head can be seen in the far distance.
Cropped to 3:1, 1/125-f2.8 handheld.
Swansea Docks - Associated British Ports
 Excellent light, lovely texture on the water.
1/60-f5.6 handheld.		 Same scene a little later, with wake
Very difficult to set up the tripod behind the barrier. I waited until the boat had passed because it would have been blurred. The wake is less blurred less than I expected though. 1/2-f16.
Swansea Marina
My second photo and my first experiment with tilting the camera. Unfortunately Velvia is so contrasty that the boat reflections in the foreground have been lost in shadow. 1/125-f8 handheld.		 Tesco at twilight
After two aborted shots, one at the wrong exposure (forgot to change the rotation speed) and one due to people walking into the frame, I captured this symmetrical twilight shot in the car park. 1/2-f4.
Car Interior, Swansea Promenade
13th September 2002
Checking the camera before getting out of the car I was surprised to see just how much coverage the camera had, so I took a shot from inside the car, using f16 to maximise depth of field. This gives a good indication of how wide the field of view is. It was taken from the front seat! 1/60-f16 handheld.		 Mumbles Cafe and Amusement Arcade
Another downward tilted shot, the only way to capture this scene from the high viewpoint. The curved earth effect seems to be quite acceptable in this instance. 1/125-f8 handheld.
Mumbles Head
Another curved earth shot. This scene seems particularly well suited to the effect. The Outer Head (with lighthouse) is mostly hidden by the Middle Head. 1/250-f8.		 Mumbles Pier and Head
A variation of the curved earth effect. I don't think it works too well in this instance, but preferences may vary. This is not an effect that you'd want to use too often. 1/250-f11.
Mumbles Pier
A far more sensible shot, probably my favourite so far. Choice of viewpoint is critical to a shot like this.
1/125-f11.		 Gors, heather and bracken
A hand-held shot of the ground beneath my feet. Not the kind of subject you'd expect to take with a panoramic camera but it worked quite well. I used f16 to try to ensure everything would be in focus.
1/60-f16 .
Bracelet Bay
A fast shutter speed was used to freeze the water.
1/250-f8.		 Bracelet Bay
Same scene but with the waves out.
1/250-f8.
Bracelet Bay and Mumbles Head
Cropped to 3:1, 1/250-f8.		 Limeslade
Cropped to 3:1, 1/60-f16.
Jessops, Swansea Branch
Not very sharp and not very good depth of field either, since the camera has its focus fixed on infinity. 1/60-f2.8 handheld.		 The New Swansea Police station
Upward tilting was unavoidable here, causing bowl distortion. 1/125-f11.
Afon Twrch Weir - 17th September 2002
Bad light here, didn't come out too well. 1/4-f16.		 Afon Twrch Footbridge
Slightly tilted, but quite acceptable.
1/60-f5.6 handheld.
Chimney near the Twrch Lime Kilns
My first vertical panorama. I was surprised at how close I could get to this very high structure. In spite of the sideways thumbnail, the main image is the right way up. 1/125-f11 handheld.		 Afon Twrch and Tyle Garw
Tyle Garw is on the right, Cefn Carn Fadog on the left, with Garreg Las in the far distance left.
1/60-f11
Bill Grey left and myself right
I ran into the shot before the camera lens rotated to my position. Vertical banding can be seen in this shot and the next, although I've minimised it a lot. 1/8-f16		 Afon Twrch and Tyle Garw
This time I've tilted the camera slightly downwards, but it's not very obvious due to lack of straight lines. Compare with the shot above. 1/8-f16

Overall I'm impressed with the sharpness of the lens. Only the centre of the lens is used so the usual problems of softness and vignetting at the edges of wide angle lenses is avoided.

However, the very top of the photos exhibited vignetting and odd marks (which I've rubber stamped out) but that can easily be cropped off, and in most photos that would be a good idea anyway since excess sky is rarely desirable unless the clouds are particularly good. Cropping exactly 1/5th off the top gives a very convenient 3:1 ratio which looks psychologically more panoramic and stops the horizon being dead centre, so it's probably a good thing to do that, being the next best thing to a shift lens.

Oddly enough there seems to be no vignetting at the bottom of the photos. Also I've noticed that the horizon is not dead centre in the shots, but slightly lower, indicating that more of the top of the lens is used than the bottom, hence the more apparent vignetting. It's only a very small discrepancy though.

A small number of photos have suffered from vertical banding, which indicates that the rotation speed is not constant, but it's only happened on three slow rotation shots and all the others have been fine, so I don't know why this has happened on these few occasions. More testing with slow rotation is required. In practice I doubt I'll be using the slow rotation very often anyway, so it shouldn't be much of a problem.

Hand holding the camera seems to be quite practical, although a tripod is desirable in order to get the composition and the levelling perfect. It can be levelled hand held but care is needed not to tilt the camera when pressing the shutter release. One or two shots were a little soft at 1/60th so I wouldn't want to make a habit of using that speed hand held, a slightly faster film speed of 100 ASA would be better (Provia F). The ideal compromise for fast moving work is a monopod, which gives much better stability than hand holding, and makes it easier to keep your fingers out of the way of the lens.