Widelux...

[BradS]

Dev'd my first roll of film from the Widelux that another member very graciously gave me. Just wanted to post and share my enthusiasm...and to say thanks to Erik.

First shot is from the Widelux...

second is from a spotmatic with normal lens - for comparison...

Both photos were made from approximately the same position. Same train, different day.

Thanks Erik!

 

[scootermm]

very cool Brad. I bet itll be a fun camera. This first shot is a nice one.
Look forward to seeing what you get from it.

 

[Mick Fagan]

Looks like you have very even exposure, which means the rotating lens is running smoothly.

I would have liked to see a 28mm lens on the spotmatic to get a reasonable appreciation of the widelux 26mm(?) lens.

I have the Horizon 202 and think it's the ants pants for stuff like that. The Horizon has a 28mm lens.

Mick.

 

[DougGrosjean]

Widelux rocks. I have an FV, with F8 gears in it, and love it. My two favorite cameras to carry in a bag are my Widelux and a Rolleiflx. Both extremes covered, then.

Something really cool - if you use a tripod and level the camera carefully, you can do 180d panos easy in Photoshop by just merging them together.

Could probably do 270 or whatever, just as easy, but I haven't tried yet.

 

[BradS]

Matt, Mick and Doug,

Thanks for the encouragement guys. Its been fun. The camera seems to be in pretty good shape but I do get some vertical banding on the other shutter speeds so, may need some cleaning. I shot most of this roll hand held. It seems to have worked ok but, I think a tripod is in order - even at 1/100 sec.

Anybody know what I can expect if I drop a roll of widelux film in Kodak Q-Lab drop box at the local super market?

 

[DougGrosjean]

You're welcome on the encouragement. The Widelux grows on you.

If you go to Photobucket.com and do a search on douggrosjean, most of the photos I have at that site are Widelux.

Next, regarding vertical banding.... the guy who works on Widelux is Bob Watkins in Illinois, IIRC his shop is Precision Camera Works. I was told sometimes a cleaning will fix them, other times gear replacement. I went for the gears because mine is so old, and I wanted to do this *one time* and be done and then use it for years.

I don't know what Kodak mailers will do with your film. But local drugstores assure me they can do pano shots, then they soup the negs, and find they can't scan them, and they hand the souped negs back to me in a film canister with no charge. I leave them in a roll, and then I wait till I'm going into the big city (Toledo Ohio) for something else, and have the custom lab there (Castle Photo) scan them and burn to CD for me. Good stuff, I have printed.

Or I scan them myself, but that is slow.

Oh, and many people, myself included, often get decent shots at 1/15 handheld. Amazing but true. I think one of the photobucket shots, at the BMW Square Route Rally, of the audience (I was there as a speaker) was handheld at 1/15. Turned out great except at the extreme edges, and that may have been a focus issue as I had to shoot wide-open.

http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h33/DougGrosjean/Square Route Rally - 2006/AAAA-Audience-SRR.jpg

 

[DougGrosjean]

Hey,

Just a bit more encouragement - here's a pair of more than 180 degree panos, done by merging in Photoshop a pair of Widelux shots.

http://s60.photobucket.com/albums/h...Panos/?sc=1&multi=3&addtype=local&media=image

The neighborhood is seamless. The room, a little less so - if you know right where to look there's minor evidence.

But this is what you'd see if you craned your head all the way to the Left as far as it would go, then all the way to the Right.

Enjoy!

 

[jamie young]

you could look to see if there are any Zeiss or B&L protar V's in the short focal lengths. They would cover 100 degrees and can be found cheap sometimes. Gundlach made a 3 1/2" that might work too.
Jamie

 

[ksmattfish]

My two favorite cameras to carry in a bag are my Widelux and a Rolleiflx.

Me too!

After all day outside in very cold weather my Widelux F7 began having serious banding problems. I sent it to a place that advertises "Nationally known for Widelux repair", and they ended up sending it back as unrepairable almost 6 months later. Then I sent it to www.camerarepair.com, and they had it running like new within a week or so. Several hundred rolls later it's still going strong.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Nothing to do with a Widelux, but you might be amused...

A friend of mine (Mike Shushakov) was photographer to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and wanted a Horizont. Knowing they were notorious for banding, he simply ordered six, tested them, and chose the best one. Even that one had intermittent problems. He lent it to me for a trip to St. Petersburg (hardly anyone called it Leningrad by then, around 1990) and said, "Always take two or three pictures, and you should get at least one without banding."

Doesn't say a lot for Soviet repairers or quality control, does it? Nowadays, of course, you can get Kiev USA rebuilt versions that actually work out of the box.

Mike's standard 4x5 was a Soviet copy of a Sinar, beautifully made. He told me that there were 5 or 6 of them ever made.

Cheers,

Roger

 

[europanorama]

i have set up a rotapancam forum only at:
http://forums.delphiforums.com/pancams/start
you can read all about my endless problems with horizont(starting in 1979, horizon 202 and even s3-pro(the latter is now working, even improved-finally). never buy another horizon than s3-pro(of the newest production restarted in may 06). btw my s3-pro with lens-problem came from kievusa atlanta. never mind michael fourman. he couldnt know.
i too was shooting in moscov with a lot of banding, light fall-in. photo-tass didnt want ot help. it is fate-i must live with it... we could finally repair it. 202 also need a rebuild. but not new s3-pro. they have finally learnt the lesson. thanks also to my pressure-my forum.
widepan 140 II still has starting problems when using 1/250. producer admitted and ge-pearl confirmed.the same like in widelux 1500. we tried to improve but there is still a small stripe of overexposure. can be corrected when using colornegative film during printing or in photoshop.
widelux 1500 is also a hot non-working/worst working candidate. never buy a rotapancamera without seeing testfilm or shooting yourself. .

 

[eric]

btw my s3-pro with lens-problem came from kievusa atlanta. never mind michael fourman

I've always been curious with the S3 and I'm glad you think its one of the models with the least problems.