The other day I went for a walk and took my Holga pinhole camera loaded with a roll of Ilford XP2 Super (black and white). I have yet to process the film so until then I would like to share with you some more images of mine taken just up above Hartsop in the Lake District with another gem of a camera, the Horizon swing lens camera. The link I have shared with you is for the Perfekt and the Kompakt, which I believe are the current models, mine is the 202 model, but is basically the same camera.
These cameras use 35mm film and have a field of view of 120 degrees, giving you a great panoramic view and lovely long negatives.
The way this camera works is as the name suggests, the lens swings. As you wind on your film, this sets the lens. You then set the correct shutter speed and aperture for the lighting conditions.
These cameras have no metering of their own so a meter reading needs to be taken with a light meter or you can use the metering in your DSLR by setting the ISO to match the film you are using, then work out the shutter speed and aperture relative to what you have available on the Horizon camera.
Once all this is done make final composition checks and press the shutter.
You can get lovely wide shots like these.
To keep everything true and avoid bending the horizon of your images or anything that goes accross your shot, this camera relies on being level. Though some interesting effects can be got by not having it level, as can be seen in the example below.
You’ve most likely noticed the white banding on the images. This is one common fault that can occur with this type of camera, it was common on the 202 models, it may have been rectified now. It seems that it is stray light bouncing around off small silver metallic parts within the camera during exposure. Unfortunate but I have found that it is worst in bright light conditions.
I hope you’ve enjoyed these and keep an eye out for my Holga pinhole images shortly.
Creative Photographic Gems 