Episode 52: Panorama City

Venturing back into the early days of the Camerosity Podcast, the topic of panoramic cameras came up often on the show, so often that we jokingly referred to ourselves as the widest film photography podcast out there.  As we often do, the gang got distracted in later episodes by various other formats, brands, and special guests, but we thought it was time to revisit our love of all things panoramic and take a ride to Panorama City.  No, not that Panorama City in southern California, but the land of Hasselblad XPans, Fuji G617s, Horizonts, and Noblexes. Joining Anthony, Paul, Theo, and Mike on our wide journey was a motley crew of panoramic enthusiasts, fans, and just passers by.  Returning guests, all the way from Cape Town, South Africa, Dean Blumberg, Ray Nason, Skip Williams, Richard Driver, Andrew Smith, and Mark Faulkner.  Also, first time callers Patrick Rapps, Rudi Berden, and Paul's ex-Fuji rep, Bob Grzesiak were in attendance. Not content with only talking to people who like to use existing panoramic cameras, also joining us from Silvergrain Classics is Marwan El Mozayen who most people in the film community know as helping to bring back a new version of the Widelux F8 swing lens panoramic camera.  With the support of Hollywood A-lister and renowned Widelux fan, Jeff Bridges and his wife Susan, Marwan shares the back story of how he became involved in resurrecting this panoramic classic.  Marwan isn't just some PR guy helping to spread word about his company's project however, as he has extensive knowledge of other panoramic cameras like the Noblex, Soviet Horizonts and many others. We started the show off with what we thought would be a pretty straightforward question, but the topic of what exactly defines an image or camera as panoramic elicited a pretty interesting discussion, relating panoramic still photography to that of cinematography and that angle of view should be considered in addition to physical size. Differences between wide angle panoramic cameras like the Hasselblad XPan and swing lens cameras like the Panoram-Kodak were discussed, along with cropped panoramic, 3D printed masks, how to use a perspective control lens to shoot panoramic digitals, and even some panoramic developing and scanning hacks that make like easier for the hobbyist.  With Marwan on the show bringing back the Widelux, we did a lighting round asking every participant what other cameras you would like to see someone make an attempt at bringing back (who wants to guess what Theo's was?). [label type="warning"]Silvergrain Classics Discount Code: [/label]During the show, Marwan El Mozayen mentioned that listeners of this show get a discount when ordering a copy of issue #19 of their magazine, which features a ton of information about the upcoming re-release of the Widelux.  To receive this discount, use code: WLX10 when ordering. Like all other episodes of the Camerosity Podcast, we were excited to go down the panoramic rabbit hole but had no idea of how deep it would be.  We ventured into some discussions that I could have never imagined, sharing the love and passion for this subset of  photography with a fascinating and very experienced panel of callers. As always, the topics we discuss on the Camerosity Podcast are influenced by you!  We would love to hear from more listeners, especially those who are new to shooting film or collecting cameras.  Please don’t feel like you have to be an expert on a specific type of camera, or have the level of knowledge on par with other people on the show.  We LOVE people who are new to shooting and are interested in having an episode dedicated to people new to the hobby, so please don’t consider your knowledge level to be a prerequisite for joining! The guys and I rarely know where each episode is going to go until it happens, so if you’d like to join us on a future episode, be sure to look out for our show announcements on our Camerosity Podcast Facebook page, and right here on mikeeck