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Panoramic Photography

I love the panoramic format and have created many with my digital camera sticking several portrait images together in photoshop
- but what is the analogue route?
Lots of images to view in my Portfolio.

Al Vista - Clockwork Panoramic

Much more sophisticated than the later, similar "Kodak Panoram" - I am exploring the capability of this early 2oth Century panoramic camera.
View my initial work with this camera here.

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Panoram Kodak 4D

Back in October 2022 I came across an unusual camera that I hadn’t seen the like of before - a panoramic camera. Designed by Kodak in 1890, this particular model (4D) was built between 1920 & 1926. A box camera, it’s the ugliest one I own, but looks aren’t everything as this this camera has a talent for swinging the spring-loaded lens through 142 degrees to project an image onto a huge 12”x4” (30x10cm) negative, held in a curve in the box. 

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Big Negatives!

These negatives make really good contact prints and I have been having a great time looking out for the kinds of scenes that are enhanced by this format. With 2 shutter speeds of 1/50 and 1/100s and a slot to drop in different sized “stops” there is plenty of scope to control the exposure. The fast shutter speeds mean the camera can be hand-held - but it must be level or the horizon becomes curved, unless that is done for artistic reasons.

Piers and bridges make great subjects - and we have plenty around Bristol and the coast to work with. The long walls and curved towers of the Bishop’s Palace in Wells are emphasised by the format. 

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“Leading lines” are a common feature of effective pictures and are particularly important here; otherwise there can be dead space with nothing of interest in the a large part of the scene. 

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Working on the old cameras often leaves me impressed with the simple ingenuity of the mechanisms created and it is rewarding to be able to use a camera that I have repaired and brought to life again to make pictures like these:

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Buy from Studio3 at Clevedon Craft Centre.

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