Widelux F7

~brenda

The Widelux is a camera that has resided on my ‘Must Have’ list for several years. I have longed for it, even before the resurrection of my photography hobby and subsequent fixation on the classics. It’s a groovy, mechanical, all-metal Japanese panorama camera with NO SHUTTER and a 140 degree angle with a swing arm that sweeps from one side to the other to record the image. Instead of a traditional shutter, there is a slit that, as a turret rotates, exposes the film. Some kind of clockwork/gear contraption provides three “shutter” speeds: 1/15, 1/25, 1/250. This thing fascinates me. It seems to be quite a complicated bit of machinery, but the camera itself is very unsophisticated: The viewfinder is inaccurate (non-SLR, no parallax correction, and in fact only shows maybe 75% of the frame that will actually be captured) and there is no way to focus. The temptation to take it apart to see how it works is nearly irresistible; I imagine a crew of tiny hamsters running around an abstruse Rube Goldberg device every time I press the turret-release button.

It’s the camera Jeff Bridges used to take all the photos in his recent coffee table book Pictures by Jeff Bridges that subsequently drove the price of the things up three times what they were five years ago when no one had heard of them. Don’t get me wrong- I like Jeff Bridges. The Big Lebowski is one of the best movies ever made. Good on Jeff Bridges for embracing such a quirky, retro contraption with which to extend his artistic reach, but goddamn it I wish I had picked one up before he published his book and the Widelux started tickling the obscene nether regions of the $1000.00 “Buy it now” button on That Big Auction Site.

Lucky for me, my chatter about the Widelux piqued CW’s interest and he became determined to secure one for an un-obscene price. Result: An F7 for me!

First impressions: Mercurial. With a fixed 28mm lens, no shutter, crappy viewfinder and diabolically complicated intestines, I look forward to being constantly surprised by what comes out of the F7. It fits in nicely with the rest of the family and satisfies my ’wing it and hope for the best’ methods. The first test roll was taken at Red Stag (one of the best restaurants in MPLS- make it a priority to dine there if you are in the area).

Sweet! I love this distortion effect, but it looks like I have the dreaded ‘banding’ issue. Opinions on what causes this varies, but it’s likely due to some inconsistency in the rate at which the turret rotates. There are some fixes I can try before sending it off to a pro (among them a tip from JB’s site which has me “massaging the turret”. **snicker**).