The world has long had a penchant for sweeping vistas. Even before photography was invented, large dioramas took people’s breath away.
So much so that, in 1844, a German by the name of Friedrich von Martens created his Megaskop-Kamera – incorporating precision gearing to ensure smooth lens movement and thus, even exposure. Numerous plates attributed to his Megaskop still exist, making it the first of its kind.
While the Al-Vista and Kodak Panoram cameras of 1898 and 1899 were produced in small, though significant quantities, the first truly successful panorama camera was the 1905 “Cirkut Camera” that captured a panoramic image by pivoting horizontally along a vertical axis while a roll of film moved across the film plane.
There were several models – No 5, No 6, No 8, No 10 and No 16 – each named according to the maximum length of the film they used, measured in feet.
Cirkut Cameras could produce 360° photographs measuring up to 20 feet long. Both the camera and the film rotated on a special tripod during the exposure. Manufacture of the camera continued until 1949.
In 1952 a small Tokyo camera maker, the Panon Camera Co, introduced its Panon panoramic camera for 120 film. It was followed, in 1959, by the better-known Widelux for 35mm film.
Instead of a shutter, both cameras expose the film as the lens pivots on a horizontal arc through a fixed slit onto a cylindrical film gate. Shutter speeds were determined by the speed of rotation. The viewfinder covered roughly 60% of the frame, so users rely on a top-mounted spirit level and lines drawn on the top for framing.
It was the first camera of its type, but production ended when the factory suffered a fire in the mid-1990s. In all some 21,000 were produced, in various versions, until 2000.
Like all swing-lens cameras, the lens is fixed to its hyperfocal distance, though range of focus can be increased by stopping down the lens.
The problem with all of these cameras is that they really require a tripod for good results. So, in 1998, Fujifilm came out with its fixed lens TX-1 – which was sold in Europe and the USA as the Hasselblad XPan.
It was a dual-format camera that could be changed at will from 24 x 36mm to 24 x 65mm in panoramic mode. In this mode you get 21 shots from a 36-exposure roll or 13 shots from a 24-exposure film. A trio of lenses were produced, in the form of a 30mm, 45mm and 90mm.
It was replaced by a somewhat improved TX-2 / X-Pan II in 2004, which was produced until 2006.
Digital cameras today have almost eliminated the panoramic camera, as high-resolution sensors enable you crop to a 16x9 format while still leaving pixels to spare. Since 2017, the Fujifilm GFX series has offered a built-in 65:24 panoramic crop mode that produces a 50MP image mimicking the IMAX 2.7:1 format of the TX1 and TX2.
And of course, with any digital camera you can use photo editing software to join multiple images for that great panoramic shot.
Lastly, there is still hope for fans of film panoramas. In 2024, actor Jeff Bridges teamed up with Germany’s Silvergrain Classics magazine to produce a new, more reliable version of Panon’s 35mm WideLux.
Based on the Widelux F8, but with small “upgrades” to make it more reliable (the original was somewhat fickle) and more user-friendly. Called the new WideluxX (note the second X) it has just become available to preorder for $4,400 / £3,720.
Read more of David Young's ongoing series on classic cameras, as well as his book A Brief History of Photography.
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