I've given the Horizon Perfekt panoramic camera a second chance and it seems to be working well for me now.
I bought one of these Russian-made swing-lens contraptions from Amazon prior to my Southwest Chief trip last month, and returned the camera for a refund after I found it scratched the film I shot with it.
Last week, however, I decided to give the Horizon another whirl and ordered one again -- which is perking along just fine so far. The image here is one of the first I exposed with it. After shooting, I dropped the BW400CN film off at Walgreens and asked them just to develop the film. I scanned the images at home later that night.
One compositional issue I'm going to need to be aware of is that although the Horizon takes broad, 120-degree views that bend parallel lines into graceful curves, it also records fairly ugly stuff at ground level, such as the sewer grate shown here.
I'm looking forward to using this fascinating camera this spring and summer during trips to Colorado and Nevada. I hope that eventually, I'll be able to get results as good as this guy's.
I almost forgot to mention a couple of Chicago connections to panoramic photography. First, there's noted stock agency Panoramic Images, which has been licensing spectacular wide-format photos for about 20 years.
Then there's the medium-format Cyclops, a swing-lens panoramic camera that I almost bought about 20 years ago. If I recall correctly, this relatively inexpensive camera was manufactured in Orland Park at some point.