does any of you use a Horizon S3 pro ?

L

laurentvenet

Guest
Hi

I'm amazed by Xpan shots but its price makes me hesitate.

Did any of you use a Zenit Horizon ?

I've seen the S3pro which is the cheap Noblex in a way, and for this price, I'm really tempted.

I'm well aware that quality /distorsion will be far from the beautiful XPAN. (ant it's not a RF).

Thank's,

Laurent
 
I own a Horizon 202. Results are good, but it's not the camera I carry around most of the time. Film loading is tough. I was very pleased with the quality and finish of the camera and the viewfinder is very good. I'll see if I can find some scans.

Wim
 
Here you go. Not the greatest shot/scan, I must have some more on my other computer.

Wim
 
I've got the 'old' Horizon 202 (there are 2 or 3 shots in my gallery) - I don't use it a lot, it is difficult to find subjects for this format...

Roman
 
I also have a Horizon 202 (in fact, I met Roman while scouring pnet for someone to explain how to load the friggin' thing with film!). It's a capable camera in the right conditions, and for that price, you can't go wrong. Now that the cold season is slowly approaching, you would do best to load it with fast film and stop down the aperture as far as you can, as focus is fixed at infinity and DoF is the only way to make your subject sharp. (Don't worry if you have to use the slow shutter speed, as the wide lens and moving lens make camera shake negligible.)

Attached shot: slow shutter speed and aperture wide open; 400 speed film at nominal value (I'd planned badly and didn't have anything faster on me). This was taken last December.
 
AI have a 35mm film Noblex. Don't use it much anymore. Pity, but it's a bit ig and heavy and I'm spoiled by the rangefinders I now have. :)
 
Hi Remy. I do not know if Noblex is bigger than Horizon. But Horizon must look huge comparing to a Leica or Olympus 35sp :)

For Mongolian landscape, it must be great !

Thanks to all, Laurent
 
laurentvenet said:
Hi Remy. I do not know if Noblex is bigger than Horizon. But Horizon must look huge comparing to a Leica or Olympus 35sp :)

For Mongolian landscape, it must be great !

Thanks to all, Laurent
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Laurent, the Noblex is pretty fat and hefty machine. Much fatter than any rf camera I've held in my paws, and much heavier than the brick named Leica M2.

The Noblex is indeed sweet for Mongolian landscapes but Mongolian landscapes can be pretty bare, and a double sized photo of bare country is just as boring as a 35mm frame of bare landscape. :)
 
I have not heard of the S3Pro but I own a Horizon 202 as well as an XPan, but tend to use them for different things. The Horizon with its curved film plane and fixed focus 28mm covers a field of view of 120 degrees. The XPan even if you own the 30mm lens (I don't) only covers 94 degrees. The 45mm (standard lens) covers 75 degrees. The XPan mainly due to the flat film plane has less distortion than the Horizon, but if used carefully distrotion can be avoided or sometimes used to advantage. Build is not of corse in the XPan class but more than adequate (especially for the price). If used without the handle (as I prefer, but keep your fingers out the way) the Horizon is not that much bigger than the Leica and is quite light and in black fairly discrete.
Once you get use to the film loading its not really a problem.
 
Hi All, Thank's Jim for your quick scan, your photo is beautiful.

I was then wondering :

- if a tripod was very often mandatory or the handle , as the lens is rotating

- as S3 is existing in two flavors : one which is going to 1/2s (and up to 1/500) , and another one to 1s (and up to 1/250), I was thinking that a slow exposure of 1s could be useful for some low light landscape.

Thank's, Laurent
 
Really a nice shot, Jim! I like the progression of near to far subject matter. Was that shot in Peru, maybe?
 
My Horizon shot was taken in Peru, near Puno. Its on one of the Floating (reed) Islands made by the Uros people who live on these man made islands on Lake Titicaca. The idea was to try to show the people the houses and the Lake in one shot.

The S3 (I have now checked it out) like the 202 has two drum speeds and then the shutter speeds are set by varing the size of the slit in the drum (a bit like a focal plane shutter). The higher drum speed gives shutter speeds of 1/30, 1/60, 1/125, & 1/250 plus 1/500 on the high speed examples examples. Lower drum speed gives 1 sec, 1/2 , 1/4 , 1/8 . There is no problem hand holding at any of the the faster drum speed settings and this is the way I mainly use the camera (Peru shot 1/250@f16), but of course sharpness can always be improved by using a tripod. I find that with the lower drum speed I can if I am careful hand hold the 1/8 sec speed and even have gotten away with 1/4 sec. The rotating drum may even show some advantage here over say the focal plane shutter in a Leica because the film is still seeing a slit where at these speeds in a normal focal plane shutter the whole of the film is exposed in one go with one blind following the other. A tripod is definately recommended for consistant best results with the slow drum speed settings though. To get maximum depth of field (I tend to like my panoramics sharp from front to back) with the fixed focus lens it needs to be well stopped down and this means unless the light is good or you are using fast film you can soon be on to the slower drum speed.

My early 202 is at a disadvantage here as there is no 1/30 sec and you then drop to 1/8 on the slower drum speed. My partner has a modified 202 which has 1/30 on the higher & 1/15 on the lower, which increases the hand holding speeds possible. The S3Pro & the 202s seem to have the 1/30 but not 1/15 which is a pity.

When hand holding as I stated before I don't use the handle and personally think I can hold the camera steadier that way and the camera is not so obvious in the hand when shooting candids. My partner prefers to use the handle and she gets good resultsthis way, so each to his own.
 
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A bit OT, but apparently Jimmy Carter liked the Horizon (early model) presented to him by Soviet prime minister Kosygin; one of his panoramic shots hung in Oval Office.
 
Thank's a lot Jim for alll your great details, it's very interesting.

priviet Eugene, I've seen some horizon from Minsk on Ebay. Do you know if there are some shops in Minsk which sell Zenit Horizon ?
I did not find any on internet, and Belomo does not make cameras anymore according to their web site.

I could ask to my girl friend the next time she goes back to her family.
 
This is an interesting thread. I was very intrigued with the S3 early on the year. A friend of mine from work was going back to mother Russia for vacation and I gave him information that if he sees one of them, go buy it. I'm also glad, that people on this list, who have one, hasn't had much bad things to say. I've read a lot of breakage with these things but perhaps, the build quality is better now. For now, I'm using my Ansco Pix Panoramic...not the same thing I guess :)
 
Hi Laurent, yes I've seen Horizon S3 on sale in one of the shops here (ЦУМ/ТsUM) some months ago. I can check if they still have it: as you may know, KMZ has dismantled its camera division last April, and all Horizons are now available only as unsold old stock.
 
eric said:
I'm also glad, that people on this list, who have one, hasn't had much bad things to say. I've read a lot of breakage with these things but perhaps, the build quality is better now. QUOTE]

I have had my 202 for quite a few years and it has held up pretty well. My only problem has been that I managed to pull the metal folding crank out of the rewind knob, but that was probably due to me being in too much of a hurry when rewinding.

I think there may be some with quality contol problems with the Horizons though. I got mine in London from a guy who was bringing them in from Poland and the first one (new, sealed in the box) had too many frames that were over-laping by too much and uneven spacing, I returned this. The second is O.K but spacing is still a bit uneven, as it is on my partners, but this is not really a problem as they rarely overlap. It may be as well to buy from someone who will let you return the camera if there is a problem. The guy I brought from was very patient as can be seen from below.

This is slightly off thread but maybe of interest to anyone considering one of the original metal Horizont's (note the 't'). When I brought my 202 the same guy had a number of these secondhand and I coundn't resist buying one of these as well as there such beutiful beasts (GAS again), but I couldn't find one that did not leak light around the drum. He let me try 5 different ones and on each film I put through most frames had verticle fogging bands, the serverity of which varied by how quickly you wound on after taking a picture. That is the longer the frame stayed in the film gate the more the light was leaking from the drum slot. As I am not really a collector (I do seem to have a fair few cameras about the place tjhough :eek: ) I only buy cameras to use I didn't end up getting one of these in the end, but I did buy something else from him so I didn't entirely waste his time.

I haven't seen this particular problem on any 202's though.

Jim
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The Ukrainian born photographer Boris Mikhalov http://www.artnet.com/artist/553144/boris-mikhailov.html produced two excellent volumes of panoramic street pictures (couple of pictures on site above) taken on the Horizon in the early 90's. They were hardback books and in slip cases, not too expensive but unfortunately I didn't buy them at the time and haven't seen them for sale since as the are now well out of print. A friend has copies. You haven't seen these around in Minsk have you Eugene?

Jim
 
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