April 1st 2025

 ‘No-Name Panorama Camera’

Why would you do something you already know the answer to? Spite, curiosity, stupidity… in my case it’s probably all three. Was it a waste of film? Probably. Did I enjoy doing it? Not particularly. Am I happy that I did it in the end? You bet.

The who’s the what’s the why’s, the where the heck did this plastic piece of junk come from’s. In all seriousness, I haven’t the slightest idea. A lot of some sort I bought years ago I imagine. I didn’t expect to like it, and much to my surprise, I shot a short roll through the camera a few years ago that I had no recollection of. Looking at the few pictures that turned out, good lord was it a bad lens. However, the results were intriguing in a different sort of way. We already know that the camera is going to be bad, but how bad?

Almost identical to the Ansco Pix Panorama, not only in specs but in the plastic molding as well, the only real difference is a switch to move between standard and panorama frames on the fly. There is no name for the camera, besides the word ‘Panorama’ printed on the front, making it almost impossible to find details about. I couldn’t find very much about this camera, only one scant image of an example being sold with a very generic looking box. It’s a Suntone camera of some unknown model number made by Haking.

Funnily enough, before I could use this camera again, I needed to repair it. Four screws and a few plastic tabs, and you can lever the front off easily. The frame counter was resetting after every couple of frames, which bothered me more than the missing counter window. Everything is plastic inside. Not a single spring or metal piece besides the two used for the one shutter blade. A slight bend to the plastic arm, and the counter was holding its place.

There are no real controls for this camera, but a few surprising features are included. You have a standard winding wheel, rewind button/lever, and shutter button in a bright blue color used by Suntone/Haking on a few of their other cheap plastic cameras. A switch labeled ‘S’ and ‘P’ is to the left of the viewfinder and is used to swap between Standard and Panorama modes. Incredibly, there is even a mask that flips up into the viewfinder to show the framing! The last surprise this panorama camera has, is a lens cover that not only barely holds itself shut, but also prevents you from tripping the shutter when closed. That is a lot more than I would have thought this camera had. I should also mention that this is the same 27mm lens and shutter as the Ansco Pix Panorama, which has a rough speed of 1/125 and an aperture of f/11.

For the first roll, I decided to try HP5+ with the intention of shooting inside/out, and stand developing in Rodinal. I averaged the ISO on the roll to be somewhere between 800 and 1600, given the camera’s speed and aperture limitations. The pictures came out, but were a lot rougher than I imagined. Photos indoors were almost non-existent, while outside in bright light were blown out. Only one picture on the roll was really usable, and to top it all off, I broke the handle off the winding lever while rewinding the film.

Not having very positive feelings toward this camera, I decided to keep trying for a decent image. I loaded in a short roll of about 10 exposures of Kodak Ultramax I had cut out of another camera, and took a few light meter readings to see what was around the right exposure. Most shots were not even close. That’s the thing that is difficult about using these cameras, the fixed speed and aperture optimise the performance of the lens, but lead to an incredible limitation. Especially when there’s no ability to use a flash. A camera intended for 400-800 speed film shot in brighter light, but not too bright. A middling speed at a middling aperture. If the camera had a wider aperture would be better for indoor shots, and making the lens a fixed f/16 or f/22 would be better suited for outdoor shots. It’s in a strange middle ground, and I don’t like it. So I decided to change it.

I almost never modify a camera, but for the ‘no name panorama camera’, this was war. Determined to get at least an image that I like, I chose to widen the aperture. Taking apart the camera again, I removed the lens and carved out the aperture opening underneath. The calculation for the effective aperture of a lens is, focal length divided by the size of the opening. In my case, I widened the aperture and shutter plates to about 9.3mm on a 27mm lens. I also needed to remove a plastic stopper in order to have the shutter blade fully open for this wider aperture. All was looking like it was working, and I had a newly modified camera with an aperture of f/2.9 and a speed of around 1/80th.

Those pictures are much better! Not great by any means, but very dreamy and a look I can get into. I was using some bulk rolled Shanghai GP3 100 film, and it was so thin that it slipped off the development reel, causing the overlapping sprocket hole pattern on some shots. Not my intention, but a mistake that fits in well. One more test of color was on my mind, but I think that’s all I can take at the moment. I fully intended to jokingly shoot some slide film in the camera, but I think that would be a fruitless endeavor at this point.

…but I did it anyway.

I had a few exposures I had left on a roll of Fuji Velvia 50 that was sitting around for the right moment. I guess I found it. Keeping the shots indoors, being careful of my exposures, and staying at the 6-10 foot distance, I got a few keepers in there. Or at least I thought so. As I was rewinding the broken film crank with the end of a large file, the film stopped rewinding like other rolls, and I opened the back. To my horror, the film accordioned on the takeup side and was jammed in place. I was able to save one image that turned out, and it has promise, but not enough for me to try another roll.

Cheap plastic cameras and panorama switches were common toward the end of film photography's reign, pushing into APS film as well. I recall having what I assumed to be an APS camera when I was a kid, and accidentally shooting the camera in Panorama mode, much to my parents’ annoyance. There were dedicated cameras like the X-Pan and Widelux, but the most common were SLRs and point and shoots that had a switch. Most of these were nothing more than a gimmick, but you had a few hidden gems intermixed. The perfect example of a panorama point and shoot done right was the Minolta Freedom Vista / Riva Panorama / P’s. Panorama only, with specs that won’t necessarily blow you out of the water. It was a very capable camera producing great looking images in a 2.7:1 panoramic ratio. But the no name panorama camera I used was not that. It was in a league of its own… and playing a different sport. You know it’s a bad lens when they have to curve the film plane. No meter, no flash or shoe, one speed, one aperture, and a prayer you get it right. If you happen to run across this camera in your travels, I would give it a miss. It really is bad.