Sunday, March 29, 2009

Horizon Perfekt and Digital Alternatives

ZipZing

So a while back I posted on how excited I was about getting a Horizon Perfekt "Swing-Lens" Panoramic camera. Since I got it I have loved pretty much every photo that has come out of it, all having such a unique look, and without the normal low-quality that comes with Lomo cameras.

Bowling Green Skatepark

Me driving, Matt skitching


Another appeal was, I thought, there is no way to do this with digital, as you can't curve a sensor the way the 35mm film in my Horizon curves. But it looks like the folks at Sony may have outsmarted me (big surprise).



I don't know what the quality will be like, and there are definitely advantages to the Perfekt, not the least of which being that you can make quick exposures, rather than slowly manually panning the camera, but with quirky images like these, having digital to toy around with all you want, instead of a finite roll of film, is definitely a selling point. Plus if you take the DSC-HX1 out with you, you can still make "normal" non-pano photos from the same camera.

Furthermore, apparently there is a pretty effective algorithm in Photoshop to accomplish the same end as seen here (before and after) captured on a Nikon DSLR. So, while nothing beats the wind-up sound my Perfekt makes as the lens sweeps across the film, are these better alternatives?