Re: Horizon 202 camera

[Randy Samos <samos@xxxxxxxx>]

When I bought mine, there was a pretty bad light leak that I was 
never really able to resolve. (I bought it from a local "dealer" who
kind of stopped talking as soon as I told him about the problem.)

You can see an example of the light leak at :

	http://samos.lighthunters.net/H202.shtml


Fortunatly, the fogging from the leak didn't completely ruin most of 
the shots, and cropping at the enlarger or in photo shop could get
around it. Just had a smaller image area because of it, and it could
never be used as an IR camera. 

After about 3-4 months, and 20 or so rolls of film, the shutter 
broke such that the drum was cocked, and stuck. The wind lever 
advanced film but never set the shutter release. I had sent it 
to Ki**USA for an estimate, but they wanted more than I had 
payed for the camera to repair the problem. Their pricing *seems*
to be based on being the only (well known) game in town. At the
moment, it's in for an estimate from a guy in New York that 
specializes in panoramic cameras (Thanks again for finding him
for me Willem-Jan). His over the phone estimate was 1/2 of what
Ki**USA wanted.

In spite of all that, it's a pretty nice camera. While it's arguably
not the best glass I've ever used, it doesn't need to be as good
as in a normal camera as a swing lens camera only uses the center
portion of the lens. If I had no problems with it, I'd call it 
one of the better deals out there for a panoramic. But .... if
I were to pay Ki**USA what they asked on top of what I purchased
it for I could have bought a Noblex at a similar price. 

I'd reccommend that if you decide to get one, buy from somebody
reptutable (like Willem-Jan). Nothing much more frustrating than 
buying from a middle man who washes his hands of you as soon as he's 
paid.

All that said, I'd buy another if I couldn't get mine repaired. It's
a really fun camera to use, with a lot of possibilities.

Cheers - Randy

> 
> Does anyone have any feedback on the Horizon 202 ?
> 


-- 

Randy Samos                             	"Absence of evidence
samos@xxxxxxxxxxx				 is not evidence of
http://samos.lighthunters.net/		 	 absence" C. Sagan