As desirable as this combination is in architectural, landscape, interior photography and wherever space is restricted, cameras with rise, fall and shift facilities were never thin enough to accept the short focal lengths of truly wide-angle lenses - until the Horseman SW series.
Precision Japanese engineering and manufacturing has now enabled
Horseman to build a super-slim camera body which offers 34mm of rise/fall and 40mm of sideways shift
while accepting lenses as short as the 35mm Rodenstock Apo-Grandagon.
With the 6x9cm
film format, this corresponds to a 15mm lens used on a
35mm camera -- see shift limit table.
The three moving body parts of the Horseman SW69P camera are machined from blocks of solid aluminum. They move with silky smoothness on mirror-polished steel roller
bearings so that camera movements remain smooth even under a twisting load.
The SW69P camera accepts standard Horseman type 1 roll
film holders in either 6x7cm or 6x9cm formats. Also available is a Polaroid
system, ground glass screen and reflex viewfinder.
Click here
for information on the panorama version of this camera which also offers the 6x12cm format.
Lenses available for the
Horseman SW69P camera include Rodenstock
Apo-Grandagon in 35mm, 45mm and 55mm focal lengths, Rodenstock Grandagon-N in focal lengths of
65mm and
90mm and a 135mm Rodenstock Apo-Sironar-S.
All lenses are
interchangeable with the SW 6x12cm camera.
Rise, fall and shift are indicated on calibrated scales with locking devices arresting the body exactly in the chosen position. The three spirit levels on the SW69P camera body permit accurate leveling in all three planes.
The viewfinder which is specifically designed for the Horseman SW69P camera has eye sight correction. Viewfinder masks can be supplied for each of the six lenses. Pre-shifted masks show the image with a 10mm shift or rise / fall. Every viewfinder mask also has a circular "peephole" through which the distance scale on the lens barrel (except for the 35mm lens) and the horizontal spirit level are visible.