Panorama Wide Pic Camera : Poundland Camera Challenge No 18

This lump of plastic arrived in 2 of the Poundland job lots. It’s providence is unknown  but eBay seems awash with them. However there is a reason – they’re Rubbish.

Panorama Wide Pic 35mm Plastic Camera
Panorama Wide Pic 35mm Plastic Camera. Fixed focus shutter and aperture.

Dumfries 2015. Panorama Wide Pic Camera with Agfaphoto Vista Plus 200
Dumfries 2015. Panorama Wide Pic Camera with Agfaphoto Vista Plus 200

I quite like a plastic lensed lomo number but this camera is truly awful. I had wondered if it was made in the same factory as the Halina Panorama as they have broadly the same features such as the sliding lens cover & lock but….. What you have is an all plastic camera with fixed focus, shutter and aperture that takes shots on the Panorama frame developed by Kodak (13×36 mm) . Effectively this masks the top and bottom of a standard 35mm frame  (24x36mm) giving a widescreen style frame (and wastes about a ½ of the available frame). I personally prefer my cameras without it.

Palmerston Dumfries 2015. Panorama Wide Pic Camera with Agfaphoto Vista Plus 200
Palmerston Dumfries 2015. Panorama Wide Pic Camera with Agfaphoto Vista Plus 200

On paper this should do the same as the Halina  but the focal point is all wrong.  The Halina rightly has this set somewhere between 5m & infinity so distant objects (the raison d’être of a panoramic camera) are in focus and you can get away with some group shoots too. With the unbranded camera it seem set near 5m or less so distant stuff is blurry making it pointless. I suspect someone simple took the design of a cheap plastic full frame shooter which would be fine for 3-5m  and added the mask.

Palmerston Dumfries 2015. Panorama Wide Pic Camera with AgfaphotPalmerston Dumfries 2015. Panorama Wide Pic Camera with Agfaphoto Vista Plus 200o Vista Plus 200
Palmerston Dumfries 2015. Panorama Wide Pic Camera with Agfaphoto Vista Plus 200

Everything else I suspect is the same as the halina and stylistically neither are winners  but the Halina makes much more sense if you want a cheap wide angle shooter although personally you do have the dilemma of whether to save your pennies for the VUWS the king of the plastic wide angled shooters

3 thoughts on “Panorama Wide Pic Camera : Poundland Camera Challenge No 18”

  1. I have to say I wasn’t expecting to bump into photos of my home town while cruising the web looking for instruction manuals for my camera collection. What a wonderful coincidence.

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