The Buena Vista Panorama project: Getting a panorama out of my Rolleiflex camera.

Back when I blogged for the Albany Times Union years and years ago, one of my fellow bloggers, Teri Conroy, gifted a camera from her attic to me. The camera was a Rolleiflex Automat MX twin-lens-reflex camera, and damn it was a workhorse. I acquired some swank photos from it over the years, and with the retirement of my Kodak Medalist II camera (“Kodak Red”), my Rollei now acts as my primary shooter for medium format film.

I mean … look at these swank award-winning shots the Rollei has scored for me over the years.

And the great thing about this camera is its versatility. I can shoot regular print film in it. I can shoot slide film in it. I can shoot B&W film in it. I can shoot prepared film in it. I can shoot infrared film in it. I can shoot redscaled film in it. I can shoot expired film in it. Heck, there might even be a way to shoot Polaroid instant film in it. So long as the film can be loaded into a 120 film spool, everything’s great.

Then I saw something online. There’s an attachment available for the Rolleiflex TLR cameras (and for its Japanese cousin the Yashica) that can turn your camera into a panoramic shooter.

So here’s how this works. You put your Rolleiflex on that tripod mount on the panoramic head, you adjust the bubble level to center it, and then take pictures.

Trust me, this is like finding a box of old comic books and pulling out Amazing Fantasy #15 and the Fantastic Four #48-50 “Galactus” trilogy … purchasing the box – and discovering there’s also a mint Uncanny X-Men #141 tucked in the crate.

Now before one of you starts crowing, “Chuck, you don’t need a panorama head attachment; all you need to do is just put the camera on your tripod and rotate the tripod head.” To which I say, “Well, you COULD do that … but I have a feeling that the Rolleiflex attachment allows the camera to rotate along a different axis. Which, if I do this correctly, could allow me to sync up panoramic shots into one super-long, super-detailed image.”

Besides … after the big nothing-burger that was Competition Season 2023, I have to step up my game on every single matter.

With that in mind, I’m taking a few test shots to see if this will actually work. Since the Rolleiflex produces twelve square pictures from one spool of 120 film, I can use the panoramic head attachment to craft ten pictures in a 360-degree panorama if I so chose. But in reality, I’m most likely looking at 3-frame images (12×36), maybe some 4-frame images (12×48), and – heaven help me – some 5-frame images (12×60) with 180 degrees of panorama.

And for lack of a better nickname, I’m calling this the “Buena Vista Panorama” project.

“Buena vista panorama!!”

I’ve blogged about this in the past, but if you don’t feel like visiting that link, here’s the synopsis. My Grandma Betty and Aunt Elaine took several trips to Europe over the years, including a tour of Italy. Neither Grandma Betty nor Aunt Elaine spoke Italian, and apparently they received a tour guide who spoke very limited English. The best communication he could give them, however, was that every time the tour visited a breathtaking site, he would declare, “Buena vista panorama!” and that was all Grandma Betty and Aunt Elaine needed.

So let’s see if I can squeeze some buena vista panoramas out of this camera setup.

Last week, I stopped by Washington Park in downtown Albany. The camera was loaded with Ansco All-Weather Pan 120 film. Yep, it’s one of those rolls of film that expired three days before I was born. So if I get anything off this roll – it’ll be a pleasant surprise.

I attached the panorama device to the base of my Rolleiflex. And immediately discovered that I needed a few shims between the panorama plate and the back of the camera to tighten the connection. Okay, what can I use … Popsicle sticks, twigs, what’s laying around – oh, wait, I can use the cardboard wrapper from the pack of Ansco All-Weather Pan as a shim. Necessity truly is the mother of invention.

For those who are not Albany residents, Washington Park has a lake on the property. There’s a wrought-iron bridge that spans the lake, there’s a lakehouse that often doubles as an outdoor performance center at summertime, and there are a couple of fountains that aerate the lake water.

Normally, I wouldn’t be able to capture all that on medium-format film. Certainly not in one shot.

But if I take several different photos, and use the panorama attachment to rotate the camera to specific locations … maybe this will work.

Oh, and one more thing. The panorama attachment only moves clockwise. So if you click past your intended shooting spot, you can’t just click the panorama attachment to the left – the camera must rotate to the right, so if you pass your spot, just rotate the camera nearly 360 degrees to reach the desired location once more.

I squeezed off some shots … then squeezed off another few shots … then took some “throwaway” photos to reach the Rolleiflex’s maximum 12 images.

Okay. Off to McGreevy Pro Lab, my pro lab of choice.

On Thursday, I received my developed film. And judging from the negatives – it looks like the Ansco film survived 60 years past its prime. I guess there’s something to be said about film from Binghamton.

Okay. Scan the images. And let’s see if my copy of Adobe PhotoShop CS6 can do a little merge magic.

That, my friends, is FOUR PHOTOS combined. Perfectly synced up. And I don’t care if that 60-year-old film has more grain than a roll of sandpaper … to me, this is a success.

Buena Vista Panorama, indeed.

All right. Resolved. I’m entering a panoramic photo somewhere in Competition Season 2024. I don’t care where, I don’t care how many times. But there’s going to be a panoramic photo that was captured by my Rolleiflex Automat MX and stitched together and stretched out as far as the eye can see.

And at the moment … this little photo is currently the “King of the Mountain.” It survives until another photo knocks it off.

Excuse me while I dance.

This is totally golden.

I’m ready to do this again.

For sure.