Krasnogorsk FT-2 / ФТ-2

 

The letters FT stand for "Fotoapparat Tokareva", which translates to "Tokarev's camera". Fedor Vasilievich Tokarev was a Russian weapons designer and a personal friend of Stalin. The FT-2 is the grandfather of todays Horizon cameras and father of the Horizont.

These cameras produce a rather unusual 24x110mm size negative (on 35mm film) with a 50mm lens. That way, the vertical angle of view is rather limited compared to their modern Horizon offsprings. Still, due to the swing-lens design and the rather long negative they achieve a 120 degrees horizontal angle of view.
What I like about these cameras is that they produce a really wide panoramic image with rather 'normal' vertical view. So in contrast to super-wide panoramics distant subject matter does not shrink as fast.

 

Downloads:

• FT-2 Manual (268k, PDF) - a scan of the original user's manual (in English)
• FT-2 Repair Guide (615k, PDF) - a troubleshooting guide showing typical faults and how to fix them, includes instrucions how to (dis-)assemble the camera

   
Links:

• my older panoramic website has many FT-2 shots not being shown here
• FT overview (Russian)
• FT-2 at Camera Wiki
• Jaroslav Poncar
• Edition Panorama
• FT-2 photos by Detlef Hansen
• “Straße der Gartenkunst”
• FT-2 photos by Sascha Loss 
• FT-2 and Horizon user group on Flickr 
• Rheinblicke - photos by Roland Goseberg shot with FT-2