Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

New mechanical panoramic film camera from Jeff Bridges

wideluxx.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 120 posts

Re: New mechanical panoramic film camera from Jeff Bridges

#101

Post by peteforde »

ajkjk wrote: post #100
peteforde wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm genuinely curious what a site designed to sell a niche, enthusiast camera could say that wouldn't be "fake marketing bullshit". Could you take a stab at how you would approach designing a sincere sales site for a product like this. What qualifies as sincere? Who decides?

It's so easy. Off the top of my head: "Discover the worlds hidden in every moment with WideluxX™" -> "Take sweeping panaromic analog photos with WideLux" "The WideluxX™ is not a nostalgic return to the past. It exists alongside contemporary tools, offering a different way to create." -> this is AI slop, but still, you could say "We've updated analog film technology with the absolute best in modern engineering" (assum…

That's actually a pretty great answer. Thanks!

I believe that you made your point, and yet I also still think it's not a binary. There's certainly room for more flowery, metaphor-driven descriptions in marketing even if it's not as bluntly spec-driven as you'd prefer. For a lot of customer demos, it's trying to strike the right balance between intimidating and approachable.

I do think that people need to chill out on the knee-jerk declarations of AI slop every time something isn't as tight and poetic as they'd like. I remember (and am still bothered by) commercials in the 90s showing eg smiling moms shaking empty McCain frozen French fry bags upside down to illustrate how they are so desirable, you literally can't have enough of them.

In other words, what you're uptight about is not slop so much as late stage capitalism.

Re: New mechanical panoramic film camera from Jeff Bridges

#102

Post by ajkjk »

keyle wrote: post #26
peteforde wrote: post #2

I've been patiently waiting for this to drop for ~5 years, and I was hoping that it would somehow be under $1000. Oh my god. $4400 is... a lot of money. $175 shipping had better include a Jeff Bridges Cameo video. Don't get me wrong: I suspect that he's spent millions of dollars getting the project to this point, and that it's a mechanically perfect instrument. Huge respect for caring this much and seeing the project…

That is bonkers pricing. There is no way they actually expect a sell out with this price.

people definitely buy Leicas and this is a much better value prop.

Re: New mechanical panoramic film camera from Jeff Bridges

#103

Post by marssaxman »

RobotToaster wrote: post #70
marssaxman wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel better now about the $700 I spent buying a 35mm panoramic film back for my medium-format Bronica SQA. It seemed like a real splurge at the time, but for the price of this new camera, you could get a whole Bronica system - including four or five lenses, an alternate viewfinder, a couple of 120 backs, and the panoramic film back - with enough left over for a year's worth of film and processing. People must reall…

You can get an identical field of view with a 30mm lens on that setup.

That's good to know - though the Zenzanon-S 30mm appears to be both rare and expensive enough that I'd probably count myself content with the 40mm!

Re: New mechanical panoramic film camera from Jeff Bridges

#104

Post by ares623 »

fsckboy wrote: post #47
smallerize wrote: post #28

Did I miss something or are there only 3 example photos?

i saw 6 in the left-right scroller but when i looked in Firefox Page Info there were some I had not seen on the page. I just grabbed these sorry for dupes or whatever, can't be bothered to clean up. I tried to skip maketing pictures, pictures of the camera https://wideluxx.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/unbroken-tim... https://wideluxx.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/no-stich-art... https://wideluxx.com/wp-content/upl…

Some of those photos were taken with the original Wideluxx, so somewhat misleading (the ones where Jeff is younger obviously)

Re: New mechanical panoramic film camera from Jeff Bridges

#105

Post by ajkjk »

peteforde wrote: post #101
ajkjk wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's so easy. Off the top of my head: "Discover the worlds hidden in every moment with WideluxX™" -> "Take sweeping panaromic analog photos with WideLux" "The WideluxX™ is not a nostalgic return to the past. It exists alongside contemporary tools, offering a different way to create." -> this is AI slop, but still, you could say "We've updated analog film technology with the absolute best in modern engineering" (assum…

That's actually a pretty great answer. Thanks! I believe that you made your point, and yet I also still think it's not a binary. There's certainly room for more flowery, metaphor-driven descriptions in marketing even if it's not as bluntly spec-driven as you'd prefer. For a lot of customer demos, it's trying to strike the right balance between intimidating and approachable. I do think that people need to chill out on…

well I do hate late-stage capitalism... but mostly I am just disappointed in people. Why can't the individuals who make these sites respect their customers? why can't people respect each other? Why doesn't everyone else even view writing sincere words as an important form of respect? Because it's not normalized, I guess... but surely I am not the only one who remembers when it was more common? So I wish for the people at corporations to feel more shame about doing work they're not proud of, and I wish for customers to be much madder about other people jerking them around, such that it's extremely bad for business to treat them disrespectfully.

(Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn't try to start my own tech company that respects people to my standards so as to make all the other ones look worse in comparison. Of course I don't know if I would succeed... but heck, maybe all it takes is caring a lot? I'm not an entrepreneurial sort of person but when I think about doing it, this is why: to try to put the asshole companies, which is most of them, out of business.)

In this specific case though I just want people to read my criticism and maybe realize that they agree---that, yeah, you know what, maybe Jeff Bridges' bespoke camera company should be better than this; writing that crap on your site should be embarrassing for them.

anyway, yeah, we've been drowning in slop our whole lives. The only thing AI did is automate the creation of it and make it easier (for now) to identify.

Re: New mechanical panoramic film camera from Jeff Bridges

#106

Post by quickthrowman »

keyle wrote: post #26
peteforde wrote: post #2

I've been patiently waiting for this to drop for ~5 years, and I was hoping that it would somehow be under $1000. Oh my god. $4400 is... a lot of money. $175 shipping had better include a Jeff Bridges Cameo video. Don't get me wrong: I suspect that he's spent millions of dollars getting the project to this point, and that it's a mechanically perfect instrument. Huge respect for caring this much and seeing the project…

That is bonkers pricing. There is no way they actually expect a sell out with this price.

Rolex sells a million watches per year. They’ll move 350 of these for $4500 with no problem at all.

Re: New mechanical panoramic film camera from Jeff Bridges

#107

Post by quickthrowman »

joe_mamba wrote: post #6
peteforde wrote: post #2

I've been patiently waiting for this to drop for ~5 years, and I was hoping that it would somehow be under $1000. Oh my god. $4400 is... a lot of money. $175 shipping had better include a Jeff Bridges Cameo video. Don't get me wrong: I suspect that he's spent millions of dollars getting the project to this point, and that it's a mechanically perfect instrument. Huge respect for caring this much and seeing the project…

[flagged]

Most people don’t understand why or how stuff is priced, or that low volume items like this probably have a decent amount of expensive human labor included in the price. You aren’t going to set up full automation to assemble 350 cameras.

My car mechanic charges $160/hr.

Re: New mechanical panoramic film camera from Jeff Bridges

#108

Post by joe_mamba »

quickthrowman wrote: post #107
joe_mamba wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Most people don’t understand why or how stuff is priced, or that low volume items like this probably have a decent amount of expensive human labor included in the price. You aren’t going to set up full automation to assemble 350 cameras. My car mechanic charges $160/hr.

>Most people don’t understand why or how stuff is priced

You'd think HN users aren't "most people"

Re: New mechanical panoramic film camera from Jeff Bridges

#109

Post by m463 »

fallinditch wrote: post #76
peteforde wrote: post #2

I've been patiently waiting for this to drop for ~5 years, and I was hoping that it would somehow be under $1000. Oh my god. $4400 is... a lot of money. $175 shipping had better include a Jeff Bridges Cameo video. Don't get me wrong: I suspect that he's spent millions of dollars getting the project to this point, and that it's a mechanically perfect instrument. Huge respect for caring this much and seeing the project…

You can get a new panoramic film camera for $69 - the Sprocket Rocket [1]. It makes images with grungy lomography charm - edges are soft but center is surprisingly sharp for a plastic lens. I really like the look of the images it produces. It has a hot shoe and a bulb setting. [1] https://shop.lomography.com/us/sprocket-rocket-35-mm-film-pa...

Or people could start exploring panoramic mode on their phone. I do all kinds of stuff with it:

- vertical panoramas, like tall trees or buildings

- point it down while walking and do a "panorama" with your feet in it

- a "panoramic" photo by pointing it sideways in a moving car/train

- walk along a long shelf in a store taking a long "panorama"

- panoramas of moving vehicles going past stationary you

and...

- actual panoramas of some nice place you visit

Re: New mechanical panoramic film camera from Jeff Bridges

#110

Post by bdangubic »

quickthrowman wrote: post #107
joe_mamba wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Most people don’t understand why or how stuff is priced, or that low volume items like this probably have a decent amount of expensive human labor included in the price. You aren’t going to set up full automation to assemble 350 cameras. My car mechanic charges $160/hr.

what’s the margin you reckon on that $160/hr your car mechanic is charging you? human labor is not that expensive, the margins of business employing human labor are. I recently needed a plumber, called up a company, plumber showed up, etc. got an estimate from the company which was outrageous. I was expecting this so I got plumber’s number. called him and asked him if he’d do the job for 1/2 the price - win-win.
Post reply on HN