How a duo from Hesse is rebuilding the Widelux for Jeff Bridges

Since October 24, Germany’s ARD Mediathek has been streaming a documentary that spends 55 minutes on a single camera. “Jeff Bridges’ analoges Abenteuer” (“Jeff Bridges’ Analog Adventure”) by Ingo Schmoll follows the actor, his wife Susan and two analog photographers from Bad Nauheim over six years as they try to bring the Widelux back into production. We were invited to the premiere at the hr broadcasting hall in Frankfurt. The film is free to watch and will stay available in the ARD Mediathek until October 2031, including outside Germany.

Why does Jeff Bridges only shoot with the Widelux?

Susan Bridges gave him the camera as a wedding present in 1977, according to the hessenschau. He has been shooting with it on his film sets since the late seventies, and several photo books have come out of it. In the film he explains in his own words what draws him to the camera, and the hessenschau quotes him like this: if you run fast enough, you can be in the same picture twice.

What sets a Widelux apart from a normal camera?

The lens doesn’t stay still when you fire the shutter. It sits in a drum, swings once across the scene and exposes the film through a narrow slit onto a curved film plane. On 35mm film this gives you a 24 × 59 mm negative with a field of view of around 126 degrees, as documented on Camera-wiki. A 36-exposure roll is good for about 21 panoramas. The scene is exposed bit by bit rather than all at once, so anyone who runs along behind the swinging lens ends up on the negative twice. That’s exactly what Bridges means.

The Widelux was made by Panon Camera Shoko in Tokyo from 1959 to 2000; going by the serial numbers, around 20,000 35mm units were built. According to hr, the factory later burned down, taking the plans, machinery and know-how with it. If you want a Widelux today, you’ll have to buy used, and you should ask the seller for sample shots: light and dark banding across the image appears when the gearing of the lens drum is dirty and runs unevenly. Camera-wiki shows an example.

What is the WideluxX?

The project in the film has turned into a company: SilverBridges, founded by Jeff and Susan Bridges together with Charys Schuler and Marwan El Mozayen, the team behind the analog magazine Silvergrain Classics. Their WideluxX works on the same principle, is fully mechanical and is built in Germany. The first series is limited to 350 units and costs €5,200 in Germany (as of the pre-order launch, 35mmc, April 2026).

It’s a camera for people who already know they want to shoot with a swing lens. If you’d like to get to know the principle first, you’ll also find it in used Horizont and Noblex cameras, which work in a similar way.

How do we know Marwan?

We’ve known Marwan for a while. Silvergrain Classics wrote about us, prompted by our battery cover for the Minolta XM Motor, Marwan’s beloved camera. Disclaimer: we sell some of the products mentioned here. Even so, this article is meant first and foremost to help, not to sell.

Since then, we’ve worked on more projects with his support. The original idea for our battery adapter for the Beaulieu 4008, for example, came from him, and today it’s one of our bestsellers.

Because Marwan knew what we can do, he told us about the WideluxX early on. We were both blown away, and to be honest, we didn’t think he and his team would get this far. The first working prototypes are now here. There’s still a long way to go from there to series production. We’re confident that Marwan and his team will make it through the final stretch too, and we’re keeping our fingers crossed.

How do you digitize Widelux negatives?

A standard 35mm film holder has a 24 × 36 mm window. A Widelux negative is 59 mm wide, so with a standard holder you lose almost 40 percent of the image. Either you photograph it in two parts and stitch them together on the computer, or you use a holder with a panoramic window.

For this we carry the Eco film holder for X-Pan 35mm panorama. Its window measures 24 × 65 mm, so Widelux negatives at 24 × 59 mm fit without cropping. Place the holder on a light source and photograph the negative with your digital camera.

The documentary airs on hr television on 3 November at 10 pm. If you’d rather not wait that long, you can watch it in the ARD Mediathek.