The Horizon 202 is a russian built swing lens camera. It uses a 28 mm lens, that is swept across the film, covering 120 degrees. This kind of camera introduces cylindrical distortion which gives the effect that straight horizontal lines that do not pass through the center of the picture, will be curved. You might also call it a 'cigar distortion', horizontal rectangular objects will be rendered thicker at the center than at the ends. But this kind of camera is very well suited for landscapes without straight lines, where the distortion is not noticable.
For an excellent in depth review of this camera, see The Horizon-202 on Alfred's camera page.
I bought mine new, I didn't want to take the risk of not having a guarantee by buying used (I don't hesitate to buy used Canon EF equipment). The first thing I did, was to use the finest emery cloth I could get, and polish the aluminium rails that guide the film. This reduced the friction, making it easier to wind and rewind the film. But even so, on the first one or two films, it would catch several times for each frame that was wound, and the same when rewinding. Close inspection of the rewind handle, revealed that the opening that the handle resides in has sharp corners that would catch on the slow/fast speed selector. Fixing this consisted of carefully cutting off the corners with a sharp knife, so that the rewind crank cap would slide over the speed selector unimpeded.
Making these changes gave a camera that would wind/rewind easily, and I was getting very self satisfied. And then one cold day (below freezing), near the end of a film, disaster struck. The film snapped! What had happened? Weren't the changes good enough? Processing of the film (after removing it from the camera in a large format film changing bag) revealed that I had broken rule #1 for this camera: When loading the film, it goes under anything it can go under. And I had failed to load it under the first roller, and instead under a thin strut just above the roller. So when the film got cold, it got brittle and snapped when it was pulled across this strut.
Update: I have worked completely digital for some time now, and have started making Quicktime Virtual Reality movies.
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