PANA-VISTA

The Pana-Vista panoramic slide viewer is manufactured in Hong Kong, and at the time of writing, is still available via eBay for $14.99. The viewer itself is made from good quality plastic and is well constructed. It is unusual insofar as it can accept wider than normal images, taken by cameras such as the Hasselbald XPan or Fujifilm TX1. It can also accept conventional Realist format slides. The lenses have a small amount of inter-optical adjustment to allow for different eye-spacing. The viewer is intended for viewing transparencies only.

The viewer folds flat when not in use and is 15mm deep

Slide mounts are available in two different sizes

• 24mm x 54mm (intended for the Hasselbald and Fuji cameras mentioned above

• 24mm x 36mm image format (Regular 35mm size)

Additionally the viewer can accept Realist sized mounts of 41mm x 101mm

A cross-eyed scan of the slide that was supplied with the viewer show above

The viewer is quite pleasant to use and has a quality feel about it, although the light that enters from the open sides can be a little distracting. This is easily dealt with by holding the viewer so that the users hands block the ingress of light.

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