"Decisions to build a new film camera hardly ever get made anymore. Yet one offhand remark from an actor came back five years later as a working prototype."
October 2025, at the annual convention of the International Association for Panoramic Photography in Minnesota, a camera was unveiled on video. Its name is WideluxX Prototype 0001, a single prototype made by hand. It comes from SilverBridges, a company founded by actor Jeff Bridges and his wife Susan Bridges together with Marwan El Mozayen, editor-in-chief of the German magazine SilvergrainClassics, and Charys Schuler of the same magazine. This prototype is not the final form of the production model, though. The production model is being developed separately.
This camera is a direct successor to the Widelux we knew. Its story goes back to Japan in 1958.
What kind of camera the Widelux was
The Widelux is a 35mm swing-lens panoramic camera that Japan's Panon Camera Shoko began making in 1958. Press the shutter and the lens swings once from left to right, exposing a single wide image across a long stretch of film. It does not capture everything at once like an ordinary wide-angle lens. The field of view actually travels while the exposure runs, so each frame holds a small slice of time.
The last model was the Widelux F8. Production ended in 2000. Then, about 20 years ago, a fire at the Widelux factory effectively cut off the supply of parts and the repair infrastructure along with it. After that, only used F8s were left on the market, and prices crept up slowly but steadily year after year.
The man who started it
Jeff Bridges carried a Widelux on his film sets for years. He photographed fellow actors, crew and the sets in single wide frames, and those pictures added up to a book's worth of record. SilverBridges started with an offhand remark on a podcast in 2020, when he said he wished the Widelux could be made again.
The three pictures below show the character of the photographs he has built up with his Widelux over the years. Left and right both fit in one frame, but strictly speaking, the left and the right are not the same moment. That is the peculiar sense of time a swing lens creates.
In summer 2023, SilvergrainClassics officially mentioned a "Widelux revival project" on its blog. In 2024 the name settled on WideluxX, and in October 2025 Prototype 0001 was unveiled. Then, in April 2026, official pre-sales began. The first shipments are scheduled for late 2026. Prototype 0001 takes the F8's framework and adds small improvements, and the production model has been named the F10. Skipping F9 for F10 reads as a signal: this is a revival, but it will not simply pick up the old line's last number.
Started in Japan, rebuilt in Germany
The new WideluxX is not made in Japan. SilverBridges is based near Wetzlar, Germany. It is Leica's home base, a region where a culture of precision camera making has built up over more than a century. Every part was redrawn by taking an original F8 apart and reverse-engineering it, and the parts are being machined from scratch to those drawings.
SilverBridges has set two manufacturing rules in advance. First, no plastic parts. Second, made only in Germany, at facilities that run on green power. Both decisions put the camera's lifespan and the ethics of how it is made ahead of ease of production and cost. SilverBridges is positioning the model as "a handmade film camera to be passed down through generations."
This is what defines the revival. The company is not trying to bring the old Japanese line back exactly as it was. It is trying to rebuild the same camera on a different industrial logic. Same mechanism, different philosophy of making.
What it means for us
Swing-lens panoramas are one of the few areas digital has a hard time imitating. Digital panoramas stitch several frames together after the fact, so they cannot carry over the peculiar sense of time and distortion that comes from a lens physically moving during a single exposure. That is why the used F8 market stayed alive. But prices were rising and the chances of getting one repaired were narrowing.
If the WideluxX ships as planned in late 2026, it will be possible to buy a new swing-lens camera for the first time in 26 years. The price will not be easy. Handmade, no plastic, made in Germany, limited quantities. Every factor that sets a price points up. So this revival is not the kind of event that changes the entry-level market. It is one more case showing that "discontinued may not be the end."
Around the same time, Lucky began reformulating color film with its own recipe, and Eastman Kodak started selling its own film with its own hands again for the first time in 14 years. They are different stories, but they share a grain. A line that was cut once picks up again in a different way. WideluxX Prototype 0001 is one more point along that line.
An actor's offhand wish to see it made again came back five years later as a prototype. It is a small answer to how a camera that disappeared can end up in our hands again.
Summary
- Model WideluxX (production model name F10), direct successor to the Panon F8 line that began in Japan in 1958
- Maker SilverBridges (co-founded by Jeff Bridges · Susan Bridges · Marwan El Mozayen · Charys Schuler). Handmade near Wetzlar, Germany. No plastic parts, green-powered facilities only
- Current status Prototype 0001 unveiled (October 2025, IAPP convention, Minnesota). Pre-sales opened (April 2026)
- Expected shipping Late 2026
- What to watch Price, the actual finish quality of the F10 production model, and whether it gets official distribution in Korea
Official release, pricing and distribution channels in Korea still need to be confirmed. Official pre-sales are running through silvergrainclassics.com. We will update this article as new images or information come in.
