I have tried a few different connotations of panoramic cameras lately, a fake X-pan using a digital camera, a very cheap dedicated point and shoot version, a 127 camera with 35mm film inside. None of those versions really rocked my boat, so I tried loading 35mm film in a Rolleicord. I wish I had read any of these (1, 2, 3) posts beforehand as I did indeed waste a lot of film.
I simply attached the film to the take up spool and put adapters on the film cassette, and in the camera it went. I did put a paper mask in the viewfinder to remind myself of the orientation, but I didn’t put a mask inside the camera.
I chose this camera as it had a frame counter and stopper. This meant no guessing how much to advance the film as it would stop automatically when needed. I took the camera to the Himalayan Garden and Sculpture Park on a misty morning. There was hardly anyone there, which is good during this time. There were a couple of instances where I wanted to take horizontal photos, but on this camera it was really quite awkward. This was not a great choice of camera for this experiment. A cool one, but not an easy one. Also, it was misty, rainy, and cloudy. This camera had a minimum aperture of f3.5 which didn’t help the situation.
Here are my favourite shots of the nine I managed to get from the expired roll, also not a great choice, but I didn’t want to use up my fresh film.
They are ok, but the effort it took to take them far outweighed the results in my eyes.
How was using the much cheaper Halina in comparison?
Well, for one this camera has a panoramic mask inside that can be removed. That means this camera can be used as a regular point and shoot, but why would you do that where there are much better alternatives out there. But it was light and easy to use in landscape or portrait mode. It is a much simpler camera with a fixed f/11 lens and a fix shutter speed of 1/125th. I took this camera out on a much brighter day loaded with Fomapan 100. I later push processed it to 400. Not a really fair comparison, but hey ho.
I really like them. If you are looking for a cheap panoramic camera, this isn’t a terrible choice. It was so much easier to use than the Rolleicord. Of course, in any other situation the Rollei is by far the better camera.
Here is another review of the Halina. I think I liked it a bit more than them 🙂
Camera Go Camera 
I made the same mistake using adapters on my Mamiya 645, lot of wasted film, so thanks for the links and at least we can avoid the mistake next time! Re your question on Peter Jeffrey’s website, I’m wondering if the reason you got gaps between exposures (as did I) is because the camera advanced the film as if it were 120, which has backing paper all the way. Seems like Peter got round it by setting the camera to 220. I’m not sure if you can do that on your model of the Rolleicord, but the Lomography tutorial potentially gets round this problem by rolling backing paper all the way.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I am going to try putting film inside backing paper next inside a holga 120. But you would still think with an automatic stop..that it would stop without a gap?? And no, I can’t set it to 220.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes I was relying on automatic stop too, but in hindsight I think the problem is as follows. Let’s say, at the start of the film roll (using 120 film including backing paper), the spool needs one revolution for normal film spacing. But 35mm film without backing paper is wound more tightly. So one revolution (which the camera “thinks” is correct) in fact draws out more film than you need for normal film spacing. But that’s just my hunch, I could be wrong. We will have to see if backing paper all the way like the Lomo tutorial solves the problem!
LikeLike