WHAT CONDITION THE CONDITION IS IN: 88-Day Confirmed Operation Warranty. This is an interesting kit. Both lenses are in good shape with fairly accurate shutter speeds. The 65mm’s slow speeds run about half a stop slow, but 15, 30, 60, 125, and 250 are solid. The 90mm speeds aren’t bang on, but they’re close and within tolerance. The body shows use, but the rangefinder is clear and works well. The film backs are Wista and have a slightly larger opening than Horseman backs. It’s a complete setup and ready to use. Scroll down to learn why this camera thinks it's remarkable. Spoiler: it has a point.

The Horseman 980 is what happens when Japanese engineers in the mid-20th century looked at the lumbering view camera and the scrappy press camera and thought, why not both? It's a 6x9 technical field camera that refuses to choose sides, offering the portability of something you might actually carry and the precise movements of something you'd normally need an engineer to operate.

Best used on a tripod, though it'll forgive you for trying handheld thanks to its viewfinder with automatic parallax correction and coupled rangefinder. The front movements are generous: geared rise, tilt, swing, and shift, all the tools you need to bend perspective to your will, while the rear movements are more reserved, as if the designers decided you didn't need that much control. They were probably right.

It shoots 6x9 on 120 roll film, eight exposures per roll, which sounds limiting until you remember that scarcity breeds intention, or at least makes you think twice before firing the shutter. Paired with the 90mm f/5.6 standard or the Super 65mm f/7 wide-angle, it delivers images that are sharp yet softly resolute, low in contrast, high in character, with a vintage quality baked into the glass itself.

The Horseman 980 doesn't apologize. It asks for patience and rewards it with precise, character-rich results that feel earned rather than given.

For landscape, architecture, portraits and fine art work, it's a camera that demands you slow down and think. In an age of infinite exposures and instant feedback, that's not a limitation, friends. It's a philosophy.