It was an early, sleepy Monday morning, the first of February, 2021, and the year was off to a frustrating start, when I opened my email to find a note from Dominick Oczkowski, creator of the Minuta Stereo camera. I knew something of Oczkowski already, thanks to a podcast or something I saw on Twitter …
Continue reading “Enter the Minuta Stereo (preproduction model)”
The Rikenon 40mm f/2.8 is one of my favorite lenses. It’s sharp enough, with good color transmission and not too much vignetting, and I love the field of view: it’s never too wide like a 35mm can sometimes be, and it’s never too tele like a 50 sometimes is (especially if you shoot with a …
Yes, I backed the “Yashica” Absolute MF-1… Am I proud? Well…
I’d seen Lomography’s ActionSampler camera before, but was never particularly tempted by it. Then I got Nathan Pearce‘s set of zines and saw the interesting work he does with it, so I started looking. After a little bit of hunting and hesitating, I found a brand new, second version, mislabeled as the “Cyber Sampler” for …
The Sears 35|RF (not to be confused with the Sears 35rf) is a black only, Sears-branded clone of the Ricoh 500 G. This is the camera that started it all, it being the superlative 40mm f/2.8 Rikenon.
The Ricoh 500 ME is the last of the line, with all of the advancements of previous models, and all of the bells and whistles Ricoh could cram into it, while still being pretty much the same fixed lens, shutter priority rangefinder that started the line.
The Ricoh 35 ZF is a zone focus, shutter priority (and full manual) 35mm camera from 1976. With a 40mm f/2.8 lens, shutter speeds from 1/500 to 1/8 (plus B), and an ISO range of 25-800, there isn’t too much to worry about: set the shutter speed (1/250 or 1/500 in daylight), put the aperture …
Continue reading “1970s Ricoh Compacts, part 1: the Ricoh 35 ZF”
