What is a Ricoh camera

From 65438 to the early 1980s, with the beginning of reform and opening up, the photographic equipment market in China gradually became active, and more and more types and brands of imported cameras were available. Ricoh camera is one of the earliest brands to enter the photographic equipment market in China, which is familiar to most cinematographers. I remember 1984, when I first saw Ricoh CR5 SLR camera, I was attracted by its small and exquisite body. Compared with domestic SLR cameras such as DF- 1 Seagull, S-20 1 Zhujiang at that time, it gave people a refreshing feeling. So I was particularly impressed. At that time, Ricoh XR-7 was once the goal pursued by many movie friends. Today, its replacement product Ricoh XR-7 Ⅱ SLR camera is still favored by many amateur movie friends.

Ricoh SLR cameras are lower than professional SLR cameras such as Nikon and Canon. Perhaps because of this, Ricoh did not follow the trend of AF era, but focused on a huge group of amateurs, devoted to the research and development and production of low-end MF SLR cameras and fully automatic pocket cameras. In recent years, Ricoh XR-8, XR-8Super/D, KR-5 Super II, KR-5 III, KR-5sv and other fully mechanical shutter SLR machines are more common. Electronic shutter SLR cameras include XR-X3PF/D, XR-3PF/D, XR-3000/D, KR- 10E/D and XR-7M2, etc. Among them, XR-X3PF/D is the "leader" in Ricoh SLR camera series at present, and stands out among the few MF SLR cameras at present, which has its unique position. The practical functions of XR-8Super/D and KR-5 Ⅲ, such as depth of field preview button and multi-flash exposure mark, are only the most basic needs of amateur photographers, and their grades and performance are almost the same as Nikon FM 10. XR-8 and KR-5 Super Ⅱ are the most popular full manual mechanical shutter cameras at present, although their functions are relatively simple and their prices are relatively cheap. However, its highest shutter speed 1/2000 seconds and flash synchronization speed1125 seconds are also higher than Minolta X-700 and Canon A- 1, which is very suitable for beginners. What's more worth mentioning is that the Pentax AF SLR camera produced by Asahi Optical Company, the pioneer of PK bayonet, is still compatible with PK bayonet of MF lens; In other words, all MF SLR cameras with Ricoh or other brands PK bayonet can exchange lenses with Pentax AF SLR cameras, including the same type of bayonet lenses of professional lens manufacturers such as Longteng, Tuli and Sigma. This is precisely the biggest defect of MD lens bayonets (including Seagull SLR cameras) such as Minolta X-700 and X300S-AF and MF are incompatible with each other, and Canon MF SLR cameras and lenses have been discontinued for a long time. Therefore, the author thinks that choosing Ricoh SLR camera will leave a very broad space for choosing lenses in the future. If your interest in photography increases, you can directly upgrade to Pentax AF SLR camera, forming a good connection between AF and MF lens bayonet.

With so many advantages, why is Ricoh SLR camera not as famous as Nikon, Canon, Minolta, Pentax and other brands? The key lies in Ricoh's lens As of the writing of this article, the matching lenses produced by Ricoh for its SLR cameras are slightly different in imaging quality and variety specifications. However, its price is relatively low. From the perspective of cost performance, Ricoh lens can still meet the requirements of ordinary film friends. What's more, there are so many SLR camera brands using PK lens mount, not to mention Pentax's PK mount high-end lens, even the products of professional lens manufacturers such as Tuli, Longteng and Sigma are not completely inferior to Nikon's high-end lens.

One of Ricoh's proudest cameras is its GR 1 Portable Camera (commonly known as "Dummy Camera"). Due to the excellent performance of GR 1 portable compact camera lens, the camera won the 1997'- 1998 Best Portable Camera Award in Europe and 1997 Best Portable Camera Award in Britain. In my opinion, GR 1 portable pocket camera has become Ricoh's fist product, which has won Ricoh's honor and made many people in the industry look at Ricoh's camera with new eyes. With GR 1 as the leader, Ricoh's R series products include GR 10, R 1, R 1S, R 1E, R 10 and other portable pocket cameras. Among them, GR 10 is a simplified version of GR 1, and the lenses used in both GR lenses are 28mm/F2.8 multilayer coated GR lenses (including two aspheric lenses). R series portable pocket cameras are the smallest and most compact of all Ricoh cameras. In addition to this R series, Ricoh, like most of its peers, also produces nearly 30 popular portable cameras for home and travel photography. It can be roughly divided into RZ series, EF series, AF series, XF series, LX series, YF series and so on. Considering that these cameras are of little significance to photographers, I won't go into details here.

Perhaps inspired by the great success of GR 1, Ricoh has recently launched a 35R portable pocket camera for professional photographers or senior amateur photographers. At present, the camera has appeared in the photographic equipment store in Lanzhou, which has aroused the interest of many film friends. Although this machine belongs to a portable pocket camera, it doesn't mean "fool". Its function setting provides convenience for cinematographers who like to flexibly adjust exposure and focal length, so the operation of the camera is almost the same as that of a 35mm SLR camera-the aperture and focal length can be manually adjusted through a special flash hot shoe socket; Of course, the machine also has the characteristics of a general portable pocket camera and can be operated automatically. In short, Ricoh has won a place for itself in the field of high-end professional portable pocket cameras, and achieved the best cost performance among similar cameras, which has been recognized and loved by everyone.

As an advocate of early Ricoh SLR cameras, I hope Ricoh SLR cameras and their supporting lenses can reach a new level. But in its current products, we have not seen any eye-catching varieties. It can be seen from the comprehensive catalogue of Ricoh cameras that Ricoh has produced a total of 14 supporting lenses for its SLR cameras, of which 4 are fixed-focus lenses, namely RIKENONP28mm/F2.8, Rikenon P50mm/F 1.7, Rikenon P55mm/F 1.2 and Rikenon. 10 is the zoom lens, which are rikenon p zoom 28-70mm/f3.5-4.8i, rikenon pzoom 28-70mm/f3.5-5.6 ex, rikenon pzoom 28-80mm/f3.5-5.6 and rikenon p zoom 28-/kloc respectively. rikenonpzoom 28- 1 10mm/f 2.8-3.8、RIKENONPZOOM28-200mm/F3.5-5.3、rikenonpzoom 28-2 10mm/f 3.5-5.6、RIKENONPZOOM35-70mm/F3.4-4.5、 Rikenon Pzoom 60-300mm/F4-5.6 and rikenonp zoom 70-260 From this, we can easily see that the Ricoh lenses mentioned above are relatively single, and most of them are small-caliber mass lenses, which may be Ricoh's weakness.