testing my old Ricoh
11 June, 2008
A short time ago, I posted about my old Ricoh camera. Happy to say now, with one qualification which I will explain below, that the 35-year old little thing seems to be working just fine. I shot a trial roll of film down at the beach about a week ago and got the results today. (I send films off to a lab and they develop the film and return the images to me on disc.)
Here is one of the pictures I took:
I like black and white work. In this image I have used a denser black than normal. I think this adds to the drama of the shot and helps to extract my interpretation of some quite modest rocks, sand and water.
The only doubt that remains about the camera is its exposure meter. The needle seems “sticky” and not quickly responsive to different light conditions. As it happened, this was not an issue as, although the shot was taken late afternoon, the intensity required that I use the minimum aperture and the maximum speed for everything, which for this camera is 1/500 at f16.
All the images came out well. I was also able to have a close look at the images on computer and am pleased to say that the lens is a good one, the detail even at close inspection being good.
I am very pleased about all this!
11 June, 2008 at 4:40 pm
in some ways, electronics for one, camera technology has come a long way but in others, such as lens, progress hasn’t been nearly as rapid but many would argue it didn’t need to be. I’m not surprised your old Ricoh still works and works well.
Somehow I doubt the results will be as good when you test your current digital camera in 35 years time!
12 June, 2008 at 12:47 am
Jim, I am sure you are right. I suppose it is nostalgia that makes the old things appeal to me, but there is no doubt their functionality will be more easily maintained, being mechanical, not electronic.
12 June, 2008 at 12:52 am
[...] with the old Ricoh I have posted below about the success I have had with my old Ricoh 500G. Here’s another picture that pleases me a [...]