After shooting for a while with 50mm and 40mm fixed lens cameras, I stumbled onto a Ricoh SLR and the old guy at the shop offered me a Pentax 28mm lens for cheap to go with the 50mm f1.7 standard lens. I had shot with an ultrawide 24mm equivalent lens on a digital camera, but found it almost too wide for most shots – the subjects seemed so small unless I got very close.
One of the coolest features of the Ricoh R1 (the less sought-after sibling of the fabulous GR1 series) is its panoramic feature. “Big deal”, I hear you say, “Loads of 35mm film compacts had panoramic features that just used shutters to crop the film at the top and bottom”.
However, the R1 is different. Selecting its “WIDE” panorama mode actually alters the position of the lens elements. The standard 30mm f3.5 lens magically transforms into a 24mm f8 lens.
While I was visiting San Francisco in September last year, my friend Arachide presented me with handful of cameras. Those were his thrift store finds. I am still amazed by what he can score for price lower than a battery needed to revive it. Besides Minolta Explorer Zoom, he also presented me with two sibling …
Ricoh R1 Review (Rollei Prego Micron) – An overlooked achiever – by Benn Read More
