Wallace Koopmans Artlog

Here are some more images from the fantastic little Ricoh R1 camera using 100 ISO Kodak Ektar. A follow up to Ricoh R1

 (Yes the picture of the camera is grainy it earned it)

I had high hopes for this camera as it is a compact and is touted to have an excellent 6 element lens.  Those things may be true but unfortunately for me my first roll was under exposed.  I’m not entirely sure if it was a problem with the batteries or the camera but in any case it was consistently under exposing.  Which tends to give you images that look like this viewed at 100%. (Fuji Superia 400)

Despite the exposure issue it is an attractive camera with an interesting design.  It has some similarities with the Olympus XA notably that they both have a sliding lens cover and 35mm f2.8 lenses.  They are of very similar size with the Minolta being slightly taller and they both use a thumb wheel to advance the film and set the shutter.  They differ though in that the Minolta AF-C is autofocus and auto exposure while the Olympus XA is a rangefinder and aperture priority.  Had it not been for the exposure issues I had I’m sure that I would be saying that the Minolta was the better camera to use as the rangefinder on the XA is very small and fiddly.