In Shamed Praise of the Ricoh 500

[Jocko]

Two years ago, at the start of rediscovering rangefinders, I bought a little Ricoh 500 RF - a 1970s manual/shutter priority compact RF with a 2.8 40mm lens. It came complete with a comical clockwork winder. Life intervened. A little later I discovered this forum. That inspired GAS. The result was the camera never got used. How could an elderly snapshot camera produce worthwhile results?

Last week I decided to sell it. Obviously I first had to test that it worked, so I transferred a part-used film and walked to the photolab, unthinkingly snapping away. The results arrived today and I am utterly amazed. In the violent contrasts of a late winter afternoon, with the cheapest colour negative film, simple automatic exposure and focussed at around 25 feet, the camera produced images of extraordinary clarity. These are terrible scans - and the pictures have no merit - but the prints are quite astonishingly good, given reasonable expectations of the camera. Looks like "No Sale"!

Sorry - I don't know how to make the pictures smaller.

 

[JoeFriday]

here's one resized for easier viewing.. and yes, very nice images.. I've got one of those same cameras that I've never run film through for the same reasons.. it just never seemed interesting enough to use.. now I'm very intrigued

 

[ChrisPlatt]

One of many variants of Ricoh's tried-and-true formula,
all centered around that sharp Rikenon 40mm f/2.8 lens.

The 500G is the most commonly found model in the line;
Ricoh sold scads of them through the 1970's.
As a teenager, this was my first "real" camera... 🙂

"Excelsior, you fathead!"
-Chris-

 

[aad]

We've made great shots with Olympus Stylus Zoom 140 and 80, and some of the pictures my parents took on an old 127 camera are amazing. We do get caught up in MBS (magic bullet syndrome), don't we?