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Ricoh 500G

I came across this cute little camera in a car boot sale. After a hard bargain, my wife bought it for £4. Matt Denton has a great website where you can find some more info about this camera.
I never knew that Ricoh was making rangefinders in the 70's. It just looked so cute and the size was right so for £4 i couldn't go wrong. After i got the results back from the lab, i was blown away from the quality of the pictures this camera can take.
The camera offers a fully manual and a speed preferred automation. That is quite convenient if you think that most compact rangefinders of that time offered full automatic (Konica C35) or shutter preferred mode (Yashica). A 1.3v PX675 mercury cell powers the CdS lightmeter which is reasonably accurate. Since the PX675 has been long discontinued, i use a 1.5v SR44 battery which requires to compensate with the ASA dial (expose the 400ASA film as 320ASA) for the difference in voltage.

The rangefinder patch is nice and visible. On the right side you can see the aperture scale and a needle indicating the selected aperture value. When you press halfway the shutter button, the needle "locks" the value. This is very handy, it works as an exposure lock.

On the lens we find the aperture ring with A indicating the automatic aperture mode. Next to it, the speed selection ring. Turn it to "B" and the camera shuts down and saves on battery. Smart.

The lens is a Rikenon 40mm 1:2.8-16. Unfortunately the manual (Butkus) does not say anything about the type of lens but I would imagine that it a Tessar construction 4/3 or 4/4 elements/groups. The Rikenon is an ace lens. The pictures i got are sharper and have better contrast than the ones taken with my Yashica T4. You can click on this image to see what I mean. It is really a wonderful lens, much sharper that my Leica's Elmar 50 f/3.5.
The rikenon performs very well even wide open. Here is a picture taken at f/2.8 and 1/15. It is a bit blurred but still more than acceptable. Well done Ricoh!

Ok, the nasty part now. The light seals. They are horrible, you just touch them and the stick on
you hands. There are some instructions here on how to replace them. I did it with mine and now it is ready to go. Another minus with the Ricoh is the sound of the shutter when using speeds bellow 1/15. You can actually hear the second spring from the shutter. Maybe it is only my sample but...yes, you can hear it quite loud. That is quite loud for a leaf shutter, overall it is not THAT loud.

Conclusion:
If you find it- buy it. The overall building quality is excellent, the small size allows you to carry it with you all the time, it give you a choice of automation, it is quiet and the lens is a killer. What else do you want?

Lasting impressions
Me and my stupid idea to sell it. One of the cameras that I will definitely buy them back as soon as I find one in reasonable price. Sold it and regretted. These cameras come also in different flavours such as Hanimex and Prost... Small, automatic and metered manual and excellent lens. I bought mine for £4 and now on the Internet they fetch around £50. One to watch out for when the price is right...
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Comments

  1. Esther Agency19 February 2011 at 08:41

    I hve one on the way from ebay. Just wonder can it take photos without battery and how to set the shutter speed? Thx.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Panagiotis Giannakis15 March 2011 at 11:05

    Hi Esther, for some reason i don't have email notification for the comments.
    Yes, the camera will work fine on manual mode without battery. You just turn the aperture ring from A to the desired number. It is quite straight forward to do.

    ReplyDelete
  3. gandawijaya26 September 2011 at 08:33

    Hi Pan, i need ur help on the battery. :) If i use 1.4 or 1.5v, and ASA200 film, then... I shall adjust the ASA ring to lower ASA (e.g.: ASA 160). Am I right?
    Thanks in advance for your help :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Panagiotis Giannakis26 September 2011 at 11:41

    Ηι Gandawijaya, yes you are right although with modern films their exposure error tolerance is so high that you will hardly ever notice the difference.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Panagiotis Giannakis24 January 2012 at 11:10

    Hi Nagy,

    This sounds alot like bad battery contact. Have you tried to clean the contacts with a cotton bud to see if it makes any difference?

    ReplyDelete
  6. LucM1 February 2012 at 14:29

    Nagy it might also be the battery has been inserted the wrong way, or the cover not correctly screwed in. I found it a bit difficult to do that correctly on mine, I didn't get it right the first couple of times.

    ReplyDelete
  7. faizal.abdulrahim25 September 2012 at 23:14

    Ive the ricoh 500me, and loving it...

    ReplyDelete

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