Ricohflex VII

[Pallycow]

A friend is giving me one of these tomorrow. Comes with case, manual, and flash. I'm excited to shoot with it.

Anyone have one of these? or experience using them?

http://medfmt.8k.com/mf/ricoh7.html

 

[Derrel]

Yes, I still have an old late 1950's Ricohflex, with a light tannish colored leather case and strap, and a 'decent' but not spectacular coated lens.

Somewhere around here, I have a few film scans made this year--from film I shot back in 1976, using that old Ricohflex!!!! I just spent a few minutes looking for the scans, but cannot seem to find them. I made the scans this summer, but have offloaded them to another external hard drive.

The BIGGEST problem with a lot of older TLR's is keeping track of the film winding, shutter cocking, and exposing of each frame...with a camera that has knob winding and human-powered shutter cocking for each frame, it's VERY easy to make either a blank exposure, or a double exposure!

 

[Pallycow]

I've spent the last hour reading about them, and I have read many of those things....lots double expose them.

Since we have a lab at work, I can develop the film, so hopefully, as long as it works, I can have some shots scanned in next week to show. See how much film I have to waste learning how to use it. lol

 

[Derrel]

Here's one low-rez flatbed scan. Shot in 1976, when I was 13 years old. Film frozen until 1985 or 1986, then developed. Scanned in 2012. Vericohrome Pan B&W film.



Here my father, far left, and my brother and grandfather are sitting amidships in a 20 foot wooden dory boat, as my grandfather instructs my younger brother on how to navigate using the wooden rudder-activating steering system, using the shore markers on the Columbia River. The Columbia is a major water transportation route between the western USA and the Orient, and between the lower 48 and Alaska and Canada, as well as to Mexico and places south.

 

[Pallycow]

Pretty neat. Did you have a light meter? I don't have one, so I was planning to meter with my 7D until I buy one to carry on me. I think the boss has an old one she'll let me use though.

 

[Derrel]

I cannot recall if my light meter was still working then or not. The year before I had purchased a 1950's General Electric hand-held selenium meter, but it broke down not too long after I bought it, which was "around" this time...this was 36 years ago...I actually cannot recall if I had a meter, but it was sunny that day, so I probably just shot at the "Sunny 16" rule, at the fastest shutter speed the camera had. In those days, I exposed a lot of film based upon the little sketches that came with each roll of Kodak film, showing the proper exposure for as I recall, five different daytime exposure scenarios. This was during salmon season, in early September, and I can see that it was a BRIGHT day out. My brother still has that old Autralian bush hat!!! My grandfather died in 1987, my dad in 2001.

 

[Pallycow]

36 years ago, I was just born. lol. I have taken an interest to old film lately, and shot two rolls through a pentax film camera this weekend. I'll find out monday how bad I did. I did some in a mock studio setting and some low light stuff.

I learned today from the boss that apparently film cameras and flash have a different sync, lol. I feel dumb admitting it, but hey...now I know. So I'm sure those mock studio shots didn't come out.

I'm excited to have this medium format camera to play with too. I can't wait till I get to play in the darkroom.

 

[Pallycow]

it's funny how "settings" are ingrained in our heads after shooting for a while. While the pentax had metering on it, I still ended up using what I thought was correct, without thinking really...just basic settings that popped in based on light. I find myself doing that during the day with no camera in hand...lol. Looking at something I find interesting and saying in my head "f/11 at 1/200" lol, for no apparent reason.

 

[Pallycow]

I got the rico in and took him apart, cleaned him up, and assembled again. He's rough around the edges outside, has some fungus on the lens, but not too much to cause issue. Put a roll of Tmax 400 in it and shot 6 so far...

pretty cool, looking forward to seeing how bad/good I did.

 

[panblue]

I think I see them occasionally on ebay. It looks fairly run-of-the-mill with a 3.5/80. Probably a nice camera to try-out for a while.
IMO, Ricoh often make/market decent lenses.

A friend is giving me one of these tomorrow. Comes with case, manual, and flash. I'm excited to shoot with it.

Anyone have one of these? or experience using them?

Ricohflex VII Twin Lens Reflex Camera

 

[2WheelPhoto]

Here's one low-rez flatbed scan. Shot in 1976, when I was 13 years old. Film frozen until 1985 or 1986, then developed. Scanned in 2012. Vericohrome Pan B&W film.

View attachment 27896

Here my father, far left, and my brother and grandfather are sitting amidships in a 20 foot wooden dory boat, as my grandfather instructs my younger brother on how to navigate using the wooden rudder-activating steering system, using the shore markers on the Columbia River. The Columbia is a major water transportation route between the western USA and the Orient, and between the lower 48 and Alaska and Canada, as well as to Mexico and places south.

^^^^^^^^^^NICE!

 

[dxqcanada1]

The BIGGEST problem with a lot of older TLR's is keeping track of the film winding, shutter cocking, and exposing of each frame...with a camera that has knob winding and human-powered shutter cocking for each frame, it's VERY easy to make either a blank exposure, or a double exposure!

Yup, just did that a couple of weeks ago with my Ricoh Diacord ... can't wait to see what my multiple (5x) exposure single frame looks like.

Pallycow, you should put up an image of your Ricoh in the Collectors Forum.

Derrel, great shot ... hmm, have you posted this before ... or was it one of the other ones you pulled from the archives ?

 

[Pallycow]

I have not taken pictures of him 'cause he's kinda ugly, was gonna clean him up a bit. that black sticker/tape stuff on the front for design all fell off, so it's just bare metal with sticky leftovers on it. Once I pretty him up i'll post up a pic. I might post one anyway actually, as a "before and after" sort of thing.

I like how easily it comes apart and back together, made cleaning the mirror and glass inside easy. I should not say mirror, as I learned it is just reflective film stuff, not really a mirror...lol

I metered with my 7D to give me an idea where to start. It snowed/iced today, with overcast...no sun, so it was an easy metering day for me as f/8 @ 1/100 did the trick for the most part. I played a bit with other settings to see. I have not done any up close or even relative close yet, mostly far away, focus near infinity type of shots.