Who wants to get into film? (Camera give-away!!!!)

480sparky · Oct 18, 2015

Yep. A free camera & lens for a select TPF member who wants to get into film.

Ricoh KR-5 manual.
Camera details.

This is a totally manual camera. It has a match-needle meter (don't let the spooky title scare you, it's actually quite intuitive!), but exposure and focus are all manual. It's a bare-bones camera, about as bare as they come. Probably the fanciest feature on it is the self-timer. Meter works and is accurate, shutter speeds have been tested and are accurate (surprising considering it's a 35-YO camera), and I put brand new batteries in. I also ran some film through it to test the light seals, and the resulting negs look great.

The camera is a Pentax K mount, so there's tons of lenses floating around that will work. I checked ebay and there's a 28/2.8 BIN listed for $44, and a 135/2.8 BIN for $75. Upgrading won't be a problem as there's a lot of Pentax cameras that will take the same lenses..... K1000, MX, ME Super et al.

I'm willing to send this to any TPF member in the Lower 48 (US) who is wanting to get into film. I'll let this thread run for a couple weeks so those members who don't log in every day have a chance to see this. Then I'll decide who gets it and will PM that person for an address to ship it to. Either respond to this thread, or PM me if you're interested.

AND: I'll send along either a roll of b&w or color film (recipients' choice)! Just decide whether you want color (fairly easy to find a lab) or b&w (not so easy these days, but you can always DIY for less than a $100 investment).

Go forth and actuate!

limr · Oct 19, 2015

Nice, Sparky!

Might I add that really good K-mount lenses can also be had on KEH for a good price. The Pentax 50mm f1.7, for example, is wonderful and goes for less than $100. Longer focal lengths go from less than $100 to about $200 and the wide angles are often 3 digits, as high as $300s. Still a bargain compared to the price of lenses for digital cameras.

ronlane · Oct 19, 2015

Good one Sparky. I don't need one just help keep this bumped up.

sabbath999 · Oct 19, 2015

Nicely done, sir! I have plenty of film cameras so I am just going to bump the post for you! I may do a similar post in the future to give one of mine away, depending on how this works.

sabbath999 · Oct 19, 2015

BTW Sparky are you in the Des Moines area? I myself am in extreme northern MO, and shoot a lot in Iowa. A weekend ago I had a shoot in Winterset, love the park there.

gsgary · Oct 19, 2015

If you had been in UK people would have snapped your hand off for it

gsgary · Oct 20, 2015

It's a shame nobody wants to get into real photography

480sparky · Oct 20, 2015

So far, all I hear are crickets.

dxqcanada · Oct 20, 2015

Ah, I used to work for the primary Canadian distributor/reseller of Ricoh, I remember that KR-5 and all the other KR's, SR's, and XR's (yeah Ricoh had a thing for R) ... ah, that old'n time of film ... miss those days.

Someone with a Pentax DSLR + FF lens could find that camera handy if they want to try film.

480sparky · Oct 23, 2015

Derrel · Oct 23, 2015

Word on the street is there's a teenager in Dubuque who has heard about this offer and will soon be PM'ing you, asking what type of memory card this ancient beast requires, and whether or not his ChromeBook can handle the files this puppy creates!

480sparky · Oct 23, 2015

Tell him it takes 35mm memory cards (choice of monochrome or color), and his ChromeBook will easily handle the digital images taken of the final prints.

jcdeboever · Oct 23, 2015

That's very generous of you sparky. I hope someone jumps on it.

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

Derrel · Oct 24, 2015

My wife's aunt Joyce was always interested in photography, and had a Ricoh KR-5 around the time we got married, which was in early November of 1991. Joyce took some absolutely wonderful photos of our wedding that year, which was a late, dry fall, with almost ALL of the leaves still on the trees until two days after we got married. She really,really got a ton of mileage out of that camera, which I believe had a 35-70mm zoom on it. It really was a great example of the not the camera, but the photographer. Her outdoor candids on Kodacolor Gold 200 looked as good or better than the Haselblad 500C/M "pro shots" we got from a very experienced photographer I had hired. I saw a LOT of image she shot with the KR-5, and it did a fantastic job.