Another addition to the collection from Ricoh

August 04, 2019

Another addition to the collection from Ricoh

My daughters went to visit my Mother-in-Law the other day. They returned with this camera that had been languishing in the cupboard for some years.

It is a Ricoh FF-3 AF Super 35mm film camera, released in 1984.

It appeared in good condition on my first quick inspection but the slide switch for the flash is broken (you can see it under the flash). When the 2 x AA batteries were inserted, the camera appeared to be working normally, giving all proper indications through the viewfinder. It's a shame that the flash switch is damaged. I had a better look at that and it is worse than just cosmetic damage; it appears that the switch is not engaging the contacts. Hey, I can live without using a flash.

The lens is a 35mm Rikenon f3.2 made of 5 elements in 5 groups. It has an auto focus with a pre-focus facility. The shutter is a programmed AE (aperture priority) electronic shutter. Fixed aperture is at f3.2 and the exposure is measured by a Cadmium Sulphide electronic light meter (located below the ISO settings on the front of the camera).

Shutter speeds of 1/8 to 1/500 of a second are available and the ISO range is from 25 to 1000.

There is a self timer that allows approx 10 seconds for you to race around the front of the camera for those social media selfies. The camera also has a motorised film advance and rewind.

The auto focus is pretty much the same as modern day cameras, depress the shutter release button halfway to pre-focus and then set up the composition. Either side of the viewfinder are what they call the 'Distance Measuring Window' which sort of reminds me of a range finder system. The focus system has 3 indicators that light up within the viewfinder. A silhouette of one person from the waist up indicates a close up (no less than 1 metre otherwise the icon will flash to indicate too close for proper focus), a full body silhouette of 2 people indicates indicates the next focus zone and, a squiggly line suggesting a mountain will indicate infinity focussing.

There is also a camera shake warning signal inside the viewfinder to indicate slow shutter speed. It is the flash symbol that flashes on and off indicating that you need to turn the flash on in low light situations. Given that, it looks like I'll be an outdoors sunny day type of photographer with this camera!

I won't be loading a film straight away. I still have a Bronica ETRSi with a full roll loaded and I also have a Fomapan 100 B&W half finished in a Canon AE1. I don't want to end up with half finished rolls in my cameras! Hopefully, if the weather stays good this week, I will get out and about to finish off those rolls.