Monday, March 3, 2008

The Ricoh 500

Yesterday, while Mark played a little poker with my boss David, I dropped by the Goodwill down in Auburn, where I bought an awesome Ricoh 500 for the steep price of $1.99.

The Ricoh 500, complete with Triggermatic Action Lever, was on the market back in 1957 -- before it had fully been decided where all the functions of a camera should go, and how they should work. The Triggermatic Action Lever -- used to advance the film -- is on the bottom of the camera. (#4). Cool.



"The Triggermatic action lever is an outstanding feature of this miniature camera," the manual says. "The lever-pulling and shutter-releasing action is so rapid and smooth as to as to be a feature unequalled in other cameras."

So you can take bitchin' fast action shots like this:



"The camera is a precision-build instrument that requires the greatest care and attention," the manual warns. It requires all kinds of feeding and special care, including this special caution: "When putting the camera in the case, set the distance at infinity."

Happy Snapping!

7 comments:

Unknown said...

Cool! What kind of film does it take?

Anonymous said...

regular old 35 mm...

Janice said...

Coolio

freda said...

does this mean you are developing your own film again? I have a little internal room in the house that used to be a second kitchen, I am thinking of turning it into a closet, but it could also be a dark room, it has the plumbing. Of course with digital cameras I don't need a dark room. cool find.

Kate Cohen said...

sweet.

A couple of weeks ago, Val told me they're discontinuing all poloroid film -- made me think about the old camera collection. I'm thinking aobut blowing $100 for film for the old poloroid -- which I used in the studio before digital. It's kind of a shame to lose the strange color quality poloroid provides ... I'd like to take a few last "instamatic" pix.

Mark said...

Cool museum piece baby, but load some film, take some pics and let's see what this sucker can do.

Anonymous said...

Heard they would open a polaroid factory in Austria! //Karl