I did something that some photography purists (if they exist) might regard as just plain wrong. I used an classic (old) Ricoh 35ZF to shoot with (new) 35mm 100 iso Lomography color film. The Ricoh 35 ZF is a camera with a fixed lens made in Taiwan by Ricoh in the late 1970's. It has a Rikenon 40mm f2.8 lens and uses zone focusing. It can be operated fully manually or when you use a battery you can use the light meter and the automatic aperture setting. My camera was really good taken care of by its previous owner. It has almost no marks on it. There was only one thing I had to fix. The owner had stored the camera for many years with the battery still in it and the battery had corroded. This seems to happen a lot with old film cameras. Luckily the corrosion could easily be removed by using some vinegar and a cotton bud. When I popped in a new battery, I used a 1.4 volts hearing aid battery, the light meter came to life. Succes! :)
The Ricoh 35 ZF is a very compact beautifully designed camera and has a sturdy, boxy build. It's almost fully made out of metal. All the settings (iso/asa, focus distance, shutter speed and aperture opening) are done on the lens. Which makes forgetting to take the lens cap off an impossibility ;-)
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Many years ago, when digital cameras didn't yet exist, I had a pocket film camera with a panoramic mode. I really liked that feature. Even though the camera didn't have a great lens and I wasn't that good a photographer, I liked the photos it produced. I enjoy the immersive "panavision" experience when looking at these panoramic photographs. Almost like being there again.
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AuthorHarry Bouman Archives
September 2023
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