I picked up this camera to give away as a gift for Christmas. I paid £12 including postage as an untested camera from eBay. In another auction, I paid £12 for a Ricoh Rikenon 50mm F2 lens. Once received, I only had to clean up the body and put in two LR44 batteries and the camera bust into life and fully working. I did have the replace the light seals and mirror bumper. They were in a sorry state. The lens was in remarkable condition, almost like new. This will make a wonderful gift for Christmas. Of course I had to test the camera with a roll of film to make sure it is fully working.
This camera does not work without battery, except X, which is 1/90s. No other speeds are available. It also has auto mode, which is aperture priority. The shutter speed the camera selected is indicated in the view finder with a needle. Handling wise, it is very standard without any surprise. There is a mechanical self timer at the front which is about 10s delay. Shutter speeds available ranges from B, 4s to 1/1000s. I have not seen a camera that has speed down to 4s. One feature is the film winding lever act as a on/off switch. When pushed in, the camera is off and does not fire. You do have to pull it out to turn on the caemra.
The mirror slap is quite loud though. It has a distinctive mirror slap noise. Definitely not a stealth camera. There is no mirror lock up. Matched with the 50mm lens. it makes for a very budget friendly setup.
I loaded the camera with Fomapan 400 and headed to Cambridge for some street photography. The photos came out very well. Exposures were accurate and I did not have to make many adjustments to the scans.
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