Over the past few years, I’ve shot with over 60 point-and-shoot film cameras. It can be said that it is an obsession, maybe even a disease.
The hunt for the perfect pocket camera led me to a brand I had never photographed before: Ricoh. In the mid-’90s, Ricoh launched the ultra-thin GR series and the more consumer-oriented R series. Both lines are point-and-shoot, and fully automatic shooting gives photographers some degree of control through their various modes and features. Curiosity about these Ricoh cameras led me to this excellent Ricoh R1s review brought to you by More interesting movies.
The R1s is tiny – much smaller than your iPhone and thinner than many other compact shooters like the Olympus Stylus Epic and Contax T3. Despite its large size, the R1 has an impressive reputation and a few tricks up its sleeve.
The camera has a wide 30mm f/3.5 lens with 4 lenses in 4 groups. Swipe it to wide panorama and the lens magically transforms into a 24mm ultra-wide shooter, even though at this focal length you’re shooting at a fixed f/8.
On paper, the R1 sounds great, but here’s the plot: Chris didn’t like the camera at first, and it ended up in a drawer with other unused cameras. So, did he learn to love it or not? To find out why, watch the video.
