Reviews

Rio Nitrus

Mongoose Massif review

The Collective
mountain bike free ride movie

Earthed
mountain bike free ride movie

The Vish Files
mountain bike free ride

Schwinn Rocket 88 Mountain bike

Ricoh XR7 35mm SLR Camera

Happy Days with the Naked  Chef

Morning Rise:
 The Vibes

Dole Mango Lime Fiesta

Dangerous Lives of Altar boys 

Velvet Goldmine

Titus

Swimming

Northfork

Owning Mahonwy

AxisPad (cheap Wal-Mart Joystick)

Ricoh XR7 35mm SLR

My relationship with this camera goes back to 1997 when I borrowed it from my dad. I think he bought in the early 80s so it had been setting around the house collecting dust for years.  I borrowed it to go photograph an abandoned building. My dad tried to explain how to set proper exposure and F stops and stuff but it all flew over my head.  I remember him just setting it on Automatic and opening the lens all the way up.  Those first pictures got me hooked on photography and since then I've taken thousands of pictures many with this camera.  Well, actually not this camera, I had to give my dads back, this camera was found at a scenic hike laying on a rock.  Pretty cool huh.

The XR7 is your standard ole 35mm with Aperture Priority and manual shooting modes.  It has from 16 to 1/1000 electric controlled shutter speeds, useful depth of field preview, multiple exposure controls, a bizarre button which is supposed to prevent over exposure from bright back grounds and an electronic self timer.  The meter is center weighted which means that what ever you point it at gets counted more when the meter is figuring exposure.  With a silver oxide cell this camera will work for years and years.   Another benefit of this camera is that it can support a dedicated flash.  It's heavier then most any consumer camera out there today since it is actually made of metal.  With a dedicated flash you just turn it on and set it to automatic, then set the camera to 1/125 shutter speed then point and shoot.  This is great for events where there is allot going on you don't want to worry if your flash is set right.  It has the at one time popular K mount for lenses, but so many lenses were made for that mount I am sure they are still pretty easy to find. 

The XR7's only real problems come from the view finder, it sucks.  It does have an excellent F stop readout, but the shutter speed readout is nearly invisible unless you are looking at something very bright.  All shutter speeds are listed in the right of the viewfinder, the black LCD bar that points to the selected shutter speed is hard to see making the viewfinder nearly useless in low light.  The image you see in the viewfinder is 88% of what you will see in the photo you take, which is not bad, but it is a little dark. 

One final consideration is toughness.  How tough is this camera, tough enough.  It is actually made of metal, I think you have to spend over a thousand dollars to get a metal camera today.  My dad's has been broke twice.  Once it was dropped from about 6 feet in the air and landed on a hard floor.  The other time the camera bag in the back of my truck flew out when the truck crashed into a tree.  Both times it was repaired for around 50 or 60 bucks and is still taking pictures.  I doubt any camera made today that isn't a pro camera will still be working in 20 years. 

In this world of matrix metering, predictive auto focus, 8 fps shooting and digital; a camera like this can still make incredible images.  Sure there are allot of better bodies out there and I don't use this one much anymore but they can be had for chump change on ebay or if you look around you may just find one setting on a rock.