Ricoh XR Rikenon APO F4.5 300mm

[Zubati Kit]

Got this lens yesterday so took it for a spin...

small picture of it and some specs here
The Unofficial Guide to Ricoh SLR Cameras and Rikenon Lenses

the lens is nicely built, has a very smooth focus ring, but the "protruding" parts of the lens are too long to mount it into my K100D... I think I will need to saw 1-2mmm off if I want to use it as a 300mm lens on it's own.

However coupled with a 2x TC it works perfectly as a f9 600mm lens. I have three K mount TC's, and the usually "the best" Vivitar 2x Macro TC did not do very well with this lens, but luckily another one non brand - "SFE Auto" TC did very well, in my opinion of course

So here are some shots from today... I tried to get the best what I can out of the lens and the TC without PP:

all shots are jpeg only, straight from the camera, only resized by photobucket to 1024*768 no PP.

XR Rikenon APO 300mm and 2xTC for 600mm effective FL.

AS - on,
image tone natural
sharpness +1
everything else default.

ISO 800, I think around 1/1000, f8 (equivalent of f16 with TC)




the rest is ISO 400 1/500, f8








and a 100% crop of the last one - you can see purple fringing despite of using f8, but it might be the TC, in any case sharpness is good, with a little +1 help of in camera setting.



and I shot I took yesterday, but forgot the settings, it was the same TC, no PP.




It seems that I will be very happy with this lens ... but now I wonder how it does on it's own without the TC for closer subjects... hmmm... in any case with this TC it is much better than the reflex f8 600mm Sigma.

[Zubati Kit]

Well I thought an update is in order, not to do disservice to this fine lens.

I was indeed wrong in the orignal assesment, that I cannot mount this lens on K100D. The lens can be mounted as any other, it is only my own paranoia of Ricoh "stuck lens" problem that I did not want to push a bit harder with it, which was just alignment issue, and once I have done it, the lens can come on and off perfectly well, just like any Pentax K lens.

So to post two new pictures to do this lens a bit more justice comparing to before (even though I think it still performs rather well with a 2x TC too, considering the expected degradation )

so here is a 100% crop of a Chaffinch at 300mm first at f4.5! with one pass of extra sharpening and some fill light applied in Picasa only



Picasa Web Albums - Druga Runda - 2007-03-17

and the original image without any sharpening, or light fill - click on the link below the image to see full size




Picasa Web Albums - Druga Runda - 2007-03-17

[slipchuck]

I have a ricoh 35-70 and it is as sharp as any lenses I own.
for your information, ricoh has the same mount as the pentax line... they licensed the mount from pentax.
so a ricoh has the same chance of getting stuck as a pentax lens....

I really like how the last ones turned out as far as exposure goes.

BTW, with the prices of pentax lenses rising, the ricoh high quality lens are a sleeper when it come to price vs. performance

randy

[AndrewShirley]

Wow, very nice. Thanks for the post - and the pics.

- Andrew

[Zubati Kit]

Originally Posted by slipchuck

I have a ricoh 35-70 and it is as sharp as any lenses I own.
for your information, ricoh has the same mount as the pentax line... they licensed the mount from pentax.
so a ricoh has the same chance of getting stuck as a pentax lens....

I really like how the last ones turned out as far as exposure goes.

BTW, with the prices of pentax lenses rising, the ricoh high quality lens are a sleeper when it come to price vs. performance

randy

yes the same mount is the idea, but I think that post "auto aperture" Rich lenses can have "stuck on pentax DSLR" problems, as I have read a few threads on Dpreview... conveniently this lens has no "auto" features and works like any Pentax lens

and thanks for the nice comments

btw I got this one for £50 few weeks ago...
Do I need to say that I felt very lucky when I got it, and even more so when I saw non-TC results

[Zubati Kit]

Originally Posted by AndrewShirley

Wow, very nice. Thanks for the post - and the pics.

- Andrew

thanks for comment , this little chaffinch was not bothered with me taking a few snaps, he was more into the crisps on the ground, until a crow scared him, but I missed that one