[wolfiegirl]

I managed to score a Ricoh KR Super II body that came with a 35-70mm lens today. It's minty on the inside and dusty on the outside.

A quick squizz through the lens database shows up nothing - only a listing for a XR lens, not a KR lens. And that has no reviews beside it. I had to trawl through google for over an hour before I was brave enough to put the lens on my camera. It doesn't have the infamous Ricoh pin but I had to go through wikipedia a few times to reassure myself to risk it. So rest assured if you come across this lens, it's 100% safe to mount on your camera.

I wondered whether anyone else has this lens and what they thought about it?

I'm a relative newbie to comparing lenses so would love other people's opinions. Eventually I'd like to put up a review on it, but would be interested in hearing other people's opinions on this lens first, as I'm not sure how much of my opinion is based on newbie user error. Hope it's ok to post this in here. *waits for ruler slap*

Here are some pics of the lens. 'scuse the different lighting in each shot. I've got a 50mm on my camera atm and I've left my wide angle at work. So I had to jiggle around the house in order to get decent clear shots. :ugh:



Interestingly the lens has three twisty rings.

1. Focus
2. Focal length - 35, 50 and 70.
3. Aperture (3.5, 5.6, 8, 11, 16 and 22)

It also supposedly has a 'macro' mode to it but I can't twist that far, or when I get to the green line, I don't see anything dramatically change? Like there isn't a macro 'switch' like some lenses (eg Pentax 28-80) have.

For what it's worth, it's also got 6 blades.



Here are some pics of the mount. It's a nice basic mount with three flanges and a bayonet. I've taken the lens off my k100d a few times this afternoon with no dramas.





The main thing I'm noticing with this lens is how lightweight it is. It feels very plasticky and light. It's at least double the size of my Pentax M 50mm metal lenses, yet it weighs hardly anything.

I'm finding I like the 35-70 focal range, even if I can't get in between lengths, just the preset ones. It took me a while to figure out how it all worked (like I said, total newbie)

In general I'm finding the bokeh seems ok? Everything's just a blur in the background. Although I'm not really sure about that streaky bit in the bottom left? It may simply be blurring the trees in the background.



Image Quality.... meh. In good lighting the colours seems pretty good:



Although perhaps I had the wrong f/stop/shutter speed on when I took this pic.

The center of the picture - details all look a bit choppy/rough.

In general I feel that the sharpness that I'm used to with the M primes isn't really here in this lens.

Here are some more examples.



And an action shot (remember this is all taken manually)



There just doesn't seem to be the right colour/contrast? I've done some PP too to make sure the levels were ok.

And another still shot:



Has anyone got this lens? What are your findings? Would you agree with the opinions I've come up with? I'll continue to use this lens for the next few days in different light and different subjects to a. get a better hang of the lens, and b. try to get a better idea of what it's capable of doing.

Would appreciate any thoughts/comments you may have!

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Last edited by wolfiegirl; 11-01-2011 at 04:06 AM.

[Douglas_of_Sweden]

Are you sure you want to continue reading? It will open up yet another door of LBA. I cannot take that on my responsibility. It is up to you.

The unofficial guide to Ricoh cameras and Rikenon lenses.

Specifically you can find this lens here: http://www.drricoh.de/Rikenon/index.html#ZoomsPK

There are some gems among the Rikenon lenses. For instance the XR 50mm f1.7.
I used to have the 16mm fisheye, which was a nice lens, but it was also typically not their own design but licensed from Sigma. The Ricoh lens production for their old SLRs was a mixture of some of their own design and plenty of licensed designs to fill the gaps they couldn't cover by themselves.

[wolfiegirl]

Are you sure you want to continue reading? It will open up yet another door of LBA. I cannot take that on my responsibility. It is up to you.

Hrm, thanks for the linkies! It's good to get a comprehensive list. However I need reviews and images taken with said lens to really fuel the LBA... so really, just looking at all these new compatible Ricoh lenses really is very safe....

I'll just um, bookmark it though for future reference.

I think what frustrated me this morning while googling was that lots of mentions were made of the XR, but nothing of the KR. I read all these LBAddicts moaning about the Ricoh pin and gloating over taking it off. Yet no one had a list of 'safe' Ricoh lenses that said specifically, 'hey, don't worry, use these on your pentaxes and all will be well.' Nothing that I could find anyway. I ended up stumbling across one of Hin's blog posts making a throwaway line about how any lens made before XR was safe. Based on that one entry I then went digging up the wikipedia entry to see what was before XR. It all felt very convoluted. If it wasn't for LBA fuelling me to keep searching so I could test the lens, I don't know if I'd had have the stamina to keep looking!

I'm sure many of you might have made all the logical conclusions by yourselves, but I like things to be easily spelt out. It just makes life... easier...

As to your fisheye... I haven't gotten into fisheyes yet. Please don't take me there Douglas!

[joe.penn]

There are some gems among the Rikenon lenses. For instance the XR 50mm f1.7

The XR? What about the 50 1.7 P (replaced my Pentax-M), really really sharp wide open to razor sharp 2 clicks down - it is one of only 2 lenses I shoot wide open without a worry of a sacrifice in IQ...



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[Douglas_of_Sweden]

Well, it is difficult with reviews for Rikenon/Ricoh since there are few dedicated sites. You will find them spread out here and there. Good if you make your own review of this lens.
With these normal zooms...look at the number of different versions listed for Ricoh...it is out of proportion to their small market share, more versions than the bigger players at that time (Pentax, Canon FD, Nikon, Konica, Olympus, Minolta). The only explanation I can think of is that most of these lenses were licensed from another company and for a limited time, so that may be why we see that long sequel of slightly different normal zooms.

BTW, I'm going to move this thread to the off brand section. Next time you post on any gear that is not Pentax, you should put it there.

...and fisheye lenses are very fun.

[Douglas_of_Sweden]

The XR? What about the 50 1.7 P (replaced my Pentax-M), really really sharp wide open to razor sharp 2 clicks down - it is one of only 2 lenses I shoot wide open without a worry of a sacrifice in IQ...



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It may or it may not be the same design. All their 50/1.7 are 5:6 lens designs, but the XR have a shorter minima focus (45cm) than the later versions (60cm), so they must have changed the design somewhat.
That being said, most 50mm lenses are rather sharp, and on APS-C you don't see how good or bad the original FF corners were.

[RioRico]

Thanks for the reference links.

BTW, I'm going to move this thread to the off brand section. Next time you post on any gear that is not Pentax, you should put it there.

But Douglas, why? Rikenon lenses including XRs fit our Pentax SLRs. If the rule is, Pentax-brand lenses only in the PENTAX SLR LENS forum, then all mention of Sigma, Tamron, Tokina, Zeiss, Sears, Meyer, etc glass must be confined to the NON-PENTAX forum. That doesn't seem right.

[Douglas_of_Sweden]

It says "Pentax SLR lens discussion", not "K mount SLR lens discussion". There are of course border cases, e.g. when someone put a Pentax lens on a non-Pentax camera, a non-Pentax lens on a pentax camera, or compare Pentax lens(es) with third party lens(es). And there are plenty of threads that could have been moved but haven't. In this case it was a Rikenon lens that came on a Ricoh camera. Quite clear to me.
It doesn't make any difference for you who contribute to the thread now, it is still there. But it may matter for people searching info in the future. Personally, I rarely even notice when someone moves my threads (and that still happens) since I'm usually checking my threads and follow up my posts from the "my activity" menue.

[Nesster]

It may or it may not be the same design. All their 50/1.7 are 5:6 lens designs, but the XR have a shorter minima focus (45cm) than the later versions (60cm), so they must have changed the design somewhat.
That being said, most 50mm lenses are rather sharp, and on APS-C you don't see how good or bad the original FF corners were.

For what it's worth, contemporary sources say the first batch of XR Rikenons were rebadged Asahi-made K lenses (Pentax was just converting the the M series), except for the 200 which was an M.

But we won't tell anyone, will we? Especially here in Non-Pentax land

[Douglas_of_Sweden]

I've heard the same. For instance the K135/3.5 as it was replaced by M135/3.5.
With the help of the list in the "unoffical ricoh..." pages, one should based on the number of lens elements and groups and the minima focus distance be able to make a good guess on what lenses that were of Pentax design. Worth doing in this thread (...oh no, now I have to move it to the photographic industry forum! )?
If someone can get hold of the lens diagrams for the KR lenses, we should be able to pick the Pentax designs with 100% certainty.

[wolfiegirl]

The camera came with a manual, but I don't think the manual makes any reference to the lens (I looked in there first).

I just find it fascinating that there's always talk of a XR but hardly any talk of KR.

Amazing that a Ricoh 1.7 lens replaces a M 1.7! Better go off looking.... Ummm.. I mean, I don't need any more lenses, so uh that's uh, nice..

[RioRico]

It says "Pentax SLR lens discussion", not "K mount SLR lens discussion".

So will you move all discussions of Samyang, Sigma, Tamron, Tokina, Zeiss etc lenses to NON-PENTAX?

Here's how I interpret PENTAX SLR LENS: It fits on a Pentax SLR. And it fits on K-mount Samsung, Ricoh, Vivitar etc SLRs; or on M42 Asahi, Fujica, Praktica, Ricoh etc SLRs. And maybe it's been modified to fit. And NON-PENTAX? It fits (unmodified) on a Canikonympus etc SLR.

I just think that splitting up discussions of lenses that we can use on our Pentax cameras into various unconnected areas would be very confusing. Has the Mod Squad agreed upon a standard here? Should I raise this as an official question?