Cheap thrills. That's the name of the game for this old fart. Retired and living on a fixed income can do that to a person. Under such Trying Circumstances it's thrilling to hit Pay Dirt, particularly when least expected.
How on earth did I stumble upon this? Long story short, after reading about the Wollensak Raptar Series II and how it could be turned into a soft focus lens I've been in occasional Deep Cogitation mulling over the State of Things. I like the idea of a "correct" soft focus lens for Full Frame and APS-C digital, _not_ one of those Over The Top spherical aberration lenses that everyone and their brothers-in-law already knows about. All "soft focus" has _not_ been created equal.
Lacking sufficient Louis d'Or and Blue Chip Coupon Stamps for something like an Anachromat Kühn Tiefenbildner-Imagon 12cm, or a more modern Minolta 85mm f/2.8 Varisoft, or, heaven forefend, returning to large format with something very tasty mounted to the front standard and trying to find a darkroom somewhere in the Ilford/Adox Forsaken City of "Glorious Light", I turned what's left of my mind toward modifications that might be made to lenses.
I looked at Russian Industar lenses. Like the Wollensak Raptar Series II the Industar is tessar formula and looked for ways of controlling just how far in front of the factory installed position I could modify the position of the first element. I looked at the Russian Biotar formula Helios. These are easy to disassemble and "reconfigure." And I thought about finding another Nikkor plasmat in poor shape and convert it (as I've done in the past).
Time Passes.
One evening, casually enjoying the warm afterglow of a quite decent Alsacien dry, yes, bone dry, delicious Muscat and thumbing around the 'net I stumbled on a comment that I that caught my attention.
It was noted that the Ricoh Riconar 55m f/2.2 is not a "good" lens. Commenters were complaining the thing has to be stopped way down to sharpen up. Oh. This could be Fun, right? Soft, you imply? Hmmm...
Looking up the lens, which until that moment I'd never heard of, and here I get all puffy-chested thinking I know so much camera/lens histories when in fact I don't, I found it's cheap and easy to acquire. We're off to a Good Start. Maybe an Old Man could afford one? Short the wine stocks a bottle or two, tough things out for a couple days, and I'll bet I could see what's up with this Horrid Optic.
Before the lights went out for the night I found the lens is _not_ to be confused with a Fuji 55mm f/2.2 of similar vintage (not that I would've ever made such a Silly Mistake myself, um, where was I?). The Ricoh design layout looks at a distance like an old Taylor Taylor and Hobson triple. Squint. See what I'm saying? Except. Except. Except, someone tore one down to find the Ricoh is actually four elements in four groups. When I think of four elements in four groups I think of Artar process and Kodak 203 Ektar. But the Ricoh is neither of those. Strange things were unfolding at the Circle K. I've never encountered anything so "odd."
Sleepily reading a bit further... a little light went on inside my head... Damn! it was suddenly bright in here. Gads. Shut that thing off, will ya? It's time to go to sleep. FerKripeSake!
There was an observation that the front element is used to focus the lens. The other three elements remain stationary. Stationary as in Not Meant To Move. Stationary as the Rock of Gilbraltar. Stationary as the English Monarchy. Most likely they did this as a manufacturing/assembly cost cutting to the Bone Marrow Measure.
OK. My Curiosité Meter was now pegged. I _had_ to have a look at this Slutty Easy Cheap Lens and see if it was as Beautifully Awful as was being suggested. Front focus. Simple element layout. Cheap. Widely available. Did I mention cheap? Easy, too. Yes. I think I just repeated me-self.
A very very short period of time passes.
Glory Be! I get to keep my Sacred Bottles of Wine _and_ am now the proud owner of two of these Little Pieces of Crap. 10Euro. 15Euro. How good is that?
Does it "work?" Check out this series of images and tell me if you can sort out which images were made using the Ricoh. Maybe it "works", eh?
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