Ricoh 35 Flex
Ricoh 35 Flex (Selenium) image by David Broglin (Image rights) |
Ricoh 35 Flex (CdS) image by AWCam (Image rights) |
The Ricoh 35 Flex is a fixed-lens leaf shutter SLR camera marketed by Ricoh in 1963. It was actually the first SLR made by this company.
It is equipped with a fixed Ricoh 4-element 2.8/50 lens and a Seikosha between-the-lens leaf shutter.
A selenium lightmeter gives the correct exposure and a fully automatic mode is available. In this case, it is not necessary to set the speed or aperture, the lightmeter controls these values; in manual control, the user can adjust aperture and shutter speed using sliders underneath the lens, with the values visible in a window on top of the lens barrel.
In c.1964, the selenium meter was replaced by a CdS meter, a model now referred to as the Ricoh 35 Flex CdS.
The 35 Flex was also sold by Sears as the Sears SL-9 (both selenium and CdS versions) and by Foto-Quelle as the REVUE REFLEX CDS.
Links
- Ricoh 35 Flex manual on Mike Butkus' site
- Photos of the Sears versions on Mike Butkus' site
- Sears SL-9 variant photo on Flickr by Xjx1998