Ricoh EE Rapid Half
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| EE Rapid Half image by Hans Kerensky (Image rights) |
The Ricoh EE Rapid Half (1966) is a very elegant and well designed compact camera that uses the now obsolete Rapid film system.
It is designed as a half frame camera, which simply means it uses half of a normal 35mm frame.
The camera weighs 400 grams and has a single speed shutter of 1/125sec. An automatic exposure system is being regulated by a selenium cell. It is also possible to ignore the automatic exposure and choose the desired aperture setting. Ricoh equipped it with a 25mm f/2.8 lens.
In the Netherlands this camera, in a redesigned body, was also sold by the grocery chain Albert Heijn. It was a special product for their "Premie van de maand club" (PMC).
People could buy stamps each time they did their shopping at one of their stores, with a full booklet of stamps they were able to buy all kinds of non-food products at reduced prices, among those this camera, now branded as PMC.
Below: a picture of the PMC Variant and the original newspaper advertorial.
(source: Nieuwe Leidsche Courant, link: http://tinyurl.com/plpdrca)
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| PMC Automatic Rapid image by René Maly (Image rights) |
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| PMC advertorial (1966) image by René Maly (Image rights) |
Links
- EE Rapid Half on the Ricoh Official Website Camera List (in Japanese)
