Ricoh Wide | This Old Camera

Tools: Spanner wrench, screw drivers, pointy tweezers

When I first worked on this camera it had a shutter tripping problem, which I fixed, but I did not record what I did before putting it all back together … and then ended up on the mantel.

Sooo, I decided to take it apart again just to show you stuff.

Take your spanner wrench and remove the outter ring.

Then you can take the inner cover off.

Now unscrew the shutter speed dial and remove it.

Unscrew the front lens group.

Take your pointy tweezers and turn the locking dial, then you can rotate the shutter cover to align the notches.

Remove the speed cam.

Now you can see the shutter in all its glory.

Note that the shutter cocking ring is spring loaded to will want to pop out.

Now cleaning the view/rangefinder

Open the film back and secure the rewind arm from the inside … then unscrew the rewind knob.

Use the tweezers again to unscrew the film speed cover screw and pull off the plates. Then unscrew and remove the plate holding the winding arm. Remove the arm.

Remove the three screws, around the sides, that secure the top cover. Using the tweezers again, unscrew the rewind knob cup. Remove the flash shoe … then pull off the top cover.

There were many many fixed lens rangefinder cameras that came out over the past 100 years, but not many with a wide angle lens. Cameras with wider than 45mm focal length lenses started appearing from 1949.

The Ricoh Wide was one of these, it is also known as the Ricoh Wide 24 or 2.4 … and no, it did not have a 24mm lens. It was made in 1958 or possibly 1960, not sure exactly as I have seen reference to both dates.

The Ricoh Wide was a 35mm format coupled rangefinder camera with an S Konimar 35mm f/2.4, and a Seikosha MXL shutter. This lens was made by Nitto Kogaku (they started optics working in conjunction with Nikon and then started their own lenses … and they are still in business today). The camera designed is also shared with the Ricoh 300 which used a Riken 45mm f/2.8 lens.