Overview
A few years ago I bought a Ricoh Diacord TLR. My goal was to find a medium format camera that is compact, lightweight, and has a built in light meter. As a long time user of a Pentax 6x7 system, I value the quality of 120 film images, but wanted something lighter and less cumbersome than the 6x7. The Ricoh Diacord - "Dia" being a reference to "Diamond" - was Ricoh's premium Twin Lens Reflex camera in the 1950's. Read on for a hands-on view regarding this camera's image quality and usability.
First - a quick summary of my take on this camera:
- Build and Ergonomics: a solidly built camera, about as easy to use as any other TLR out there.
- Lens: the 80mm f3.5 lens is razor sharp, even wide open. But the bokeh sometimes disappoints.
- Meter: Amazingly, the light meter in the 60 year old camera I bought still works and is accurate. It is an uncoupled meter and has some limitations, but if you don't want to carry a handheld meter its there for you.
So let's dive into the camera with a little more detail...