52 rolls, 52 cameras, 52 weeks

Finally, some results!

I collected my first set of pictures yesterday, having had the film developed and scanned by Harrison Cameras in Sheffield and I'm quite pleased with the results.

Week one of this project/madness saw me using a Ricoh KR-10 Super along with the standard Rikenon 50mm f/2 lens and some out of date Fujicolor C200 film. Although I've imported the scans into Lightroom the only editing I've done is a little straightening, slight cropping and a smidgeon of sharpening.

I'm quite taken by the Ricoh, the shutter release has a bit of a hair trigger and there's no auto-exposure lock but other than those tiny issues it's difficult to find fault with the camera. The standard 50mm lens seems pretty good too with only its minimum focusing distance of 0.6m (as opposed to the 0.45m of my Nikon AIS and Olympus OM lenses) letting it down a little.

Apologies for the delay to this week's post, I've been too busy, out and about taking photos to do any writing this week!

This is a real favourite of mine and an absolute classic, ladies and gentlemen I present you with the legendary Nikon F3!

Without a doubt this is one of Nikon's finest pro cameras, continuing in production even after Nikon introduced both the autofocus F4 and the fiendishly complicated F5. The F3 by contrast, is manual focus and has just two exposure modes, manual and aperture-priority automatic.

The F3 is part of a system that includes interchangeable focusing screens, viewfinders (mine having the HP, high-eyepoint finder, more suitable for those of us who wear glasses), bulk film and data backs and the high-speed (for the 1980s at least) 5.5 frames per second MD-4 motordrive. So far I've resisted the heavyweight addition of the motordrive but a couple of focusing screens have made their way into my bag along with the DW-3 Waist Level Finder.

I haven't used my F3 for a while but seeing Sean Penn using what appeared to be an F3/T ('T' for 'Titanium') in the 2013 Ben Stiller film The Secret Life of Walter Mitty last week I thought I'd give it an airing!

I'm visiting friends this week and trying to travel light so will be packing this into my bag…

The Sure Shot M (also sold as the 'Primi Mini' and the 'Autoboy F') was introduced in 1993 and was one of Canon's incredibly successful Sure Shot range. I've owned a number of Sure Shot models over the years but this is by far the smallest and easiest to slip into a pocket that I've encountered so far.

With three separate buttons for the Flash on, Flash off and Self-timer functions the camera is very simple to operate. The lens is a three element 32mm f/3.5 and the shutter speeds range from 2 to 1/250 sec. There's not much else to say really, until I've tried it out anyway. I've modified the DX code on some more slightly out of date Fujicolor C200 film to ISO 100 and loaded that to be going on with.

Incidentally, Ffordes Photographic are currently listing a number of old stock (but new) World Cup 94 limited edition versions of this camera, should you be interested…

Mention 'interchangeable lens rangefinder camera' to photographers and I doubt many of them would think 'Olympus' but that is exactly what we have here in the shape of the Olympus Ace.

The Ace series was introduced in 1958 and consisted of two models, the meterless Ace and the Ace-E that has a built-in uncoupled Selenium meter. The Ace features a Copal SV leaf shutter with speeds from 1 sec to 1/500 sec plus Bulb, the shutter is clearly visible with the lens removed.

A total of four lenses were produced for the cameras:

• 3.5cm f/2.8
• 4.5cm f/2.8
• 8cm f/5.6
• 8cm f/4

I've had this example on loan from a friend for almost a year now, high time I put some film through it wouldn't you say?

Decision made…

A recent find was this Ricoh KR-10 Super, complete with Rikenon 50mm f/2 lens and a smart ever-ready case. A bit of a clean and some fresh batteries and it's ready to go.

Up until this the only Ricoh I'd ever used was the 2.3 megapixel RDC-5300 that I briefly owned in 2001 and beyond the fact that Ricoh SLRs use the Pentax PK lens mount I know very little about the brand.

Introduced in 1982 the KR-10 Super seems pretty standard for its time, centre-weighted metering, aperture priority automatic and manual, no bells, no whistles but there are a couple of features that I really like the look of.

The first thing that caught my eye was the focusing screen, it's nothing fancy, just a split-image spot in a microprism band but the split is diagonal not horizontal which makes focusing on subjects that don't have an obvious vertical line much easier.

Secondly this shutter speed dial show speeds from 16 to 1/1000 sec… That's right, 16 full seconds is the slowest manually selectable speed and as far as I'm aware that's quite unusual in a camera of this era.

Mike Butkus' orphan cameras.com has furnished me with a pdf copy of the instruction manual and I have a small supply of slightly out of date Fujicolor C200 film in the fridge so I'm ready for the off!

I've always loved taking photographs, making the switch from film to digital in 2003 with the purchase of a Nikon D100 DSLR. Recently though my interest in traditional, film-based photography has been rekindled.

For a few months now I've been picking up cameras on the cheap from charity shops and without really trying have amassed quite a collection of 35mm SLRs and compacts from most of the mainstream camera manufacturers which gave me a crazy idea!

The idea is to shoot (at least) one roll of film per week for the next year AND to use a different camera each week.

Tradition seems to dictate that such projects begin on January 1st but commencing such a project in the depths of a British winter just doesn't appeal. Short, damp, dreary days do not fill me with photographic inspiration so I'm starting tomorrow, on June 1st and all I need to do now is to make my mind up which camera to use first.

Wish me luck…