Ricoh XR Solar

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The XR-Solar should not be confused with the earlier Ricoh XR-S.

The XR Solar is an SLR for 35mm film introduced by Ricoh in 1994. It seems to have been manufactured by Cosina who offered their own version of it, the E1 Solar; and it was also sold by Foto-Quelle as the Revue Solar 100.

Unlike the earlier Ricoh XR-S, the XR Solar does not offer autoexposure. The mechanical, vertically-traveling Copal shutter (used in numerous Cosina-built SLRs, and even the Voigtländer Bessa range) offers a top speed of 1/2000 sec and flash sync at 1/125th. The solar cells merely need to charge up a small capacitor, after which manual meter readings can be made with a momentary half-press of the shutter release. This causes + / O / – symbols to appear in a viewfinder LCD.

Links

• Ricoh XR Solar manual from Mike Butkus' OrphanCameras.com
• XR Solar profiled at Classic Cameras & Photography (archived)

In Japanese

• Ricoh XR Solar at Ricoh Japan

Revue Solar 100 (Foto-Quelle brandlabel) image by Alf Sigaro (Image rights)