Hidden Pentax Gems: Ricoh Rikenon 50mm f/2 S
A thread called The XR Rikenon 50mm f2 sharpest 35mm lens claim got me very intrigued about this lens. At a glance it seemed to me to be comparable to a Pentax-M 50mm f1.7 in that it is said to possess a good sharpness wide open and goes for very cheap on ebay. When one came up on a Finnish photography forum for 30€, I knew I had to buy it to see if there was anything to the talk. Only when the lens arrived, I noticed it was the Ricoh XR Rikenon 50mm f/2 S.
Ricoh XR Rikenon 50mm f/2 S
Claim to fame: Cheap, very sharp wide open fast fifty.
Going price: $20 – $60, but somewhat rare
Downsides: cheap plastic construction, no aperture clicks in between full stops, doesn’t focus very close.
Verdict: Recommended (just)
When I opened the package and got my hands on it, I was nonplussed. No, I was dismayed. It had none of the sensory satisfaction of handling a classic metal construction pentax prime, like a Super Takumar 50mm f1.4, or even a Vivitar 28mm f/2.8, which boasts quite excellent construction for it’s cheap price. The lens embodied the terms cheap and plasticy, even the aperture ring felt downright bad and the focusing was only tolerable. The only good thing I can say about the construction is: the lens is light, and will be easy to carry around. Also, the lightness might be good for astrophotography since it will be less weight to rotate smoothly on a tracking mount.
My initial dismay with the construction quality tainted my first experiences with the lens. I shot some images, and looking at them on the camera display did nothing to convince me the purchase was any good. In fact, the closest focusing distance of 0.6 meters made me even more apprehensive. Luckily, instead of throwing the lens away in disgust, I dediced to do a lens shootout, since I had recently acquired anther new lens, a Vivitar 28mm f/2.8. When I started to review the images, I noticed the lens was very good even wide open. Looking at my initial shots at 100% gave me even more faith: despite it’s shortcomings, this ugly duckling of a lens produced some very sharp images and the bokeh was not a dog either (judging by the one picture I had hastily shot with OOF rendering). This is a lens where, if you can tolerate the downsides, the pictures will certainly be satisfactory.
Summary
The lens is certainly worth going for, if you see it somewhere on the cheap. Now, if there’s a Pentax-M 50mm f1.7 and the XR Rikenon to be had for the same price, I’d probably go with the Pentax, just because of it’s faster aperture and better built quality. But there’s a whole school of though based on the principle that you can never own too many fast fifties, and for $30, I’d snatch the Rikenon XR 50mm f/2 in a heartbeat.
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