Mark Cassino Photography - Mark's Blog

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...

Read more »

A barn near Bad Axe, Michigan.

Spent the last week driving along Michigan's Lake Huron shoreline - which is beautiful. Ran into this barn on the back roads north of Bad Axe while heading up to Port Austin. The sunset was shining through incoming rain (much needed in the area) and created a great luminous effect over the open fields of the thumb area.

A barn out on the back roads, under summer skies.

Infrared converted Pentax K01 and DFA HD 15-30 f2.8 lens. I bought the lens for full frame use but realized that it is an ideal focal length for use on the APS-C K01. It works nicely!

I've driven past this little dirt road many a time, and always wondered what was there. Glad I took the turn today.

IR converted Pentax K-01 with DA 18-55 WR f3.5-5.6.

Beautiful spring day with the crops just starting to pop up. On the back roads in Cass County earlier today:

Digital infrared converted Pentax K01.

Jackson Hole - Augusta, Michigan. Digital infrared shot from this afternoon.

Wildlife Refuge, that is.... in the Allegan Forest near Swan Creek. More work my newly IR converted Pentax K01.

I recently had my old Pentax K01 converted to infrared - here's a shot from this afternoon: