Ricoh Company, Ltd. appeared on February 6, 1936 under the name Riken Kankoshi Co., Ltd and the founder was Kiyoshi Ichimura, a son of a poor farmer. His newly formed company dealt with the production of sensitive paper. Later they focused on manufacturing of optical devices, equipment and cameras.

 From the very beginning Ricoh won a reputation for being an innovator. In 1950, the company sterted serial production of the world’s first twin-lens reflex camera - the RicohFlex III. The company’s efforts in developing its system and techniques for mass-producing cameras weren’t unnoticed and in 1957 it was awarded the Ohkochi Memorial Production Prize.

During the 1950s the company began to produce office equipment and manufactured their first line of desktop copying machines, the Ricopy 101. By the middle of the 70-s Ricoh had become the first Japanese company to make copiers in the United States and their plain paper copier RiCopy DT 1200 became the world’s top selling model.

Ricoh CX3 Digital Camera with Back-Illuminated SMOS Image Sensor

Ricoh Co., Ltd. announced the release of the CX3, a new digital camera featuring 10 megapixels, a 28mm wide-angle lens with 10.7x zoom, a 2.7-inch LCD screen and 1280 × 720 pixel HD movie capture. The camera’s back-illuminated CMOS sensor (the same was used in Ricoh Gr Digital III announced in August) ensures excellent image quality when shooting low-light scenes. It also enables a sophisticated noise reduction function. At the heart of the camera lies the Smooth Imaging Engine IV image p ...

Ricoh CX2 - Digital Camera with High Dynamic Range Shooting

What's new: Photographyblog have reviewed the camera! Ricoh announces the CX2, a 10-megapixel camera with 10.7x optical zoom, high-definition 3.0-inch 920,000-dot LCD monitor and 5 fps high-speed continuous shooting in a compact body only 29.4 mm thick. With its expanded range of functions, the CX2 represents the further evolution of the compact digital camera as “A tool you will want to use every day.” The camera’s Smooth Imaging Engine IV and a high-resolution CMOS sensor allo ...

Ricoh GR Digital III Premium Compact Camera

What's new: Photographyblog has recently reviewed this camera! Ricoh unveiled GR Digital III premium compact camera that achieves a whole new level of image quality in comparison to its predecessor model, the GR Digital II. The new model gains more sensitive sensor, faster AF and faster performance in burst mode. The Ricoh GR Digital III uses a large 1/1.7" CCD sensor with 10 megapixels of resolution, 3.0 LCD Screen and fast f1.9 28mm wide angle prime lens. Such a lens makes it possible ...

Panasonic and Ricoh New Firmware Updates

Panasonic releases new firmware updates for their compact digital cameras. Panasonic DMC-FT1 / TS1 firmware update version 1.1 includes: Capable of playing back AVCHD motion picture format (1,280 x 720) taken with Panasonic Digital Camera DMC-GH1 Not capable of playing back Full HD (1,920 x 1,080) motion picture format The quality of viewing image (still image) is improved This update of firmware is already included in some units depending on the production timing Panasonic DMC ...

Ricoh CX1 - Easy to Use Digital Camera with HDR Shooting

What's new: Letsgodigital have added its full review and sample photos! Ricoh announced a new addition to their lineup of compact point-and-shoots, the CX1. Featuring 9.3-megapixel CMOS sensor, 7.1x Optical Zoom, 28mm wide-angle lens, the CX1 hides in itself a couple of interesting features: * High Dynamic Range shooting! Unusual addition to a point-and-shoot but still it is here. The HDR mode is designed to tackle difficult lighting situations by combining two images captured in high-s ...