RICOH 16mm SUBMINIATURES

The Steky and the Ricoh used the same lens mount so the Steky lenses will fit on the Ricoh and vice-versa.  But there is a certain confusion surrounding the lens mount on these cameras.  Certain authors have written that these cameras will accept movie cameras lenses. This has increased the demand for these cameras, but the rumor is not true.  While it is true that most of these cameras have an interchangeable screw mount lens, it is not compatible with standard movie lenses.  Movie lenses come in two universal scrw mounts mounts called "C" and "D". The C mount was designed for 16mm movie cameras and is is 1 inch wide (25.4mm) with a pitch of 0.03125 inches (0.79375mm).  The smaller D mount was designed for 8mm cameras and is 5/8 inch wide (15.875mm) with the same pitch. It's hard to imagine that the Steky would have been made with either type of movie lens in mind.  First, the Steky was designed in Japan just after World War II.  The country used the metric system, not inches, and at that time the country was impoverished.  Everything, including photography, was very expensive.  The Steky camera was made small so that it would be inexpensive to use.  It is inconceivable that they would have designed the camera for expensive movie lenses that no one could possibly afford and were impossible to find anyway.  Similarly, it was built to be a subminiature camera.  Movie lenses of the time were all large and heavy -- completely inappropriate for a camera of that size. Some authors have written that the cameras used C mount lenses, some say D mount lenses, and others just say "movie lenses".  But the Steky obviously was not designed for either.  The C mount lenses, which are designed for cameras that used 16mm film -- just like the Steky -- are way too big for the camera mount.  The C mount is nearly 25mm wide while the Steky lens mount is on 16mm.  The C mount lenses are actually wider than the Steky camera body!  And although the D mount lenses will loosely fit on the Steky body (which has a screwmount size of 16mm with a pitch of 0.5mm), you are asking for trouble.  First, since the D mount lenses are designed to be used with 8mm cameras, not 16mm like the Steky, you won't be able to focus an image on the film.  The lens needs to be much closer to the film than the Steky body allows.  More importantly, if you try to put a D mount lens on a Steky, you risk stripping the threads on the camera body, and thereby rendering the camera completely useless.  So ignore all these authors, even if they show you pictures of a movie lens on a Steky.  A few specialty lenses were made for the Steky, but these are few and far between.  Just be happy that Steky/Ricoh made good quality cameras and that these subminis are still easy to purchase today.  

The first few generations of Steky cameras used two small cassettes for film -- we'll call this the Steky cassette..  The later Steky/Ricoh's used a much larger double-lobed cassette that we'll refer to as the Ricoh cassette.  The Steky cassette will not fit in the later cameras, nor will the Ricoh cassette fit in the earlier cameras.

If you have any ideas, suggestions or comments about these pages, please contact the Sub Club at the FRONT DESK.

To return to the main index for the Sub Club click here.

COPYRIGHT @ 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 by Joe McGloin. All Rights Reserved.