Canonflex R2000 – A mini-review of Rare Camera – by Meifei Tang

Hi there. I’m Meifei Tang. I live in Shenzhen, China. I’ve loved taking photos since I was a child. My first camera was the Keystone compact camera. My parents gave it to me on my 10th birthday. After that, I started to take a lot of photos of family events and other everyday things. This has led me to major in film at uni. However, I am not very keen on writing camera reviews, etc. but with the help of my friend, (some glasses of) Rosé, here I am typing and challenging myself to go beyond just browsing, reading, and consuming content about photography. This is, after all, my first stab at a camera review for a broader audience than my classmates and teachers in film school.

My father suddenly passed away in 2013 and he was a lifelong photography enthusiast and camera collector. My sisters and I have our own choices of cameras to take from his collection and I ended up with a couple of vintage ones.

Part of the items I got is the Canonflex R2000. I spent some time finding info about this beast and to begin, it was a challenge!

Basic Facts:

The Canonflex R2000 is an SLR Camera. It was released in September 1960 and manufactured between 1960-62.
It has an R Mount breech lock lens mount
It is Manual focus, with an optional clip-in light meter (no built-in light meter)
No batteries needed for it to function fully
A flash can be attached via bayonet terminal socket
Shutter speeds range from 1 sec – 1/2000 (hence the R2000 name)
The film advance lever is at the bottom
It has a removable pentaprism
The aperture is manual stop-down

I don’t have the manual with me, so it was most likely in storage or lost – we have moved a lot. However, the scanned version of the manual is here – where you can find the best explanation of how to use the manual stop-down aperture lens.

On a roll

The R2000 is a chunky beast. It is built solid and could definitely injure anyone who got hit by it. It took a while for me to get used to the orientation of the camera and after about a month just getting the feel of it and cleaning it, I loaded up my first roll – a roll of Kodak Color Plus 200. Its debut use under me was during a night out with my photographer friends.

I then used another Kodak Color Plus 200 roll and documented the mundane life at home as a new mom.

I guess this may call for me to shoot more rolls, but for this heirloom piece, I’d say it still works like a charm.

Thanks for making it this far, I have started posting more stuff online via my Instagram @meifeiphotos. Please check it out!

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