Ricoh GR-D

[bmattock]

I love my LX1. Shoots RAW, no shutter lag, fits in the palm of your hand. Don't miss a finder for street shooting.

I can appreciate that you don't miss a finder - I choose not to work without one. I don't like chimping over an LCD even though I love digital as well as film. I don't like holding a camera out at arm's length to get a photo. I want an integral optical viewfinder, and if it doesn't have one, I won't buy it, and that's that.

Not that I could afford the Digital GR anyway. I'd have to sell a bunch of stuff to afford one.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[Sean Reid]

I'm glad the review lead you to a camera that you like. Thanks for mentioning it. I was able to test a GR for about three months and wrote about it for separate articles on the site. Enjoy!

Cheers,

Sean

 

[wlewisiii]

Bill,

I noticed in the Adorama ad in this months Shutterbug that they now have an accessory optical finder for it. It works, according to the ad copy, with the normal focal length of the lens as well as the 21mm accessory lens they make. Bit spendy at $200, but would that make it work better for you?

Anyone here seen/used/heard of it?

Thanks,

William

 

[bmattock]

Bill,

I noticed in the Adorama ad in this months Shutterbug that they now have an accessory optical finder for it. It works, according to the ad copy, with the normal focal length of the lens as well as the 21mm accessory lens they make. Bit spendy at $200, but would that make it work better for you?

Anyone here seen/used/heard of it?

Thanks,

William

William,

I saw that when it first came out. Three thoughts on this:

1) As you said, too spendy. This goes from an $800 camera to $1000 in one shot.

2) Add ons stick out - this is supposed to be the ultra-trend-wah stealth street shooter, not a hulking non-shirt-pocket device that must be re-assembled before use.

3) It smacks of 'afterthought'. I sense engineers who designed this thing to be what it should have been - a digital version of the GR - running headlong into the marketing types whose focus group studies indicated that Joe Sixpack likes a big fat LCD and never uses an optical viewfinder, so they insisted it be taken out: finally, at the last meeting before shipping the thing, the test market (camera pros) said "Hey, idiots, where's the freaking optical viewfinder?" and they pinched out an 'accessory' viewfinder to try to fix it.

And as you can probably guess, not only does it not satisfy my concern, it makes me sorry for this Frankenstein's monster. Neither fish nor fowl - it has no zoom for the Joe Sixpack crowd, and no large sensor / optical viewfinder for the enthusiast / pro stealth street digicam would-be buyers. It doesn't know what it wants to be.

Just my 2 cents.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[JeffGreene]

I compared as well, and am very happy with my LX1!

 

[fgianni]

Interesting. Did you test this yourself? Do you know if new-tech 'faster' memory cards helped? I can see where this would be a problem as well.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

No I did not do the test myself (could not get hold of one) but every review on the net mentions silly times to save RAW files (12 sec or so) while my LX1 takes 2-3 sec.
And since I only shoot RAW the 12s were the deal breaker.

For the LX1 I trusted this article from luminous Landscape:
http://luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/lx1.shtml

And essentially I can get really good pictures with the camera.

The only thing is that, without an optical viwfinder, it is a bit of a pain, I'd rather have a smaller LCD but a viewfinder.

 

[bmattock]

I will say that a histogram can be useful, but I don't know what else the LCD is good for if you don't use it for composition/framing (which I do not). So if there were an LCD, I'd want to be able to set it to just show a histogram, nothing else. But an optical viewfinder is an absolute must for me. An add-on viewfinder is a non-starter (for me). For those who have the digital GR and love it (and it seems to be catching on), if it does what they want it to do, then I'm cool with that.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[Sean Reid]

The accessory finder on the GR is far better than the built in finders in most compact cameras (film or digital) including the film version of the Ricoh. The camera is specifically designed to work with it.

Cheers,

Sean

 

[ywenz]

I don't know why you're getting such noisy pictures at 1600. Here are some of mine at 1600

And I love the fact that I can put this camera in my pocket.. head out for a night at the club, and then afterwards walk the beach and capture this shot. I can't imagine myself doign the same with my 20D or M6...

After getting used to the camera, I can now pretty much point and shoot w/o looking at the LCD...

 

[DaveKennedy]

Shutter lag?

Shutter lag?

How's the shutter on the Ricoh? When you push the button does the camera take the shot or is there a lag?

 

[ywenz]

there is like almost no lag. It's not like any other P&S digi cams

 

[bmattock]

The accessory finder on the GR is far better than the built in finders in most compact cameras (film or digital) including the film version of the Ricoh. The camera is specifically designed to work with it.

Cheers,

Sean

Sean,

Reference your first statement - I can well believe the finder is excellent. To me, that matters less than being unobtrusive - meaning built in where it cannot snag on my shirt pocket. If I have to dig it out and put it on, it's useless to me. Like saying that a garbage truck can hold a lot of stuff - irrelevant if I want to drive it offroad.

Reference your second statement - "the camera is specifically..." dude - that reads like advertising copy. Of course it is designed to work with it. For $200, it oughta be specifically designed to do my tax return, also.

Seriously, if you guys love it, that's cool. It just isn't for me - a bit of a disappointment; probably made more so because it is 'close but no cigar' from my point of view.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[bmattock]

there is like almost no lag. It's not like any other P&S digi cams

How is the shot-to-shot time in RAW? Or JPG, for that matter?

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[pstevenin]

Shot to shot is 12s in raw and 1.7s in jpg. There is no lag for the first shot.

In jpg mode, the lag btwn shoot compare well with an M and that's enough for me.

 

[ywenz]

I think they are referring to the delay between pressing the shutter and actually capturing the image. That delay is less than a second... by far.

Seriously, if you guys love it, that's cool. It just isn't for me - a bit of a disappointment; probably made more so because it is 'close but no cigar' from my point of view.

If you want the convinience of a built-in optical viewfinder, how would you adjust the shutter and ap while looking thru this viewfinder? Would you want a P&S camera with also finite adjustment knobs for shutter and aperture? I think what you're asking for will result in other features being required and thus drive up the price even more.

 

[bmattock]

Actually, I was refering to shot-to-shot and not lag time for AF lock and fire. I won't tear the camera apart - it is what it is, but I'd like to see a camera with a bunch faster processing time or at least a big enough buffer to do 3 or more shots at hirez RAW at a single go. Fair is fair, a film camera without a motor drive is not that fast - but that's part of the point - if I am going to find a digital replacement for say, an Olympus 35 RC, it should not just meet the specs but best them in some meaningful way. Anyway, I don't mean this as an attack. I really did want to know the shot-to-shot time and thanks for that info.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[pstevenin]

I don't know why you're getting such noisy pictures at 1600. Here are some of mine at 1600

And I love the fact that I can put this camera in my pocket.. head out for a night at the club, and then afterwards walk the beach and capture this shot. I can't imagine myself doign the same with my 20D or M6...

After getting used to the camera, I can now pretty much point and shoot w/o looking at the LCD...

Hi Ywenz,

I'm impressed by the pics. What is the setup used at 1600 iso? usually, I shoot 'normal' B&W fine 3:2 ratio. I can get some good results but only with mild noise elimination in order not to loose details. The one really astounding is the color one. Obviously you resized your images and I cropped mine , maybe this may explain the noise stuff. I'd be glad if you share some tuning.

Cheers

 

[ywenz]

Actually, I was refering to shot-to-shot and not lag time for AF lock and fire. I won't tear the camera apart - it is what it is, but I'd like to see a camera with a bunch faster processing time or at least a big enough buffer to do 3 or more shots at hirez RAW at a single go. Fair is fair, a film camera without a motor drive is not that fast - but that's part of the point - if I am going to find a digital replacement for say, an Olympus 35 RC, it should not just meet the specs but best them in some meaningful way. Anyway, I don't mean this as an attack. I really did want to know the shot-to-shot time and thanks for that info.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

I perfer the GRD over the GR-1 simply because I can pocket the GRD and no need to carry different ASA films, knowing that I have 650 shots left on my SD card at whatever ISO speed I want.

Hi Ywenz,

I'm impressed by the pics. What is the setup used at 1600 iso? usually, I shoot 'normal' B&W fine 3:2 ratio. I can get some good results but only with mild noise elimination in order not to loose details. The one really astounding is the color one. Obviously you resized your images and I cropped mine , maybe this may explain the noise stuff. I'd be glad if you share some tuning.

Cheers

The Color one was at 64iso. The B&W ones were all 1600 with minimum noise reduction. I really don't like the "smooth" look that noise ninja applies for high ISO images. The noise on the GRD at 1600 is very "grain" like. Mine probably looks less noisy because the image is resized. That is okay, since I hate to look and scroll with full-rez images.

 

[bmattock]

I perfer the GRD over the GR-1 simply because I can pocket the GRD and no need to carry different ASA films, knowing that I have 650 shots left on my SD card at whatever ISO speed I want.

That's an advantage, no doubt about it. Does the lack of DOF control bother you at all, since the sensor is so tiny and DOF is huge? I feel that it would hinder me - perhaps I'd get used to it.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[ywenz]

That's an advantage, no doubt about it. Does the lack of DOF control bother you at all, since the sensor is so tiny and DOF is huge? I feel that it would hinder me - perhaps I'd get used to it.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

Of course, I can't do shots with buttery bokeh on the GRD. However, I find that most of the street shooting I do doesn't require shallow DOF. You'll find people who would even perfer to have the larger DOF at f/2.4

You can see some excellent street shooting with the GRD here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mtokue/sets/72057594051321326/?page=5