Ricoh GR Digital announced

[bmattock]

Open specs are better than closed ones, so for that, yes, Adobe is far better than yet another proprietary RAW format!

And as I mentioned earlier - I'm not mad - sorry if it seems that way. I must come across really bombastic; my apologies. I am just emphatic - but I guess it's hard to see a smile on my face when you just read what I'm typing.

My disappointment stems from the fact that I really WANT what Ricoh seemed to be promising - and even on a very limited budget, I would have considered scrimping and saving or selling off some kit to afford one. But not this one - it just isn't what it should and could be.

I'm not attacking digital - I really want it to be better. And I refuse to make allowances and apologies or to try to deflect criticism. Digital has to stand and take its knocks - it does so many things better than film, but not all, not yet. If the market dictates that it is going to replace film, then fine - but it needs to get better faster. My 2 cents.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[DougK]

No apologies necessary Bill, I for one wasn't taking anything personally... in fact, I was having fun with the discussion.

It's ironic too, since I was out on Labor Day with my Coolpix 8700 (story in another thread in the "completely different" forum) and came back totally disgusted that I'd spent so much money on the camera. I was very disappointed with the results and promptly started fondling my film cameras again.

 

[bmattock]

No apologies necessary Bill, I for one wasn't taking anything personally... in fact, I was having fun with the discussion.

It's ironic too, since I was out on Labor Day with my Coolpix 8700 (story in another thread in the "completely different" forum) and came back totally disgusted that I'd spent so much money on the camera. I was very disappointed with the results and promptly started fondling my film cameras again.

In my case, it was a set of scanned negs from a Agfa Karat IV circa 1958 that I used to photograph Linville Falls alongside my Pentax *ist DS this last weekend. The Pentax images were great - no problems there. But the Agfa scanned images offered so much more detail - I could have cropped all day and still had useable prints - not so with the 6 mp Pentax image - not much room to crop and still have something printable. And my prime Pentax M42 lenses and Canon FD glass - even better than the *ist DS in terms of absolute quality. BUT - the digital offers me much more in the way of convenience. The negs I got back this time were unscratched and scanned like a champ - but that's not always the case. I spent weeks laboring over 300+ frames scanned of a wedding I shot - all negs were scratched, spotted, and so on. Digital I could have processed that same day.

So it's film for me - for important personal stuff and 'fine art' if that be something I'm actually capable of - and digital for things to make money with, such as parties and weddings and so on. But, every day brings new digital breakthroughs. I just wait and hope...

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[bmattock]

Egad, I forgot to mention. A coworker showed me her family trip photos - a river-rafting vacation. She sensibly brought a couple of waterproof single-use film cameras. The images; not so good. Why? She doesn't know - she bought 800 speed film - that's 'better' than 400, right? Higher numbers are better? It costs more too, so that proves it. 800 is better.

This is what we're dealing with. More megapixels, bigger zooms, smaller cameras. That's all the masses care about.

 

[DougK]

No kidding. It took me several months to find the non-digital-optimized version of the Sigma 50mm lens in SA mount. It used to be easy to get a normal lens.

 

[aizan]

well, it doesn't look like we'll have to wait very long until big sensors make their way into smaller cameras. the sony r1 is just the beginning, and someone will figure out the angle of acceptance thing sooner or later. who that could be, i don't know. canon, fuji, panasonic...

 

[sf]

Nice body!

Nice body!

Jag tala lite svenska, men jag har inte talade om manga kameror. And what significance is the GR lens? I don't know anything about Ricoh cameras.