ricoh GRX and others

[drawone]

Hello,
i use leica M7 rangefinder camera and my focus is on street photography.(i am still learning)
I am pretty new to digital cameras. i have never owned a dslr or some other flagship bodies. I had LX3 once and it wasnt really working for me,(i usually used with manual focus and hated the shutter lag). so i am still searching for a new digital.

I was going to get a GRD3 even though there were GF1, ep-2, NEX-5, since i heard it is pretty user friendly and easy to control, like changing settings. Also i really liked the SNAP mode feature. I never tried GRD but it sounded like a great feature for a street shooter like me.

Then I found out about GXR!!!. it seemed very amazing, and almost same as GRD3 with bigger sensor(?). I just have some question about it tho..

Does GXR can manual focus from the lens ring? like manual cameras? or i have to go to the menu and start clicking?

Does it have SNAP mode like GRD3? and works the same way?

I heard the autofocus of GXR is a bit slow. is this depending on each lens and not the body since GXR lenses have sensors in them? or i have to wait for the new body with faster autofocus?

is there any rumor about new lenses?

somehow i never thought about getting GXR and i still dont know why. I was always debating between GF1, GRD3, and NEX-5. Please tell me what you know. Even though this digital industry is still growing and knowing that there would not be any perfect cameras, i just want to know if GXR is good for street shooting and its a camera i can keep for a while

thanks for reading this long~ post😀

 

[urban_alchemist]

Does GXR can manual focus from the lens ring? like manual cameras? or i have to go to the menu and start clicking?

Yes. You assign a button through the menus to switch to manual focus (I have left on the d-pad), and then the lense-ring becomes the manual focus. Great, except that there is no defined 'throw' - the ring keeps turning indefinitely, although there's an on-screen bar for focal distance.

Does it have SNAP mode like GRD3? and works the same way?

Yes, but keep in mind that with the A12 (50mm equiv.), the depth-of field on a 50mm equiv. on an APS-C sensor will be much more narrow than on the GRD3. So narrow that "snap" mode isn't nearly as useful (I have a GR1s, a GRD and a GRDII and find this the most useful feature).

I heard the autofocus of GXR is a bit slow. is this depending on each lens and not the body since GXR lenses have sensors in them? or i have to wait for the new body with faster autofocus?

On the A12 unit, the autofocus is fine in day-time, painful at dusk and unusable at night. In the small-sensor S10 zoom, it's fine (just like most other small-sensor cameras). No-one knows whether the autofocus will depend on body or firmware. Ricoh already improved the autofocus once: but the payoff was that the display cuts out while the body is focussing.

is there any rumor about new lenses?

There's an APS-C 28mm equiv. coming out at the end of the year. Should be interesting (an make snap mode useful again).

somehow i never thought about getting GXR and i still dont know why. I was always debating between GF1, GRD3, and NEX-5. Please tell me what you know. Even though this digital industry is still growing and knowing that there would not be any perfect cameras, i just want to know if GXR is good for street shooting and its a camera i can keep for a while

thanks for reading this long~ post😀

I've had my GRX for a few months now, and although the picture-quality is excellent, I find it too compromised to use regularly. I'm waiting eagerly for the 28mm module, as I don't think it is any better or worse than the other other APS-C cameras out there; although my mother-in-law's G1 is quite a piece of kit, although without that final 10% Ricoh image quality.

 

[Fujitsu]

I was going to get a GRD3 (...)
Then I found out about GXR!!!

The GRD and GXR are different cameras. There is no 28/1.9 equivalent lens available for the GXR (at least yet). Should it ever appear expect it to be as pricey as the 50/2.5 standard module.

I am using a GRD II currently, also owned a III before. Very nice cameras. I wouldnt ever trade them for zoom compacts.

What the GXR certainly has replaced is the GX series (GX100, GX200). Still, the GX200 is far cheaper than the GXR with an equivalent module.

I hope Ricoh doesnt cancel the GRD and we´ll see a GRD IV in a year or so. Maybe even with a larger sensor for improved ISO performance.

 

[drawone]

thanks for the replies. they are really helpful. I guess i am all for GRD3. i doubt about the sensor size, but its not like i use these gears forever without switching off in the future

Does anyone have experience with NEX-5 for street shooting. just wondering how they work..i feel like its also a great all around camera, except just dont know how fast the autofocus is...and how friendly the menus are. Personally, i like the actual buttons to change settings and shutter speeds like manual camera, but NEX-5 seemed didnt really have much buttons and have to go through the screen menu.

 

[Fujitsu]

Does anyone have experience with NEX-5 for street shooting.

With the right lens the NEX 5 is technically superior. The difference is in philosophy. Do you want a camera system or a camera? If you´re a "gearhead" a fixed lens camera may help you focus on taking pictures instead of thinking about what lens to buy next...

Also, the GRDs smaller sensor helps with greater DOF for street shooting.

I have used the NEX5 briefly with Canon manual lenses and liked the results. The handling of the GRD is in better in almost every way though.

 

[__--]

drawone, I answered your question on the other thread but I may as well repeat the answer here.

The GRD3 is a fantastic camera for street photography. The GXR/A12 is currently not as good for that purpose, not only because many people prefer wide-angle lenses for street photography rather than a 50mm EFOV, but also because the huge depth of field of the GRD3 helps — I take a lot of shots as close as between 1-2m and the focusing at these distances is a lot less critical with the huge depth of the field of the GRD3. But even with the latter camera for very close up it makes a difference whether you focus at 1.0m or 1.5m, for which purpose I use SNAP focus.

A lot of people complain about the slowness of the autofocus of the GXR/A12, but for street photography, even with a Leica-M camera, I would use zone focusing. With the the GXR/A12 I use Spot AF to pre-focus on the plane of focus that I want and then I press the Fn2 button, to which I've assigned the switch between AF/MF: that gives me the fixed zone focus that I want.

—Mitch/Pak Nam Pran
Shophouse Demolition