I just bought myself a Ricoh GR Digital. I couldn't find an independent review anywhere online so I thought I'd write one. I hope this will be of use to anyone else thinking of buying this camera. I'm not an expert on digital matters so this review will focus on using the camera from a photographers point of view. I don't have the knowledge or the tools to perform professional image quality analysis at this stage but I hope to at a later date.
This is my first digital camera, therefore my experiences reflect a photographer who isn't used to the digital way of working. I'm coming from a Leica M and Nikon FM2 background. I'm not used to complicated controls, vast arrays of settings and LCD monitors. I'm on a learning curve. For years, I've used cameras that work even when the batteries are dead. Some of my complaints with this camera are perhaps common to all digital cameras. Since I don't have another camera to compare it with my views are not biased in any way by that experience and I cannot say this camera is better or worse than any other camera.
If you would like to contribute, please get in touch. The Ricoh GRD needs a knowledge base. I'll be happy to add links to your sites and I need more suggestions for the firmware update wish-list.
Why did I buy it?
From the Ricoh web site:
"The GR Digital is a newly developed professional-grade high-resolution compact digital camera."
The Ricoh GR1 film compact is highly rated and even though I never owned one I liked the concept and I liked the look and feel of the camera. That's important to me. I hoped Ricoh would deliver with the GRD.
The GRD looked like the ideal camera to get me started in digital. It's compact, has a fast wide angle lens and gives the photographer the option of FULL MANUAL control. I read the Ricoh sales pitch on their site and the user comments on http://www.dpreview.com/ and decided to buy one.
Unfortunately, like most of us out there I don't have the time to spend hours pouring over magazines and comparing cameras. I'm an amateur and I'm doing this as a volunteer. I don't have access to the huge array of digital compacts on the market today. I could find little independent information about the GR Digital online.
User comments on the dpreview forum range from "I love this camera" to "I just got my money back". With so little to go on, one just has to take the plunge. Well, let's see if it really deserves to be called a 'professional' camera.
I don't represent anyone and in case you should ask, I'm not getting anything out of this. I bought my GRD from http://www.digitalrev.com/ on Ebay for £334.99 and paid £65 import duty. The camera was bundled (by digitalrev) with a spare battery, mini-tripod, cheap pouch and a couple of cheesy straps.
Because I have only just got this camera this review will be under construction. This will be an independent and un-biased user review. The comments that follow are my own.
First impressions:
The packaging.
Ricoh have made a commendable effort to reduce the environmental impact of their product and the GRD comes in a small cardboard box which is labelled 'eco-friendly package'. This is a good start from Ricoh. Their message can be found on the back of the GRD camera user guide and is as follows.
"Ricoh is aggressively promoting environment-friendly activities and also conservation activities to solve the great subject of management as one of the citizens on our precious earth. To reduce the environmental loads of digital cameras, Ricoh is also trying to solve the great subjects of 'Saving energy by reducing power consumption' and 'Reducing environment-effecting chemical substances contained in products'."
We need to encourage other companies to follow this example. This box can go on the compost heap. Its a shame the camera can't when it becomes obsolete in 18 months!
The Data Card
Unfortunately, having just taken delivery of a SanDisk 1gb SD card for the GRD I am appalled at the packaging that it came in. For something as tiny as this memory card I see absolutely no need for it to be packaged in a great big plastic case. The card itself comes with a small plastic case. Why can't this be sold in a small cardboard box? I expect most people buy these online these days so why does it need a display carton? And why is it so bullet proof? I nearly cut myself trying to get it open.
The kit
The camera is NOT supplied with a data card. It takes the SD (Secure Digital Type) and you have to buy one of these separately. I bought mine from http://www.amazon.co.uk/ for about £33. The camera has an internal memory of 26mb which is useless unless you intend to use it only for very small images. It comes with a single rechargeable battery with charger and wrist strap. You have to buy a pouch separately, although one was bundled with mine. There is a USB cable (which could do with being of a more flexible type) and an AUDIO cable. The GRD can be plugged into a TV for image and video playback. There are two software CD's in the kit and what seems to be a reasonably good user manual.
There are various optional accessories such as:
| Ricoh Product Code |
Description |
Comments |
| GV-1 |
Optical View Finder. Attaches to flash hotshoe |
No communication with camera. Camera does not know its connected. Looks like Voigtlander VF. |
| GC-1 |
Leather Pouch |
|
| GW-1 |
Attachment wide angle lens for 21mm with hood |
Requires adapter so you must buy GH-1 before you can use this. |
| GH-1 |
Anti-flare hood with adapter |
Looks a little cumbersome but some say makes camera nicer to hold. Protects lens if kept in place. |
| CA-1 |
Cable Release |
Not sure how this connects yet |
| AC-4c |
AC adapter |
Plugs into the battery compartment for external power |
| GS-1 |
Neck strap |
|
The Software
The GRD comes with two CD's. One contains a 'try-out' version of Photoshop Elements 3.0. You get 40 days to play with your RAW files before you must buy Photoshop or remove it. I need a new mat for my coffee mug. The other CD contains:
- Ricoh Gate La software for downloading your pics onto a PC
- ImageMixer software for editing pictures and movies
- Desktop Binder Lite for managing documents and images
I found the software information in the user guide quite confusing. I use Windows XP Pro and I want to be able to use the camera as a plug and play USB mass storage device. I will probably delete the Ricoh software, set the camera to USB Mass Storage in the system menu and have more control over downloading the pictures. I believe that if you have an earlier version of Windows that doesn't support USB plug and play you must use the Ricoh software to download your pictures.
Using the Ricoh Gate La software the pictures download by default automatically when you connect the USB cable. I would rather be able to browse to the camera like any other drive and choose what I want to copy across. Otherwise it gets confusing. Ricoh Gate La downloads all the images regardless of whether or not they already exist. It simply renames the files if they already exist. I ended up with dozens of duplicate images with different names. I shall get rid of Ricoh Gate and use the USB driver alone.
Update: I've deleted Ricoh Gate La and now use the camera as a mass storage device in Windows XP. It works fine with my old laptop with USB 1.0 but it will be faster with USB 2.0. However, there is one big snag here: when used as a USB mass storage device the Ricoh GR digital is a READ-ONLY drive. This is disappointing because I prefer to edit the camera drive from the computer. It would also be useful to store documents or other files on the Ricoh.
The Battery Charger
The battery charger is nice and small and light. Unfortunately you have to charge the batteries before you can use the camera. So be prepared to wait two hours before you can play! After the first charge I've noticed the batteries are charged after about an hour.
The Look and Feel of the Camera
In the hand the GRD is lovely and compact. It feels solid and has no protruding parts that are likely to catch on anything or be pressed by accident. The metal case has a rubberised coating where your right hand is likely to grip the body. (I wonder if there's a left handed version?!). It looks great. Its discreet and beautiful and I'm delighted its black. Its the kind of camera I'd be happy to carry anywhere i go.
I check the battery hatch which seems nicely made and I look at the USB/audio input hatch which is rubber and less convincing. I imagine this might tear off after frequent use has fatigued the rubber, plus dust can easily get in there because the seal is poor. Time will tell.
I'm pleased to see it has a lock on the mode dial and that the power button is counter-sunk so that the camera can't be turned on easily in the pocket. It has the sort of controls that you see on many cameras these days; dials, rockers, buttons and one of the biggest LCD screens I've seen on a camera of this size: (5cm by 3.8cm). Ricoh call the screen 2.5 inch but I just measured it and its about 2" by 1.5".
There's a sturdy looking standard tripod thread on the base; I'm happy to see.
There's also a flash hotshoe which has a plastic protector that slides in to keep it nice and clean. Ricoh are obviously serious about the flash potential of this camera. It's good to see because the on-board flash can never have the power and flexibility of an external system. With the macro mode I guess its possible to do all sorts of amazing things with a proper macro flash system. However, are there any compact flash units out there that aren't bigger than the camera?
Ricoh recommends using the Sigma EF-500 DG Super or the Sigma EF-500 DG ST external flash. With other non-recommended flashes you are advised to take the following steps; set the Mode dial to A or M, set aperture value, set ISO other than Auto and set the Flash-value and Flash ISO sensitivity to the camera-set values. It would be nice to have one of these units to test. More on flash later.
Turning the Camera on
So, here goes. I press the POWER button. Whizz, zzrrr. Oh no, the lens has popped out from behind its cover and now sticks out about an inch or 2.5cm! And it looks like the lenses on all the other cheap compact cameras you can buy at the supermarket. Its plasticky and frail looking and guess what? You can wiggle it from side to side a little! Oh for a 35mm f2 Summicron!
The LCD monitor has come on and looks bright and clear. I'm glad I'm not trying to sneak discrete pictures right now though. The lens action is too noisy for my liking. I need a camera that's ready to go without ANY noise. While I was writing this my girlfriend was asleep on the bed and I tried to take a sneaky photo. Unfortunately I turned on the camera, and the noise woke her immediately before I even grabbed a snap! She was annoyed and said that I had frightened her!
Why does the GRD and most digital compacts have to have a lens that pops out? And one that pops out so noisily? I guess the problem is that a wide lens for a digital has to be rather large and thus if it were fixed in the OUT position it would make the camera rather less compact. Surely there's a way? I want a compact digital with a nice solid fixed wide lens that's already out. I want near-silent auto-focusing and I want a near-silent shutter. When you half-press the shutter release button on the GRD you get a fluttering-whirring sound as the lens hunts focus. This is a shame because near silent AF is an attainable goal. My friend has a Leica Digilux 2 and this focuses considerably more quietly and since the lens is fixed to the outside you don't experience the start-up noise.
However, I've since discovered the SNAP focus mode. This method sets the focus distance to 2.5 meters. In this mode the camera just takes the shot and its up to you to judge the distance. All you can hear is the shutter release which is very quiet. Now we're getting somewhere. This is more like it Ricoh because you can use this focus mode and still have full exposure control. Of course, it's up to the photographer to judge the depth of field in this mode. There's no markings on the lens for hyperfocal distance and no DOFP (depth of field preview) so in this mode it can be hit and miss. Under normal focussing you can see the DOF (depth of field) on screen.
Despite the hit and miss, with careful control over aperture and some practice the results are good. I will be using this mode a lot.
In addition to the SNAP focus mode there’s INFINITY focus mode where the focus is set to infinity. It’s a shame there isn’t a HYPERFOCAL focus mode where the lens is set to give the best DOF for the chosen aperture. As when using old manual lenses with the markings on the lens barrel. I guess again this is too much to ask.
Turning the Camera Off
So, I press the POWER button again. Whizz, zrrr. Away goes the lens again, back into its hole. Oh and what now? Is that a rattle? Yes, the lens covers rattle if you gently shake the camera. I've never liked the lens covers on many of these compacts. I borrowed a Pentax digital once and the lens cover apertures kept sticking halfway across the lens when the camera was turned on or off. On the GRD they don't inspire confidence. I'd rather have a glass UV filter on a fixed external lens. How long will it be before some dirt or fluff gets in there and makes these apertures sticky and troublesome? Ricoh could be spending a lot of time servicing these cameras in the future. Or they will end up in the dustbin.
More about the Noise (I mean audible noise not image noise!)
The crux is, why should the camera have to make a noise before its even ready for action? If its noisy when you press the shutter, at least you've already got the picture but if its noisy before you begin then you've missed the opportunity.
But I must remind myself that this is an 8MP compact digital camera with a fast prime lens, a MANUAL setting that even includes manual focus, exposure compensation and bracketing for a RRP of £399! Perhaps I'm expecting too much.
What am I expecting? Simply, that after so long making cameras a company one day will make a digital camera that satisfies the criteria expected by a Leica M user. Unfortunately there's still some way to go; but Ricoh has taken a bold and intelligent step in the right direction. I sincerely hope that Ricoh learns from the GRD and goes on to make the GRD2,3,4,5 etc. I really wish they'd listen to us users. And what about Nikon, Canon and Konica Minolta (now owned by Sony)? They produced high quality compacts for professionals in the past. Why not now? Whatever happened to Contax? And where is the Leica digital M?
I would be happy with a larger camera than the GRD; along the same lines with a lens that doesn’t pop out (or at least pops out quietly), a built-in optical viewfinder that displays shooting parameters and at least 10MP. It can’t be that hard to design can it? I don't care if its expensive, quality usually is, I will buy it.
The GRD function modes
The mode is changed with a dial on the top of the GRD. It has a lock button which must be depressed before the dial can be rotated. I can hold the GRD in my left hand and both depress the lock with the forefinger of my right hand and turn the dial with my thumb. The dial has a nice positive action.
Some of the modes have caused me confusion. The modes are:
SCENE
This mode is for taking pictures of text and recording sounds in .WAV format. Why is it then called SCENE? This is confusing. How about TXT/AUD mode on the next GRD version? Why the word SCENE. Since when has a document or a sound recording been a SCENE?
M
Manual exposure mode. Hooray for Ricoh! A compact digital with all manual exposure and focus control. Well done. It works great, with the front and top dials for aperture and shutter speed and a nice exposure level indicator on the screen. With spot metering, manual focus, and exposure bracketing I'm going to have a lot of fun with this mode.
A
Aperture priority. Hooray again. I love this mode since most of my pictures are aperture driven. This is great to see and works really well. All you do is rotate the dial on the camera front to chose the aperture; shutter speed is set for you. The aperture and shutter values are displayed on the screen.
P
Program Shift mode. Hmmm. I'm not sure what the purpose of this mode is. It seems that as you turn the front dial it changes the combination of aperture and shutter speed. But what's wrong with plain old SHUTTER PRIORITY? This (P mode) seems to work the same as AP mode. The aperture moves up and down and the shutter speed changes accordingly. I don't understand what Ricoh are doing with this mode. I'm going to email them to find out.
Still image mode
The camera icon on the mode dial. This is an auto mode for still images. Ricoh calls this 'still image mode' in the manual and 'photography mode' in the GRdigital.pdf I downloaded from http://www.ricoh.co.uk/. Exposure is AUTO by default but you can change the meter mode, exposure, ISO settings and switch to manual focus. Its very flexible. But I find it confusing and so, evidently does Ricoh. What is a still image and what is this mode for?
VIDEO
Video mode - the video icon. Set to this mode you can record movies in .AVI format. ISO settings cannot be changed in this mode. It seems to work fine and its good fun. More on this later.
Taking the GRD Out in the field
Since I live in the mountains of Chamonix in the winter I need a small camera to take up when I go snow boarding. I'm tired of lugging about my FM2 and its not nice taking a tumble on ice and landing on that brick. I have a Minox 35GT which is brilliant but the cost of film and the quality of service have become a real deterrent. Recently in the UK, ‘Snappy Snaps’ quoted me about £12 per roll of Fuji Provia for process and mount! Fortunately Fuji do a mail order processing service which works out about £6 per roll for process and mount. But even then the film must be scanned later. In France, high street labs usually have to send away my Velvia and last time it took two weeks. Costs are high and quality is variable.
For creative photography digital offers a massive advantage. Its great to have a camera I can take anywhere, see the results immediately and correct any errors in an instant; with no extra cost! Ideal for snow scenes because exposure is so tricky.
Photography in snow is a major challenge for any photographer. Bright sunshine on snow and dark ski clothing is a recipe for fooling any exposure meter and auto-focus sensor. With film I used to use a Sekonic L508 spot meter. I'd use a version of Ansel Adams' Zone System. For print film I'd meter from the shadows and stop down a couple of stops. For transparency I'd meter off something white and open up a couple of stops or more. I'd bracket if I could and usually get good results.
Using the Zone system I suddenly began to get black and white pictures instead of grey and muddy pictures. I could decide which area I wanted black and which white.
Now I'm using digital I'll be experimenting to see if careful use of the GRD's SPOT meter gives me better results than letting the cameras' algorithm do the work. The GRD also has a black and white picture mode so I'll be playing with this to see how it behaves. Since all camera meters are calibrated, usually to a grey card, the zone system is still relevant. However, camera metering systems are now very clever, exposure compensation is easy to use and with RAW file workflow the Zone System may find itself confined to the world of large format film professionals only.
Many professionals these days depend almost entirely on their in-camera meters because they have become so dependable. It'll be interesting to see if the GR Digital offers acceptable consistency.
One thing I'm delighted about with digital is that it's so much fun to experiment. Once you have the camera, its free! There's no worry any more about trying something out. You just turn on the camera and have a go. The results are instant. If you're not happy you DELETE them and try again. I've already taken about 100 pictures with my GRD and that would have cost me about £8 for the film and £12 for processing. And I'd still have to scan them. Scanning is very time consuming when you take into account the need for correction in PhotoShop.
Up a Mountain
Ok. So I’m out in the snow with my GRD tucked in my pocket in its case. I’m on a chair lift in blazing sunshine and there are lovely shadows playing on the snow below. I take off my gloves and pull out the camera. I press POWER. Whizz, zrrr and I’m ready to go. I can’t see the LCD so I take off my goggles. I can’t see the LCD. I can’t READ the LCD settings and its hard to take a picture!! Oh dear oh dear. Its going to take a while to get used to this digital lark! I wish I'd bought the optional view finder.
I have to compose the picture by guesswork. I have the camera on Aperture Priority (A) mode and I realise I can’t see what I’m doing. I’m going to have to use STILL image mode and hope for the best! So I take a few snaps. All I can see in the LCD is an outline of the scene. I realise I’ll need to buy the finder, but this still won’t help me see the settings.
This is a major problem with this camera in this environment. If all digitals are like this how do users manage? They have an optical finder, however cheap and small, I guess.
With a digital SLR you look through the optical VF and can see the settings there. You also might have a monochrome LCD on the top with the exposure settings which can be read in harsh light. This is a limitation with the GRD and a serious one.
However, to be fair I don’t usually shoot in the middle of the day in such harsh light. This problem is perhaps a good thing in that it reminds me one of my own rules of photography: remember the light. Photography is all about light and the best pictures I ever take are taken in the afternoon when coppery light covers the world and colours are rich and vibrant. See the samples page to find out how these images turned out.
But I'd rather see the GRD with a nice bright optical finder that shows the essentials whatever the light. I've used an add-on finder with my old Leica M2 and I always found it a pain in the neck. I had to take it on and off every time I put the camera in its case. I want to pull out the camera and use it. Immediately. And then I want to put it back in my pocket.
Taken in still image mode, hand-held (auto focus, auto-exposure: multi-segment metering, ISO 64, 1/930 sec @ f11). Shot blind (couldn't see the LCD image).
The Battery
I'm sincerely glad I chose a camera bundle that included a spare battery. In a few hours of playing with the camera and a day out in the field I'm down to half power. I don't like this very much. I wasn't even using flash. My friend has a Leica Digilux and he took it on a 25 day ocean crossing in a sailing boat and he still had plenty of power left when he got to the Azores. For this camera to be truly professional I need to be able to use whenever I need it for a couple of weeks away from mains power. For this I expect to need about 10 batteries! I'm glad they are so small! And I suppose that the batteries with memory cards and charger will take up less space than 20 rolls of film. But its not ideal and the fear of loss of power will be enough to make me take my FM2 as well.
When the power is running low there is no real warning before the power fails. The battery level indicator stays on low for some time before the camera switches itself off with a sudden message. I guess it must be hard to equate remaining power with number of shots remaining but some warning that shut down is close would be helpful.
I'll be doing some tests later to see how long a fully charged battery really lasts. Sadly, I expect to be disappointed.
The Shutter Release Button
One or two users have complained that they don't like the shutter release butter on the GRD. A shutter release is like a trigger on a gun. As a kid I used to shoot air rifles a lot and the difference a good trigger can make to the shooting experience is huge. A good rifle trigger can be adjusted to user preference. Sometimes there are two screws, one for travel distance and one for tension. Some people like a short travel distance and low tension. I prefered my trigger this way. It's interesting that camera manufacturers have never (at least I've never seen one) made a camera trigger that can be adjusted. Perhaps there is somebody out there who will inform me that such a camera was made with a shutter release that could be adjusted? I'd like to see one. Personally I don't have a problem with the GRD shutter release, it feels pretty good. But, if we can have mouse sensitivity settings on a computer, why not shutter release sensitivity on a digicam?
Firmware Update (from 1.09 to 2.01)
It has come to my attention that there are a number of issues with the GR Digital and that there is a new version of the firmware available. In fact, it looks like Ricoh have released two versions since the camera was released. This is not a good sign. Software often has bugs, but proper testing will get rid of any show-stoppers before release. It may be fair to suggest that:
- Ricoh is doing its testing on its customers
- Ricoh has failed to follow good software development principles
- The Ricoh GR Digital may be a work in progress
Has anyone heard of a firmware update for the Leica Digilux 2? The Digilux has been out for at least two years and it was so well tested and conceived that users seem to be able to find little or nothing that can be improved by firmware.
I decided to update the firmware so I downloaded it and followed the instructions. It all went fairly smoothly and now I have 2.01. I recommend you read my Firmware page if you have recently bought the GR Digital.
Continued here.