Last update: 7th March 2008
What do i like about the Ricoh GR Digital?
- small and compact, I will take it everywhere
- seems fairly well constructed, time will tell if it can stand the abuse
- prime, fast wide lens
- full manual control
- lots of useful and fun features
- good image quality and image size
- RAW shooting option
- tidy and good looking, discreet in black
- optional 21mm adapter
- system options such as cable release and filters
- self timer has 2 second or 10 second
- it has a hot shoe
- macro feature is good and really fun to use
- it inspires creativity
- Ricoh have been quick to release firmware fixes
What do I not like about the Ricoh GR Digital?
- it needs a built in optical finder, difficult to use LCD in harsh light
- lens too noisy at start-up
- focus too noisy
- lens seems fragile when extended
- flash exposure poor and no flash exposure control
- USB mass storage mode is READ-ONLY
- *battery performance is poor. I will need many batteries in the field.
* I sent the Ricoh back for repair under warranty because Colin Bell sent me a comment that his Ricoh battery life was very good and that perhaps I had a faulty unit. The service from Ricoh was very impressive. They have an excellent online repair tracking system. All you do is enter your details and print off a form with an address to send it to. When the item is flagged up and repaired and posted you can track it on UPS. Turnaround was about two weeks but I think it took five das to reach the repair center. No questions were asked, they even replaced the cover and lens assembly and cleaned the unit up nicely. Very encouraging. I will post back later with an update on battery performance.
- software bundle could be better
- some of the modes are confusingly named
- custom settings cannot be stored under a useful name
- RAW file writes are far too slow. 10 secs approximately is not good enough.
- jpegs have too much compression, visible jaggies.
- Firmware releases are already available which suggests insufficient prototyping
- Exposure is inconsistent. I find the GRD often overexposes by about 1/3rd of a stop.
- Ricoh don't seem to have listened sufficiently to us photographers
Should I Buy One?
I have mixed feelings about this camera. Sometimes I love it and sometimes I wonder what I'm doing with it. Its good fun to play with and its size and capabilities encourage me to take it everywhere. It will be in my pocket constantly, which is great. But, Ricoh have let themselves down in many areas I've outlined above.
The image quality is good and that's the most important thing. I will be looking to see if the images are good enough for my online stock such as Alamy at a later date. If they pass that test I will consider the GR Digital as a pro or semi-pro tool. Currently I don't believe the jpg's are good enough. They are not a patch on those from a Leica Digilux or my Canon EOS 30D. I will certainly have to shoot raw to get anywhere near 'pro' results with this camera. Whether or not its practical to use a camera that takes 11 secs before its ready to fire again is a question of the type of work I'm doing. In most cases NO.
Would I buy this camera again? The answer is NO. I like the camera and I've enjoyed using it. But there is currently to my knowledge nothing else on the market that does the same job. Come on Nikon, Canon, Fuji, Sony, Leica and all. Design us a high quality compact along these lines with the following:-
- wide, fast high quality lens or 21-50mm equivalent zoom
- small and rugged; weatherproof
- discrete appearance
- near silent operation. Compact fixed metal lens that doesn't make noise.
- instant start-up
- Highest quality 10MP sensor
- very good battery life (at least equivalent to my EOS 30D which is amazing).
- great LCD with fabulous menu
- custom settings to be saved as user named files
- very quick RAW and other file write speeds or lossless compressed files
- optical viewfinder with shooting parameters available and visible in all conditions
- built-in flash with exposure control plus hotshoe
- USB mass storage
- easy to upgrade firmware from menu
- camera and storage configurable from PC
- good software bundle at least equivalent to Canon EOS bundle.
If I had £400 to spend I'd go and buy one of the cheaper digital SLR's instead of this camera or I'd look for a second hand Digilux 2 or the Panasonic version. Despite its 8mp the quality of the images from the Leica (at about 5mp) is vastly superior. Ricoh have tried, but not hard enough.
* upate March 2008. The battery life was not improved by a service at Ricoh. The battery I left in the camera was dead by the time the camera came back. The stock images were rejected due to jpg artifacting. This is visible at 100% in most shots at full quality setting. My girlfriend just bought a new Canon Ixus and it's a much better camera in almost every respect. I will send mine back to Ricoh again.