You don’t see a RIcoh review very often and that’s why it’s worth to ention that British Journal of Photography just published a Ricoh GXR P10 review: “The addition of the P10 unit significantly hikes the versatility aspect, but there is more to come. A GPS positioning and Wifi unit enabling, for example, the operation of an underwater camera unit, is on the cards, as are a projector, portable small format printer, image storage unit (hard drive or solid state), remote extension, copier and endoscopy module. Indeed, the possibilities for expansion seem endless, but without a lens mount module that permits the use of third party glass, I cannot see how the concept competes with DSLRs of any format.To my mind, what the GXR offers is the facility and versatility of a tool that slots somewhere between the pocketable compact and larger DSLRs. Its physical size is perhaps its downfall in some respects. Yet what it obtains in the way of image quality is impressive, especially when considering the smaller sensor sizes. I’d have no hesitation about using the camera modules launched so far for editorial work, but as it stands, it is not a replacement for the more sophisticated features offered with a DSLR.”
Hmmm, what do you think about BjP’s verdict?
2 Responses
i have the 33mm f2.5 module and i’m always surprised how stellar the image quality is. out of curiosity i compared it to a canon 60d equipped with a ef-s 60mm f2.8 macro lens and at similar apertures, same exposure and precise manual focus the ricoh was even sharper by a little and with a visibly better dynamic range.
i use it mostly for street portraits and i think it’s the best avaliable combination for this now. it’s small and doesn’t embarrass the model and is almost silent. auto white-balance is the best i’ve seen so far, almost never needs tweaking. af is fast enough for portraits since last years firmware update. cleary it won’t be an all purpose camera because it’s af is not really capable of following moving subjects and there are too few lens modules but for this kind of use it’s the best out there. as a bonus it can be customized more than any dslr or evil camera i’ve tried (and i’ve tried almost all of them out there) and it has some useful unique (to non-ricoh cameras) functions such as the snap focus and and timelapse mode.
i would only change it to a rangefinder camera but the M8 is still too expensive not to mention the M9. and the X100 has the traditional dials and classic styling but with a bigger body and the hybrid viewfinder seems interesting but still not nearly as useful as a rangefider. i mean, you can learn to focus faster and you can even predict the focus with a rangefinder but the X100’s manual focus doesn’t seems to be anywhere as usable nor it’s af. if i didn’t have the ricoh it would be harder to decide between the two especially before the first reviews.
that’s my opinion and i thought maybe someone is in the same shoes as me and haven’t found enough information like this about the ricoh gxr.
I second Vam. I am using the GXR with both APS-C modules currently available (the 50/2.5 Macro and the 28/2.5). I also use one GXR “back” for each. That way I got two compact cameras with professional grade image quality literally at hand.
I hardly take my EOS 5D out for shooting anymore which probably illustrates best how good the little Ricohs are.