Andrew Kelly Art & Photography: Review

This is my user experience with the Ricoh GR digital camera.

I'll get this out of the way quick, for all you spec and gear guys out there this is not for you, I do not care about the specifications on paper of a camera, I go out, shoot and see what I get, I form my opinion from that and that alone. So here is a real quick run down on the camera before I dive into the good stuff.

The Ricoh GR is a 16 megapixel compact digital camera boasting an apsc cmos sensor with no AA filter. There you go, now let's get on to how the camera actually performs in day to day use.

FIRST THOUGHTS

The first thing I noticed with the GR is how small and compact it is. It fits into a jacket pocket in a small case or in my jeans pocket without a case, I actually forget its on me most of the time. Carrying a larger camera for a lot of situations can be a bit of a hassle but with the GR it's just there for when I need it. It's always with me (like my iPhone but with way better image quality).

COMPETITION

A lot of people might argue that there are other small cameras out there that Can give you the same or similar results (Sony RX100's, Fuji X100's, Leica X1 and X2, Nikon Coolpix A, Fuji x70) and yes this is true but having tried them all, I can truly say that the combition of high image quality, features, controls and size, the Ricoh GR wins out over all of them for my style of shooting (this is subjective and other people may get along better with a different camera). I'll go out on a limb and say it's my all time favourite digital camera and having worked in a camera shop for a good few years, trying most (if not all) current and past cameras this is a pretty bold statement.

HOW I SHOOT THE GR.

Now I shoot a lot in documentary style. When I see a moment I simply just want to capture it. The Ricoh comes out of my pocket, turns on quickly (no I haven't checked it in milliseconds) and it just fires (no lens cap to take off, which annoyed me with some of the other apsc compact cameras). It is a 28mm (35mm equivalent) so great for capturing scenes quickly. Although it's a 28mm lens you can configure a custom button so that it can crop to a 35mm and 47mm lens, you do lose the resolution obviously in this but very useful for when you need it (28mm and 35mm are by far my preferred focal lengths) and not being a pixel peeper I have used both crops to get shots that turned out great. I learned a long time again to stop really caring about overall resolution/sharpness etc and to focus more on the moment and feeling of the shot. So for my personal workflow it fights in perfectly.

QUALITY

After saying all that I can tell you the Ricoh results are sharp with a crazy amount of detail (lack of AA filter helps here). I love the black and white modes in the camera (both the standard and high contrast) and the positive film simulation. It's the only camera that I can trust the out of camera jpegs, I often use them with zero tweaking whatsoever. Nowadays I prefer to keep my computer time to a minimum so getting the shots as close as I can in camera is of high importance to me. The DNG files are really nice to work with as well, great tones and detail. I turn of all noise reduction in camera which keeps all the detail with no annoying smudging at higher ISO's.

FEATURES

One drawback with the Ricoh GR initially is that it was a bit annoying to set up and remembering where everything is. I can set so many different custom buttons that remembering where they all are took a few days. Once you have spent a few days with it the camera quickly gets out of the way and the shooting becomes second nature. I have set my 35mm crop button up where I like it, I have the picture simulation modes on the side of the camera, I have the snap focus button set up and I have the ISO dedicated dial (that is my favourite feature of the camera) it is so simple to change the ISO no digging into a menu. Now I'm not going to say that to get to some other features isn't fiddly but this is all I use and I know exactly where they are, once you are set up it doesn't get in the way of shooting.

AUTO FOCUS

The autofocus is pretty good actually. In good light it's more than fast enough for quick street shots. It's always accurate in my tests (which I can't say for a lot of the other cameras I have used). In lowlight it's Focus speed definitely slows down and In really low light it kinda sucks but it will eventually find Focus and be accurate which I can't say for a lot of other large sensor compacts. The Leica X1 and X2 and Nikon coolpix A just wouldn't find Focus. So for most of what I do the autofocus is great and more than capable of keeping up with fast action street and documentary work and as I said I have found it to be very accurate. I use it on centre Focus point exclusively as I do on any digital camera.

STREET PHOTOGRAPHY

As I stated above in good-semi low light the autofocus works excellent and more than capable for fast street work. A really cool feature is the snap Focus mode. This allows the user to preset a distance in metres and when you press the shutter all the way down it will shoot at that distance. I have found it to be so valuable when something unfolds in front of me and I don't have a chance to think. The camera in manual Focus mode is fitted with a really nice distance scale so you can set it to f8 and see what's going to be in Focus either side of that distance (I usually set it to 2.5 metres) and since it's a 28mm equivalent lens you get plenty in Focus for quick street shots but to be honest the autofocus is so good I use that most of the time. It is nice to have the option to zone Focus like I would on my Leica M6 film camera. The exposure compensation is on a dedicated button on the right of the camera, very well placed and so easy to use for quick alterations to exposure on the run.

HIGH ISO

The cameras ISO performance impressed me a lot. I regularly shoot it at 1600 and 3200 (and not scared to go up to 6400) in black and white mode and up to 1600 in colour. Way better than I expected. Like I said earlier if you turn noise reduction off the high ISO files retain great detail but will get grainy. I find the grain pleasant, the only other digital cameras that I have seen results of detail retention at high ISO is the Leica digitals. No smudged mess. Most the other camera manufacturers (even with noise reduction off) get smudgey at High ISO. I choose detail and grain over soft and smooth any day.

MACRO

It has a decent macro mode. 10cm I believe. I didn't think I would use it but have found I do regularly. A nice little feature.

HANDLING

A very overlooked part of a camera is the handling. The grip on the GR is really nice. I never feel like I'm going to drop it, and fits my hand perfectly. I find a lot of other cameras are pretty slippy with a crap grip (if any). I can use the GR one handed which is pretty cool only using my other hand to change the picture mode button on the left side of the body. The screen is also decent on the GR. I can see it from all angles and is useable in bright light. I thought I would miss a tilting screen but so far I have not. it gives accurate representation of how the final image will look on a computer screen and you can easily zoom in to check Focus. Can't complain.

CONCLUSION

The main thing with the Ricoh GR is I have fun shooting it. The end quality is great and I love the look of the files, like I said I can trust the jpegs so much I can use them straight out of camera a lot of the time. In fact I just can trust the camera in general (Focus, exposure, white balance) which is a big deal. Once set up, everything is where I want it and I never have to dig into the menu. It's always on me so I get shots I simply would miss if I had a bigger camera in my bag and it's so small, light and inconspicuous I can get shots where other cameras would give me away, nobody takes it serious, a big plus for street and intimate shots. It's a great camera if you want small size but with great image quality.

I have fun with it, I get creative with it and I love the images I get from it. After all that's the purpose of any good image making tool.

I can highly recommend the Ricoh GR.

Examples from the camera below. Some images have very minimal contrast adjustments but most are straight jpegs out of camera. Most are at 28mm focal length unless otherwise stated.

below: 47mm crop mode

Below: 35mm crop mode

below: 35mm crop mode

Below: 35mm crop mode

Below: High ISO colour

Below: macro mode

Thanks for reading!

About a year and a half ago I purchased one of my most sought after pieces of equipment (well the Leica M9 was the goal but at nearly £4000 that was out of the question) a Leica M8 digital Rangefinder. I had been searching for a small capable camera to accompany my main camera (Canon 5D mk 2) for some time. I considered getting a Leica or Zeiss Ikon film rangefinder but decided that for pro quick turnaround work I would probably be better off with a digital and then purchasing a film one later when I have spare money in the future. Mainly this small camera would be my everyday carry around camera and also my second camera when it came to weddings and other photo shoots, for the more discreet unobtrusive moments where the size and shotgun blast of a 5d mk 2's mirror could disturb the moment. So looking into this at the time the only options were the newly released Fuji X100, Leica X1 and the ageing Leica M8.

*I have to warn you that this post takes some twists and turns before we get to the actual revisiting but I feel the little back story is important to this post so I hope you find the whole thing informative, It s based on my personal thoughts and experiences, not a full spec professional review of the camera*

Price & Options

The M8 was the most expensive option as it would be £1600 used and I would have to purchase a decent lens on top of that but it was also released around 2006 so the technology inside was already showing it's age. The fuji had unreliable autofocus and you would be stuck with the 35mm field of view, being a fixed lens camera but it was nice and small.. The Leica X1 was just too pricey for what it was in my opinion, basically a fuji x100 without a built in view finder. So to me the logical option would be to try the M8 to see how it performs, I had seen great results from people like Gorbot on flickr (check out his photo's they are awesome) using the m8 with Carl Zeiss and Voigtlander lenses and thought that this would suit my documentary approach to photo shoots and weddings. As I stated before, the technology inside the M8 was a bit older and that was my main concern, could it hold up at higher ISO's? (which for weddings in scotland is nearly essential) Is the image quality good enough by today's standards? (I had certainly seen examples that proved it could) also most importantly would I like the rangefinder experience?

Lens Options
So I played around for nearly a whole day in Ffordes photographic with the M8, testing different lenses in different lighting conditions. Due to the M8 not being a full frame camera (it's a 1.33 crop, which is still bigger than most DSLR's certainly at the time) I had to find the right lens focal length. I tried some Carl Zeiss lenses, mainly the 28mm f2.8 Biogon (which is around a 37mm on the M8, near a good standard focal length), the 50mm f2 planar which was a little too long I feel for my taste with the crop factor, they didn't have the 35mm f2 in stock at the time unfortunately which I really wanted to try (that would have been nearer the 50mm field of view). I also tried the Zeiss Sonnar 50mm f1.5 but again was too long for my liking. I also tried the Voigtlander 35mm f1.4 and 2.5, also the 40mm f1.4. Sadly they did not have a Nokton 35mm f1.2 which might have taken my fancy but being a small camera I wanted a small-ish lens to start with and the Nokton is huge (for a m-mount lens). I also then tried some expensive Leica lenses, starting with the 28mm f2.8 Elmarit then the 35mm f2 Summicron. I had decided that I wanted a 28 or 35 as I wanted something that wasn't too long like a 50 would have been.

I liked the 1.4 of the Voigtlander 35mm (which would help in low light if the ISO wasn't quite up to scratch) but looking at some sample shots I found the Leica's and Zeiss to render a better image (to my eye anyway). I would still have liked to try the 1.2 though as I hear good things about it, especially the version II which is now released. After trying both the Zeiss and Leica lenses extensively in the store I came to the conclusion that I would go for the Zeiss 28mm f2.8 Biogon. When it came down to it I couldn't see much if any difference in image quality compared to the Elmarit and I actually liked the look and feel of the Zeiss on the M8 better (call me crazy but I really did), I also really liked the focus ring on the Zeiss instead of the tab on the Leica, personal preference I suppose. I didi realise that the Zeiss may have some colour problems due to not being 6 bit coded for the camera like all the Leica lenses are but in the store I couldn't see any problems in the images, this would become less of a problem if shooting in black and white obviously which I do a lot. I also had to purchase the lens hood and an IR filter as the M8 suffers from an IR problem when shooting in colour which was an annoying extra cost and surely the lens hood could come with the lens. Anyway I was happy and left the store much poorer but did not regret my decision. I had a week to test it out, see if it would fit into my work flow.

Rangefinder Experience
Straight off I have to say I really loved the whole Rangefinder experience, the small unobtrusive size, the quieter shutter (not as quiet as the film leica's I've tried but much quieter than my 5D), the viewfinder (seeing outside the frame lines), the simple no frills operation and the awesome build quality. I was finally having tons of fun shooting again and it all fit in a tiny bag and hardly weighed anything when over my shoulder, I was shooting in situations where before I wouldn't even have bothered takeing out my 5D.

Image Qality
As far as Image quality I was very surprised. Combined with the Biogon lens at lower ISO's the sharpness and out of camera DNG files were stunning. I have never seen files come out of a camera like that (especially in Raw). It beat my Canon 5D mk 2 for sharpness and contrast and even the black and white out of camera JPEG's were nicely toned and contrasty, did I say I was surprised? The files did have less dynamic range when it came to post processing when compared to th 5D MK 2 but that is to be expected, no surprise there, the solution? get the exposure right, simple.

I decided to test the ISO capabilities so upping it to 640 I instantly saw digital noise and some colour noise also which I was really pissed off by and this just got worse when shooting in actual lower light situations (it wasn't too bad in bright daylight). Upping it to 1250 increased more colour noise and 2500 was virtually unusable in colour. I was very disappointed as I wanted an all round camera ( I think I expected too much). Everything else was perfect about the camera (well apart from the 1.33 crop but I could live with that till I could afford an M9 or whatever else came out that met that specs). Anyway I kept testing it for a few days, having fun but the no colour in low light kind of bugged me a bit. I also found some sensor problems (small array of white dots that would appear at ISO 1250 and above), this kind of turned me off the camera, Ffordes kindly said they would sent it to Leica for sensor repair but by that time I was regretting my purchase (especially for the money) so I decided to send it back to the shop and purchase other lenses for my Canon instead, after enjoying the Zeiss lens so much I purchased two Carl Zeiss lenses for my 5D mk 2.

Revisiting The Images I Shot With The M8
So we have made it to the actual revisiting section. Yesterday I was looking through my older hard drive and found a file labelled 'All Leica M8 Tests' so I opened it up to find a load of folders from the week I spent with the camera. Intrigued I started to look through them, finding some pretty cool shots (along with boring shots as I was testing it in all situations to see it's real world use). I was instantly surprised or should I say Re-surprised by the DNG files sharpness, tones and contrast. So I picked a few images out and started to process them as I do my 5Dmk2 files and found that they actually needed less work to get my desired style (lets face it all Raw/DNG files need some work at least, thats the whole point of the digital negative) and also that they were sharper with a bit more punch if that makes sense, I'm down for any camera that will give me less time editing in front of the screen.

I also decided to take a look at them higher ISO images that annoyed me so much initially and yes at 1250 and 2500 the colour noise is pretty much unusable in my opinion.........but..........when they are converted to black and white they look awesome! thats right Awesome! Now I didn't overlook this initially as I knew they looked good in black and white but I wanted a colour capable camera. I am unsure what has changed (maybe my style, maybe my expectations, I do not know) but I now see the files and think the these high ISO files (in B&W) look stunning. The noise is very very film like and I always put film grain into my B&W 5D mk 2 files now anyway, some times a lot of noise. I shot a lot of Neopan 1600 in my film days which these files are very comparable to when I have processed them (contrast/curves adjustments etc). I now see this camera as an awesome black and white camera that also shoots good colour at 320 ISO and below. I do shoot more black and white these days especially at weddings and the M8 would fit right in. I also my desire for technically perfect looking images is no longer there, I focus on creating images with character which these M8 files definitely have.

Funny what a turn around has occurred in a year and a half since I gave the camera back, fair enough it was the sensor damage that really tipped the scale but I just really wanted to write this, maybe as sort of an apology to my little M8, I obviously just wasn't ready to realise its potential in my workflow at that time and now I am considering buying another one with the same Zeiss lens of course and maybe that Nokton 35mm 1.2 I was lusting after which will help even more in low light if I want colour. I saw someone say recently that the M8 was like the original baby Leica Monochrome and I agree. I even like the crop factor giving me more depth of field for street shooting now. How things change in such a short time, I now think this would be a great second camera to compliment my main kit.

Time to start shopping.

Here are some of the shots I took with M8, there isn't that much good one's as I had it for just a short time and mostly tested it in boring situations but I hope you get the idea. All images were processed in camera raw. No Raw sharpening applied to any images if I recall correctly. They need no sharpening.

Cat after a hard days work I just loved the tones. This has had curves adjustments to the DNG but the tones were so good out of camera.

Postman Pat!

My only street shot, I didn't want to go out street shooting much incase something happened to the camera so I couldn't return it if needed. Very discreet for street shooting as expected.