Ricoh GXR

Seems like there are a few Ricoh fans in Singapore. About 3 have posted in DPReview and Clubsnap Forums their GXR experience.

I have had only few minutes to try it out recently and it felt both familiar and yet something a little different. Guess that is what plastic surgery feels like?

The chief complaint of most people is the auto-focus, which I do find slow too. Even compared to their CX1 which is surprisingly snappy for a compact camera. I don't expect it to lock on like an SLR, but slower than a compact? That is a bit sad.

Another thing strange is the in-camera JPG capture. While testing both modules, the RAW pictures seem to turn out quite nice in terms of exposure and even image noise. The JPG seems to be overexposed and noticeable noise reduction.



The composite above was made in Picasa, picture taken with the A12 module. Left is the rendering of the DNG file by Picasa and right the JPG. (Ricoh has the option of RAW+JPG, which gives 2 files of the same picture.) Strange the JPG is even more overexposed compared to the Raw file.

That said, the Raw picture of the S10 module seems much better than the GX100, and that is just "processing" with Picasa.

Another thing that Ricoh is weak in is flash photography. At least I can never seem to get it right with flash, so I tend not to use it. The old favourite, Canon G6, is better.