Hello everyone, I'm going to review this little camera since there is no one does it on Amazon. Well, first of all, I am a photo bug that love street and landscape photography, I have number of full frame DSLRs, and some heavy lenses; however since once I brought all of my gears to go on a trip to Thailand, I understood that making "good" photos are not an easy job, physically. Then I decided not to bring too many heavy gears when I go travelling.
Alright, lets talk about this camera, which is our main topic. You might heard about Ricoh's GR series cameras since the film photographers' era; GR series are famous of its compact size, good handling and professional control functions. For this specific camera, GR Digital IV, it has the 28mm wide angle prime lens on it, with f/1.9 maximum aperture and image stabilization, very convenient for not only low-light condition, but also creating shallow Bokeh. However, GRD IV only gets a small 1/1.7 CCD sensor in it, bigger sensor literally means better image quality. About this point, different people may have different idea. So personally, I would not recommend to beginner to get it in this price range, for whom many Mirrorless cameras and entry-level DSLRs could be more suitable. But I would highly recommend to the ones who are looking for a compact alternative of heavy cameras for specific purposes, like me myself.
GRD IV has many interesting features such as many custom functions allow you to create a comfortable control system; two multi-function dials, number of custom buttons, a M-A-S-P dial with three custom-mode, also variety of pictures effects. The external button layout is nice and neat, no superfluous design. Superior build quality, you will know where your money goes when you hold it in your hands. Also, Ricoh offers us different accessories like lens hood, wide angle attached lens, viewfinders and cases, you might wanna get some for your GRD IV.
Overall I am happy to give a five-star rating to this camera, for the features that I introduced to you, also I will update my review and some pictures taken by it. Thanks for reading.
Apr 10 2012
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I've been using this camera for two days, everything is going well, and I found out this little camera is extremely good at taking macro shots, your lens can actually touch the subject and still able to focus! I have taken several macros in Raw files, they turned out very nice, sharp and beautiful Bokeh...
Also, the mode "My sense" actually got more interesting in-camera processing, such as long exposure for taking star tracks, high dynamic rage shots, all done in camera. However I haven't tried them out yet, I'm gonna find a good day to take some shots at night using those interesting features. They are many different combinations in My modes (you have three my modes on the M-A-S-P dial). For examples, I like to shoot in RAW, however when you are wondering to use the in camera pre-set like Hi-contrast, B&W, Hi-pass etc, you can only shoot in JPEG, RAW files would not have anything else other than original image information. In this case I set the MY1, MY3, MY3 modes into different JPEG modes, with different pre-set combinations, different metering and focusing mode, very convenience! If I want to shoot RAW, I can just turn the dial to M-A-S-P, other than that I use "My modes" to shot interesting JPEG pictures. Since the in-camera processes are so decent, it saves my time to do the post process for the snap shots.
Simply saying I found this camera is such a fun toy to play, easy and amazing, and nice handling like DSLRs, professional point&shoot!
-Apr 18 2012 by Ben
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