Ricoh announces the GR Digital

Ricoh have just announced a new compact digital camera: the GR Digital.

Now I don’t make a habit of mentioning stuff like this on my blog, but I’ve been in the market for a compact digital for some time. My criteria have always been:

Good wide angle lens - ideally a 28mm lens (in 35mm terms) - because it’s going to be used indoors for group/people photos
Good low light performance - because it’s going to be used indoors for group/people photos
Decent sized LCD screen - because my eyesight ain’t what it used to be!
And of course, excellent image quality.

Those are my main criteria. So why do I mention this Ricoh? Well, it looks like it might come close to filling the gap. It has a 28mm f/2.4 lens, which should be great indoors and in low light. It has ISO speeds up to 800 in RAW mode, and 1600 in JPEG (not sure why RAW can’t go up to 1600, but there we go). It also has a 2.5 inch LCD, which is quite generous.

The only real failing (on paper) is that the lens is a fixed focal length. I never use a long zoom, but it’s nice to have something that goes to 70 or 80mm so you can take nice head shots of people. And with an aperture of f/2.4, I would imagine these could be quite nice. Ah well, you can’t have everything.

Just have to wait for the reviews I guess…

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 13th, 2005 at 11:49 pm and is filed under Photography. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

2 Responses to “Ricoh announces the GR Digital”

Markh
September 19th, 2005 01:53
1

This has been a much awaited camera to select group, and the reaction has certainly been mixed - most of the negatives centre on the 1/1.8 sensor. The lens should be very good based on its lineage and MTF charts, but can it overcome the tiny sensor limitations when it is trumpeted as a “professional” camera?
Ricoh says it considered the APS and 2/3 sensors but said they meant the camera/lens couldnot be compact enough….maybe they should try an “un-compact” version and see how much more interested the serious photographers would be - hope they do!
marky moo
September 19th, 2005 20:05
2

That’s true. I think too much emphasis is put on making ultra compact cameras these days, and not enough effort on lens/sensor quality.