2009 has already sprung onto the scene, taking me quite by surprise – I was ill over the holidays and had only just got used to that Christmas feeling… and now the decorations are coming down! – but in the spirit of the New Year (fresh starts, resolutions and all that gumpf!) I thought I should make a bit more of an effort to post useful(ish) and interesting(ish) things on the blog. We’re already two days into the new year so it’s time for the first post; one of a series called “Serious Compacts of the Moment”.

The name uses some creative license (Some of these cameras have already been superseded after all) but hopefully I’ll be able to discuss some of the most interesting not-so-point-and-shoot-point-and-shoot cameras of the moment, ones which I’ve discovered during my Ricoh GRD forum loafing and DPReview/DCResource trawling. And with that link to Ricoh, it’s time for the first part of this Serious Compact (not-so-complete) Compendium…

Serious Compacts of the Moment – The Ricohs

Ricoh GRD

Of course it would come first; I own one!

• Excellent B&W camera; film-like noise (with little NR), very good B&W JPEG output
• 28mm fixed focal length (but with very HQ 21mm & 40mm teleconverters available)
• Professional, configurable menus unlike any other compact; phenomenally good IMO
• Beautifully built; magnesium alloy body, fantastic lens, excellent koala-tea of accessories
• Painfully slow write times for RAW (between 8-15 seconds depending on the card!)
• No buffer for RAW or JPEG so shot to shot time is slow
• Old (released in ’05) but still available new & koala-tea means second hand cameras are safe

Price: £260 new (Calument eBay), £150+ used (eBay)
Images: DPReview GRD Gallery

Ricoh GRD II

The sequel to the GRD; body, lens, fixed 28mm (with teleconverters) all remain as before…

• Builds on the GRDs reputation, adds extra features such as square format shooting
• Hugely improved RAW write times PLUS buffer for quicker shooting
• Higher megapixel count (10 up from 8 ) means more aggressive NR in JPEG: loses out-of-camera B&W possibilities
• Now-useable RAW mode means cleaner NR in RAW = GRDII is great with colour
• Cleaner NR in RAW means B&W still possible, but GRDIIs RAW B&W still inferior to GRDs JPEG

Price: £331 new (Clifton Cameras)
Images: B&W + Colour, getDPI forums

Ricoh GX200 (shown here with optional EVF)

A “softer” GRD II if you will; gets over some of the “limitations” of the GRD series…

• 12 megapixel sensor (Noise becomes an issue at high ISOs with so many pixels crammed into the sensor)
• 24mm-72mm lens with stepped zoom for “rounded” focal lengths, impressive f 2.4 at 24mm, drops to f 4.4 at 72mm
• All round koala-tea on par with GRD/GRDII, though lens is slightly softer (but when the GRD lens is so sharp…)
• Same excellent Ricoh UI, has GRDII option for square format photography
• Great accessory range including wide-angle (0.79x, down to 18mm!)and telephoto (1.88x, up to 135mm) adaptor & even adjustable EVF!

Price: £280 (without EVF kit), Amazon
Images: GX100 & GX200 images, getDPI forums

As well as the links above – which deal primarily with example images – I would urge anyone looking at Ricohs in general to have a look at the great photography of Wouter Brandsma, a GX200 user, the Ricoh GR-Diary blog, the Ricoh Forum and getDPI’s “Small Sensor Cameras” forum for lots of Ricoh GRD/GX talk and photography.

Next up… Some more serious compacts from various manufacturers…