Ricoh Finally got a GRD III

OK I've owned this camera for three weeks now so I figured I'd give an update. After using this camera on the streets of New York City and Philadelphia in both day and night I can say without a doubt this is the best compact camera I've ever used. My Nikon D300 is now gathering dust because I no longer need it for night street photography.

Pros
Small size
Ability to turn off the rear LCD (stealthy !)
Snap focus
F/1.9
No lag in manual or snap mode
3 My Settings
Locking mode dial
Excellent metering even at night
ISO at 800 is excellent ( haven't needed to use iso 1600 due to f/1.9 lens )
Simple menu
Easy and fast controls
Very sharp lens
Uses DNG
Excellent battery life with the DB-65 battery
Ability to use 2 AAA batteries in an emergency

Cons
Shoots both RAW + JPEG
 
Michael,

Thanks for that. How do you shoot at night - do you use manual or auto focus? I'm guessing you're shooting pretty close to f1.9, so the DOF isn't nearly what it is in good light, so you might not want to rely on hyperfocal or zone focusing? My experience with the LX-5 is hyperfocal is wonderful for good light shooting, but when the light it low I end up using the AF, which slows the whole operation down a fair amount. And I'm wondering how that works on the GRD3? Out of curiosity, have you tried the LX-5 (or LX-3)? They seem to have some of the same strengths, but of course they have a zoom lens, so probably not quite as sharp at the 28mm setting. Also, if you're turning off the LCD, are you framing on instinct or do you use an add-on OVF?

I have an LX5 and I'm having trouble seeing what the GRD 3 would improve on, but if you've used both, I'm curious. I'm having very mixed feelings about the X-100 and if I don't end up with one of those, I might look at a GRD...

-Ray
 
Michael,

Thanks for that. How do you shoot at night - do you use manual or auto focus? I'm guessing you're shooting pretty close to f1.9, so the DOF isn't nearly what it is in good light, so you might not want to rely on hyperfocal or zone focusing? My experience with the LX-5 is hyperfocal is wonderful for good light shooting, but when the light it low I end up using the AF, which slows the whole operation down a fair amount. And I'm wondering how that works on the GRD3? Out of curiosity, have you tried the LX-5 (or LX-3)? They seem to have some of the same strengths, but of course they have a zoom lens, so probably not quite as sharp at the 28mm setting. Also, if you're turning off the LCD, are you framing on instinct or do you use an add-on OVF?

I have an LX5 and I'm having trouble seeing what the GRD 3 would improve on, but if you've used both, I'm curious. I'm having very mixed feelings about the X-100 and if I don't end up with one of those, I might look at a GRD...

-Ray

I've used manual, snap and auto focus at night. It depends if I'm moving or standing still. I haven't had any problems with any of the settings. Since I shoot at night a lot I have "My setting 1" setup for snap focus, "My setting 2" for manual focus and "My Setting 3" for auto focus. I don't use an OVF, I'm use to framing with out a viewfinder from shooting from the hip with a Ricoh GR1s. I own a Leica D Lux 4 and a Canon S95 but I've had a chance to use a Panasonic LX5, Olympus X1, Sony NEX 5 and several others. I still find the GRD 3 a better camera for street photography. The DNGs coming from the GR 3 engine look more pleasing.
 
Thanks. I've done a lot of shooting blind from the hip or chest with the LX-5 and it was my preferred street camera until I found the Nex. Being able to hold the camera down lower and still see the screen and frame the shot is really nice with the Nex - INCREDIBLY nice. But it has a pretty loud shutter and no real manual focus tools for setting up zone focus or hyperfocal shooting, so I'm basically shooting in AF all the time with that - not that its ever let me down, but I'd love if it had a silent shutter. Not sure if I'll try a GRD or not, but its definitely on the list of possibilities. I've certainly seen some great street photography done with it, from you and a few other street shooters on Flickr, so it clearly isn't gonna hold anyone back.

Thanks much for the input.

-Ray
 
I've been waiting a long time for a firmware update.
I really thought they would allow Raw only.
Bummer as I won't buy the camera again until they do Raw only.

Other than that, it's a great camera.
 
You mean you have to shoot raw+jpeg to get raw files? That would seem to slow you down a bit and have pretty serious storage implications on an SD card. Although I guess if you can combine raw with the lowest quality jpeg it might not be that big a deal. Or am I misunderstanding?

-Ray
 
You mean you have to shoot raw+jpeg to get raw files? That would seem to slow you down a bit and have pretty serious storage implications on an SD card. Although I guess if you can combine raw with the lowest quality jpeg it might not be that big a deal. Or am I misunderstanding?

-Ray

The buffer can handle 4 shots so it doesn't slow you down. Set the jpeg to the smallest setting and uses next to no space. 8 gig card yields over 580 raw+jpeg 3:2 shots.
 
That doesn't sound too bad, as long as there's an easy way to strip them off during import or something. I guess they show up as two separate files in LR or Aperture?

-Ray
 
Just a comparison of an adjusted out of camera B&W jpeg compared with a RAW conversion of the same image. I know most people here will already know the advantages of working in RAW but I thought some people might find it interesting.
I'm not entirely sure I don't prefer the jpeg version even though it looses a lot of detail and is very contrasty.
5578180848_7e6bf745e2_b.jpg

View attachment 34574
 
Appreciate your doing this, Will. I see what you mean about preferring the jpeg version. I don't currently use jpegs, however if my X100 arrives before Lightroom supports the RAW, I will be using both jpeg and RAW. If you wanted to render your RAW file more like the jpeg - could you, have you?
 
Appreciate your doing this, Will. I see what you mean about preferring the jpeg version. I don't currently use jpegs, however if my X100 arrives before Lightroom supports the RAW, I will be using both jpeg and RAW. If you wanted to render your RAW file more like the jpeg - could you, have you?

Not to answer for Will, but SURE you could! The jpeg is produced from a RAW file using the camera designer's choices for how it should be processed, plus whatever relatively minor tweaks the user makes to the in-camera settings. If the user instead takes the RAW file and processes it himself or herself, all of the data is there that was used to create the jpeg, but the decisions about how to process it are now in the users hands. Whether one wants to do that or finds adequate value in that, or finds it easy or difficult or time consuming are other questions that have been beaten pretty well to death. But the data is absolutely there and if you process it for the effect of that jpeg, you'll get something that looks very close or identical to that jpeg.

-Ray
 
Mine was sort of a rhetorical question, at least the first one was - to further discussion. I am a RAW to DNG convert myself. Ray, yes - that's why I like to use the larger files...because of the access to more leeway.

I'm wondering, Will, what you usually do with your GRD III? Do you always shoot RAW + Jpeg?
 
I always shoot RAW plus Jpeg and usually use the Jpeg with some pp. since one of the reasons I like the GRD cameras is the GRD look of the jpegs. I use RAW to recover details if the exposure was a bit off or if the scene was just too hard for the camera to work out itself. I also have the RAW in reserve in case I want to revisit an image later and really work on it.
 
Hey, there's nothing like having a great jpeg. When I had my PEN cameras at first that was all I used either due to not having a choice (no software except iPhoto) or their RAW files not being supported.

Thanks for your feedback on how you go about things and why, Will.
 
Back
Top