Ricoh GR II

[Walt]

P.S. I've just noticed that these images look much better when you click on them. Maybe the Leica forum was always like that and I never noticed.

 

[Sean_Reid]

Sean:

Sometimes the blown highlights can be intentional as in the following picture, which I've posted before, and which is one of my favourites because I feel it expresses the loneliness and alienation of living in a huge, hot city, somewhat in a manner of an Edvard Munch painting, (although I'm not claiming the same quality). The blown out highlight around the woman are intentionally induced in post-processing, as is the heightened contrast, to express the bright light and heat:

Hi Mitch,

In your pictures its a bit different because you tend to increase the contrast so far that some of the pictures almost start to look like lithographs and, as such, the white areas actually become forms. It's a different kind of picture then.

Cheers,

Sean

 

[mwalker]

I just bought a GR II to pocket even when my M8 is to big. Its small and easy to use. I'll post some pictures when I figure out how to post pictures.

 

[Sean_Reid]

For those who haven't used one, the M8 is not a svelte handler, it is a bit of a clunker in my experience. Sean disagrees with me, but I find the handling of the GRD much better than that of the M8.

The M8 is one of the best handling digital cameras I've ever used, as is the Epson R-D1. Walt and I are friends, have great respect for each other's work and have very different views about the M8. I love it, warts and all, and he can barely stand it despite (or because of) owning two bodies. And the reason for that, in part, is that different people need, and want, different things from cameras.

But, so far, I think the two Ricoh cameras I've reviewed have the best designed controls of any compact small sensor cameras I've tested. I do like them very much and think they have much to offer. And fortunately, we can appreciate their strengths without needing to run down the strengths of any other cameras. <G>

Cheers,

Sean

 

[dlw]

Sean:

Sometimes the blown highlights can be intentional as in the following picture, which I've posted before, and which is one of my favourites because I feel it expresses the loneliness and alienation of living in a huge, hot city, somewhat in a manner of an Edvard Munch painting, (although I'm not claiming the same quality). The blown out highlight around the woman are intentionally induced in post-processing, as is the heightened contrast, to express the bright light and heat:

Hi Mitch.

About the aspect ratio of the image: For me there is a lot of importance in the relative height and width of the image - I think it changes everything.

Plus, painting aside, I associate the 35mm format with a totally different aesthetic - and when I pointed out that the GRII was using what has become the standard digital proportion I was, by extension, pointing out that Leica was trying to hold onto the 35mm rangefinder aesthetic by keeping that proportion, yet in the context of the thread what was being established was the opposite - the Ricoh was for some people a more suitable heir to the Leica rangefinder tradition.

About your personal ideas of photographs and expressivity: You may be right and I won't argue with you, but I think Garry Winogrand makes a very well stated case for how you might be wrong about your ideas of what a photograph is and isn't capable of and I think you should at least be aware of it if you aren't already. You can view an excerpt of him discussing what he calls "the picture problem" in this video: http://www.jimarnold.org/downloads/winogrand/ and you can Google "winogrand interviews" and come up with a lot more to read, if you are interested in it.

- David

 

[dlw]

The photograph below is a recent ISO 200 image from the II. I'm looking forward to getting back to photography after a couple of weeks of goofing around learning the PP issues for the camera. The GRD II has been very liberating for me after a year of struggles and toil with the M8 problems.

Walt

I had somewhat of an angst-hangover all day and thought I wouldn't post for a bit, but Walt, that's a great picture and it's made my day.

- David

 

[Walt]

Sean and others,

So let me try to "run down" the Ricoh to keep things in balance. I've little experience with autofocus and I'm normally just zone focusing the Ricoh, which seems to work just fine. But I like the idea of the "electric rangefinder" using the function switch to go into auto focus and then locking that into the manual mode by pushing the FN switch again. But when I auto focus with the Ricoh and then lock it, the manual focus scale seems to show almost random numbers--in a test just now, five meters on something that was about a meter away and then when I moved ten cm closer, suddenly half a meter, etc. Both my cameras do this and, as a matter of fact they don't at all agree on focus judging by what they show on the manual scale. Is this just something that doesn't work? I have an intuition, without quite being able to confirm it (other than visually on the camera LCD), that the autofocus is working, but the manual focus scale is not. The manual focus scale does seem to work when using it manually (though it jumps oddly and will only land at certain spots), but not when coming from autofocus with the presumably locked measurement.

Walt

 

[Walt]

I had somewhat of an angst-hangover all day and thought I wouldn't post for a bit, but Walt, that's a great picture and it's made my day.

- David

Thanks David. I've had an angst-hangover for about a year, but I won't say what from while Sean is listening.

 

[Mitch Alland]

...On the other issue of comparison, the GRD, compared to the M8, makes me invisible to people I am photographing to an amazing extent. In thinking why this is so dramatic, I realized that when I shot with the M4s, that was a typical sized camera you'd see tourists with. Today the M8 is a distinctly large camera and the GR-D puts me back in with the tourists. So, this is a huge advantage to me...

Walt:

To me the big difference between how people react to my M6 and my GRD is mainly because I bring the M6 up to my eye to look through the viewfinder while I just hold the GRD away from my face to frame with the LCD; the size of the cameras does matter in that the GRD is so small that it makes me look like a tourist. I cannot believe that people will react differently to an M8 vs an M4 because the M8 is only a few millimeters thicker, and perhaps a millimeter of so taller, so to a bystander there is no difference. Now, for the photographer, the few millimeter difference is another matter: wen I picked up the M8 in my hands I was, indeed, surprised that it felt klunkier because of these few millimeters; but I'm sure that after a few days shooting I would get used to it and wouldn't think about it again.

—Mitch/Bangkok
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10268776@N00/

 

[Mitch Alland]

...About your personal ideas of photographs and expressivity: You may be right and I won't argue with you, but I think Garry Winogrand makes a very well stated case for how you might be wrong about your ideas of what a photograph is and isn't capable of and I think you should at least be aware of it if you aren't already...

David:

I think it's worth discussing, if not arguing. The trouble is that I don't think that I've said much about photography except that I try to make expressive — and I generally prefer to let the photographs speak for themselves. I've seen the Winogrand video and don't see how it counters my ideas about photography...

—Mitch/Bangkok
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10268776@N00/

 

[Mitch Alland]

...but but but... my GRD died, lens out. having absolutely no self-control (and not being able to deal with being cameraless for a few weeks), i bought the GRD II. the difference is astounding -- and i don't think it's merely the 2 megapixels. it's made me realise what i was calling 'operator error' really was the lens failing....

Cam, what happened? How did your GRD break down?

—Mitch/Bangkok
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10268776@N00/

 

[Will]

I offered to post some test images but the weather here is really bad today so all I have done is some very boring shots just for the purpose of looking at noise. I set each camera up the same and used the same setting for all of them in Photoshop to convert to jpg. Only thing I maybe should have done is use manual exposure, which I didn't, so there is some variation there. Please excuse the lack of creativity, they aren't really worthy of posting in this thread. Hope they are of use.

http://www.flickr.com/gp/8076775@N02/t4KpJo

 

[wbrandsma]

I see little difference between the ISO 400 images of the GX100 and the GRD2 concerning noise. Did you use auto WB for both cameras? I've read that the GRD has an intriguing auto WB that can create stunning colors at low light (almost like cross processing). See the images of Nacoki on Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/nacoki/sets/72057594061269305/). The GX has a more accurate WB. Could the GRD2 be more in line with the GX100? Can users of both cameras acknowledge that?

 

[Mitch Alland]

Thanks for the effort, Will. I've looked at them at some length, ignoring the colour differences, and also grain, but trying to see the the rendition of textures. Looking at only the ISO400 shots what I see — or what I think I see, in case I'm just following my earlier conclusion — is that the GRD and GRD2 shots, ignoring the fact that the grain of the latter is finer, show a similarly crisp rendition of the textures, while the GX100 rendition is substantially softer. It also seems to me that the GRD2 has the best dynamic range.

I'l be interested to see what others conclude.

—Mitch/Paris
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10268776@N00/

 

[Sean_Reid]

Sean and others,

So let me try to "run down" the Ricoh to keep things in balance. I've little experience with autofocus and I'm normally just zone focusing the Ricoh, which seems to work just fine. But I like the idea of the "electric rangefinder" using the function switch to go into auto focus and then locking that into the manual mode by pushing the FN switch again. But when I auto focus with the Ricoh and then lock it, the manual focus scale seems to show almost random numbers--in a test just now, five meters on something that was about a meter away and then when I moved ten cm closer, suddenly half a meter, etc. Both my cameras do this and, as a matter of fact they don't at all agree on focus judging by what they show on the manual scale. Is this just something that doesn't work? I have an intuition, without quite being able to confirm it (other than visually on the camera LCD), that the autofocus is working, but the manual focus scale is not. The manual focus scale does seem to work when using it manually (though it jumps oddly and will only land at certain spots), but not when coming from autofocus with the presumably locked measurement.

Walt

Hi Walt,

It's most likely that the AF sensor is locking on different things as it focuses. Very slight movements will do that. I most often use these cameras as if AF didn't exist.

Cheers,

Sean

 

[Will]

The white balance was so inconsitent that I set them all to use the same WB in photoshop before converting to jpg. I'd be happy to do it again without if you like but I felt that most people would use manual wb in real life anyway. Out of the four images the closest out of camera auto wb was the ISO 200 GRD file, the worst was the GRD2 file .

 

[Sean_Reid]

Hi Mitch.

About the aspect ratio of the image: For me there is a lot of importance in the relative height and width of the image - I think it changes everything.

I agree that aspect ratio is very important. I also feel that there is no such thing as a, general, "better" or "worse" aspect ratio but there certainly are aspect ratios that can be better or worse for a given photographer. I think that finding one's natural format and one's natural aspect ratio can be important.

Cheers,

Sean

 

[cam]

Cam, what happened? How did your GRD break down?

after being funky all day, it died saluting, lens fully extended. multiple attempts at resuscitation failed. Marcel asked if i had bashed the lens, but i hadn't. i think it was suffering from day one, only i wasn't experienced enough to know.

i love love love the GRD II, but i will be more than happy to get the original back as well. the GRD II is way more delicate, at least to my mind, in the ways you can manipulate the photos. also, for bright light it's a no brainer -- the original is the way to go. most of my initial observations from your pics still stand, by the way. (except i was wrong on the second pic being closer to the GRD. the first was, indeed, more reminiscent. i was just enthralled with the silky blacks which seem to be much easier to obtain on the II.)

i was lemming the GRD II, all along to test the 21mm lens when i go to Normandie. the light will be low so a high ISO is a necessity. i personally wouldn't mind getting a few exquisite shots! maybe i willed my original to die so i had an excuse to have both? and you thought i had restraint -- so i starve for the rest of the month.... will make a better silhouette

anyways, a question to all on the AUTO-HI option. it defaults on 400, but you can set it up to 800 or even 1600. does this mean it will automatically choose to shoot at the higher level or does it just give the camera a wider berth to use?

 

[Hank Graber]

The M8 is one of the best handling digital cameras I've ever used, as is the Epson R-D1. Walt and I are friends, have great respect for each other's work and have very different views about the M8. I love it, warts and all, and he can barely stand it despite (or because of) owning two bodies. And the reason for that, in part, is that different people need, and want, different things from cameras.

But, so far, I think the two Ricoh cameras I've reviewed have the best designed controls of any compact small sensor cameras I've tested. I do like them very much and think they have much to offer. And fortunately, we can appreciate their strengths without needing to run down the strengths of any other cameras. <G>

Cheers,

Sean

For me it all depends on whether you are shooting color or B+W. I could see why some would stick with film in B+W and if I was shooting B+W exclusively I could see dumping my M8 and using a GRD for the sorts of photography the M was originaly designed for. But I do mostly color and when I went to color I switched to MF rangefinders because the mushy grain of color dyes was nothing like the sharp silver grain of B+W. I suppose the M8 maybe more Mamiya 7 then M4 which if you shoot color is not a bad thing but if you want a digital M4 TriX and Rodinal replacement maybe not so much.

The other thing the M8 gives you in B+W if you are shooting events for pay is more leeway in the image. If you need to crop or salvage an image out of poor lighting the M8 image files are your friend. A small sensor camera could be very unforgiving in those circumstances.

I think eventually we will get the best of both worlds for color or B+W as the GRD develops or maybe from a camera like the Sigma DP1 - maybe even Leica will bring out a small M or M like camera. I'd like to be able to have color masters that I could use if I wanted color and I think the small sensor cameras are not nearly as effective as they are for B+W when the end product is color.

So given all that, there really is not an alternative for me to the M8. I'm with Sean that it is the best handling digital yet but to put that in perspective that's not a very high bar to clear if your preference is manual focusing rangefinders.

 

[Sean_Reid]

Welcome Hank.

Cheers,

Sean