Here are my impressions that I wrote on my blog yesterday evening. Unfortunatelly the NR is still not fully off or a great deal better but there is a slight improvement. I need to test this more with long exposures and different NR settings but it does not look like the NR is really off, more improved.
Today, Ricoh released the new firmware update for the GRD II. It offers the following function enhancements:
- Auto aperture setting to avoid overexposure,
- White balance adjust option like in the R8 and GX200
- Noise reduction on only when over ISO 400, 800 or only at ISO 1600
Of all these features I expected the NR option to finally bring some change to the smearing but I've been wrong, jpgs are still unusable although slightly better. Tested with two GRD II's next to each other and the one with the new firmware had slightly more noise and was sharper but this could have been just different metering. The GRD I produced better but underexposed images at the same settings.
The Auto Aperture setting works as long as you don't reach the lowest aperture and fastest shutter speed or the camera will crash. So not really usable in all instances and could cause you to miss shots.
The WB adjust option was the feature I thought least useful since the jpgs are not really useful for me and it looked too slow to adjust when shooting. The good news is that it is the best feature and pretty fast and easy to adjust when shooting. Yes, the jpgs are not usable and it does not apply to RAW files but it's a cool idea.
Be aware that you can adjust it during shooting even when using RAW but during playback only when using jpg WITHOUT RAW. Also as mentioned, the settings do not apply to RAW even if you select camera WB.
The other enhancements were not really important for me. Like displaying the correct ISO when using Auto ISO or Auto High ISO.
