Smitten

I managed to take the GR for a quick spin after work yesterday. Mind you I was on call. So, it was a quick escape while having dinner essentially.

Even on a 15 minutes spin, I could already see the potential. After my evening round, I went back to the apartment and downloaded the snaps onto my deskstop. I couldn't remember how many times I shook my head looking at the quality of the photos coming off the sensor.

There were a few observations though.

1) The camera tended to under expose. I disliked up the compensation by a third of a stop to get better exposure.

2) The on camera crop worked a treat. I programmed one of the function buttons to cycle through the standard 28mm, 35mm and 47mm zoom equivalent. A clever idea by Ricoh to build that feature in.

3) The jpeg capture was almost as good as the RAW provided that the underexposure was not too severe and could be corrected in post.

4) The black and white "filter" on camera was quite useful. I changed the setting to include some vignetting for better effect. It looked good.

On the whole, I still personally felt that snaps coming from my Fuji bodies were more pleasing colour wise. They also tended to get the white balance and skin tone more natural. The Ricoh may been some tweaking.

I was sure that there would be more snaps from this little gem in the coming fee days. Might take a couple of hours tomorrow afternoon to do a proper walk around Bukit Bintang may be.

A Thing of Beauty

I called my usual camera store to inquire if they have a used Ricoh GR in store after having a look at it at KLPF. I can see it being my designated pocket camera. I was lucky.

They just had a four-month old unit just in from last weekend and it was going for half the original price. Sounds fishy. But I must have a look.

After work, I stopped by the shop on my way home and had a closer look. I was smitten. It came with all the original parts and documentation. Plus it still held Ricoh manufacturer warranty for another 8 months. Shutter count acceptable. A bit of smudge here and there but no big deal. It was an aluminum body after all.

I paid extra for an external charger and a memory card. It still had the original pouch, not that I would be using that. Took it round the block for some snaps. My mind was made up.

I went home happy with the GR in hand. Would need to familiarise with the unit before I could really get the best of it. Maybe a photo walk or two. It was light and small enough to slip into my trouser pocket, although a bit bigger than the Sony RX100 III.

I took a series of snap at the apartment during lunch time and processed the jpeg. I still need to get the colour tone to my liking but certainly it had potential. More experimentation then.