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focus on imaging 2008 anyone going?

Ha! First RicohForum meeting! ;) Too bad I will not be there. Maybe next year? I hope we will organize some RicohForum meetings in a future!

BTW, guys, don't forget to visit the Sigma booth and ask the staff for permission to take some DP1 shots! They will probably not allow that but we may never know? And if they say yes, then please take also some equivalent Ricoh shots so we can compare them! Feel free to tell them you are from RicohForum ;)
 
Yes, a Ricoh Forum meeting sounds like a good idea.

The Focus is over for today and a short summary and pictures on my blog and Flickr account. More will follow tomorrow.
 
Thanks for report Cristian! Well, I expected the Sigma guys will not allow you to use your own card ;) Nice to see both cameras side by side! Is it just my impression that the DP1 LCD is not that good as it should be? The GRDII LCD looks definitely better.
I look forward to read more about your hands-on experience and DP1 performance! ;) Thanks for sharing your thoughts and pics!
 
You are welcome, I hope that I have it all done by this evening.

The Ricoh GRD II screen is a lot better with clearer colors, wider viewing angle, higher resolution and most important higher refresh rate.
The DP1 screen is more like the GRD I screen but with a slower refresh rate. Paning around does not work well.

The Ricoh GRD is better crafted in every respect and aside from the larger sensor and manual focus wheel I do not see much going for the DP1. The DP1 and accessories are made out of plastic and feel like this, there is no grip on the DP1, the OVF is dark and the framelines difficult to see, the camera reacts slow and the RAW write time is around 4-5sec. without a buffer.

But more on my blog later today.
 
Well, that's not very encouraging to hear about these DP1 quirks. Some minor things can be charged to an account of the "preproduction" status of the DP1. But things like bad LCD refresh rate, viewing angles and used materials are probably not this case? I'm still sure it will have it's strengths, mainly in wider dynamic range and so highlight recovery. I'm not quite sure about high ISO performance, but we will see? I'm really curious about this beast and how dows it compare with GRDII. Because the wider dynamic range is not everything!

BTW, just today, I got a message from Sigma about the DP1 sample I asked them for. Unfortunately, at the moment they are overfilled with similar requests from all around the world and they cannot send me the sample right now. I have to say that I fully understand that. There are better established and more important photographic webs than RicohForum. But this is not the end of the world. In fact, they did not say no! ;) They just cannot send it right now. And in the end, I will probably buy one? I just hoped to get one sample and compare it with GRDII a bit sooner than after the official release.
 
I would like to see a proper comparisson between the GRD II and the DP1 with some real world high DR shots to see how much you can get out of both cameras.

So far the DP1 is too expensive for the build quality of the camera and the controls are not very convincing. But I love the focus wheel as it works fast and gives good feedback, considering the slow AF you will need it more than you think.
 
Great report Cristian! Too bad to hear about all these quirks, but hey! There is always a room for improvements! ;)

These Sigma samples look really great. Too bad there is no big and fast buffer in DP1. That's really strange policy not to add a fast and reasonable sized buffer into DP1? But it's not only Sigma's problem. Even the GRDII dual buffer is so so! Why there is no continuous shooting in RAW? How much could be let's say 512MB of memory in these days?

I really hope the DP1 will be a "push" factor for other manufacturers to return to their "prosumer compact" roots. I think Sigma already proved that it's possible to design pocketable camera with large sensor and with great wide lens. I see the bright future for all "ultimate pocket camera" lowers ;)
 
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