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GRD2 MANUAL FOCUS PROBLEM

RFH

New Member
I have a problem: I just bought a used GRD2 in fine condition, but there is an issue with the MF/SNAP modes. The images are out of focus and super noisy. I have tried different distances, and it's the same in all situations.
When I use AF mode, focus is spot on, and the resolution is very nice, but of course I need all focus modes to work.
I upgraded the firmware directly from 1.0 to 2.4, but I don't know if the MF problem was there or not before the upgrade. Should the updates be installed in sequence, or are all improvements included in 2.4?

Does anyone have an opinion or solution to offer?

ISO 80, RAW, Spot AF on Lighter Fluid (1 meter). f 2.4 - 1/6s. 100% crop, no sharpening.
picture-2.png


ISO 80, RAW, MF on Lighter Fluid (1 meter). f 2.4 - 1/6s. 100% crop, no sharpening.
picture-3.png
 
My guess is that the MF distance is not precisely set to 1m? MF distance is hard to set on the GRD because the focus is not set in steps. As you can see, the wall behind the lighter fluid is more or less the same sharp on both pictures. Not exactly the same, but very similar. In my opinion, the fluid lighter is at closer distance than 1m.

Could you please post somewhere (or send me at support(at)ricohforum.com) both original photos (JPEG is enough). I want to check the focus distance recorded in both photos (in their EXIF).
 
Regarding the firmware question - the most recent upgrade includes all the previous fixes so there is no need to install older updates or install in sequence.
 
Another example. I tried a lot of different settings today with manual focus. I shot everything on a tripod to eliminate camera shake. When shooting down the street MF gives no sharp results, not 1m, snap, 7m or infinity. Something ought to be in focus at one of these settings.

I tried finding the focus setting in the exif data, but that's the one piece of information I just can't seem to locate anywhere. If you can find it, Pavel, I'm curious to know the result.

Manual focus at infinity, f 2.4. Shot as JPEG.
0015412.jpg


Auto focus at the far distance, f 2.4. Shot as JPEG.
0015413.jpg
 
So, I checked the files and the result is that the one with proper focus has focus distance set to 0.41m. The other one has the focus set to infinity. So in my opinion, there is something wrong with the lens assembly. I saw a very similar problem with GX100 and GRDI. True, I only experienced this problem with the Infinity distance and not with manually set/Snap distance. So I think your only chance is to sent the camera to Ricoh service?

As for the information how to examine the Focus distance in Ricoh EXIF, here it is...

All you need to do is to extract the complete EXIF data from an unmodified photo. Once the photo is edited, all Ricoh specific tags are most probably gone. To extract all Ricoh tags you need to run exiftool (an open source EXIF reader/writer) using this command line:
exiftool -a -u -g1 "path\to\src.jpg" > "path\to\dest.txt"

Open the exported txt file and search for Ricoh Subdir 0x0008 tag. This EXIF tag holds the focus distance. Now you need to perform a simple math operation:
67108914/value of tag = focus distance in meters where the value of 67108914 is an equivalent of 1m. So in your case it's 67108914/163446832 = 0.411m

All credit to discovery of the translation math goes to Gerd Waloszek, a member of this forum and a very knowledgeable man! I only found the focus distance tag. Hope this helps?
 
Pavel,

Thanks so much for your help. I downloaded Exiftool, but I'm not good at command lines, so I couldn't make it work.
I tried using the AE lock (AF>Fn button>Focus loads into MF scale). No matter what I focus on and then perform the AE lock, the MF distance scale is always below 1 meter, so something is definitely wrong with the way the camera talks to the lens.
I bought it 2nd hand, so I don't want to spend money fixing it.
Well, luckily the seller has a GRD, which I can get in exchange. Something tells me I'll be quite happy with it, even with slow RAW write times. Time to start shooting jpegs.
 
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