GR User Forum

The spot for all Ricoh GR camera users

Register for free, meet other Ricoh GR users, share your images, help others, have fun!

Tell your friends about us!

GRDIII specimen set up matrix for boxes

Thanks Tom, I've grabbed a copy and having a look.

Further to Pavel's thoughts, I also would like to see Ricoh add a feature to be able to save users custom setup for the whole camera to a file on the SD card. Then if you lost or damaged your Ricoh you could move settings from camera to camera without reprogramming - you could backup these files on your Mac/PC. Further again, is some kind of inbuilt camera mini web server accessible via the USB to use a web browser to be able to set these parameters - this could make the layout clearer. This web interface idea is overkill and I would not like it introduced at the expense of something else, but it would be unique for Ricoh to do such a thing.
 
Ah ha! an aussie - that is why you are up ;) - sort of get used to talking to myself when addressing the rest of the world.

High winds up here yesterday and now we have a dust storm (again) today. Looking forward to a great summer ...

I agree that saving the Box-recipes is a good idea but also think that Ricoh might fill up at least three of the slots with some sort of bog-standard settings for those that do not wish to completely roll their own settings.

My little foray into this matter is directed at using the entire Ricoh GRDIII community to assist in getting some good-working (to coin a phrase) recipes in place. I have made the spreadsheet comprehensive but the recipes can actually be brief and I am appreciative of any comment as to what might make up the bare-bones recipe contents - most of the items in the spreadsheet show defaults left alone or other items which are more personal preference that fundamental camera-altering settings. These can be left out of bare-bones recipe design.
 
What would be great is if they would provide a way to save and import the file(s) to the card and published the file format so that we could build a utility (series of macros) in Excel that could do an import/export to the camera. While I agree that with the ease of embedded Linux it would not be hard to put on a HTML server, I think simple is better. If the open up the file format we could create the same sort of import/edit/export utility in Open Office as well. Perhaps even a iTouch/iPhone app!

B2 (;->
 
Bill you make my eyes water - and me just up to a pretty spreadsheet. ... (smile)

I was hoping that my little effort would set GRDIII users on fire but I am grateful for small encouragements. A similar set of posting on the Ricoh forum of dpreview has just about scrolled out of sight. Seems that it is a bit of a yawn over there. Real GRD users just create their own in a couple of minutes us slower witted ones need to 'do' a spreadsheet and get all cerebral about it (and plod along).

In reality many will just look and not comment (I am not looking for sycophantic praise - just an indication that I have not been wasting my time) Present company is excepted of course.

On the other hand it is a bit early and many GRDIII users might not have deeply delved into the Box settings as of yet - maybe they think that they are for pansy's ... and real GRDIII users just show a gritted jaw and twist the dials at the very moment they need to change settings with a dextrous snap of the fingers and a devil may care look in their eye ...

I am sorry that I have not reached the GRDIII doctorate of nirvana just yet - I need all the help I can get to fumble around my camera just hoping that I can get it right - well, next time perhaps.

One would have thought that all those experts moaning and groaning abut noise and lack of IQ in small sensors would be trying to get every help from the GRDIII's impeccable level of control and its great fast lens - ah but they would not own a GRDIII would they? So where are those GRDIII people that want to wring that extra gram of performance?

Oh but it is early days of yet - the word has not got around, surely there will be more movement at the station when Clancy gets his show? (Secret code known only to Australians - grin).

I am really not complaining it is only my perverse sense of humour .... :lol:
 
Tom,

had a quick look at your settings, have been watching this forum for a while and got my GRD III about a 2 weeks ago. Here's my settings, i only have 5 that i have set up so far. I also modified colour settings to mimimise pp work. Setting 1 for image is; Vividness +2, contrast +1 and sharpness +2, i use this for all colour. For B&W TE i use sepia with vividness -1, contrast +two and sharpness +2. I still have plenty to go with this understanding this camera but i really enjoy being able to have so much control. I am yet to work out the flash and i think that i probably will change some of the colour settings so a little less will need to be done in lightroom. Looking forward to seeing what others have decided upon, with so many different options it will take a long time to master this camera!

Will
 

Attachments

  • EXIF
    GRD III settings.xls
    31.2 KB · Views: 259
A thought occurs to me

Will

Perhaps this one is for Pavel?

It wold be good to get a consistent test subject and to have this subject shot with the various proposed settings that have been suggested by users then labelled with the setting used and placed in a file repository for inspection. In this manner the various settings can be compared in an objective sort of way. It would be a labour of love and not one that could easily be wished upon anyone though.

I can see the difficulty as everyone will have their own idea on how their images should look - hence my comment that no two GRDIII's will end up with identical set up configuration - it is impossible.

On a similar but earlier issue:

I did my own test shoot with every combination of sharpness and contrast for the GRDI

http://www.flickr.com/photos/49387980@N ... 295493690/

This is the lead picture in a series - they are not in a separate folder.

Tom
 
More on modifying Box and My settings

Easy set up for Boxes and My modes:

Set up whatever you like normally and then "Register my Settings" to either a My mode or a Box mode - whether under the same name or chose 'another'.

If you find that you have set up a My mode first then simply stay in that My mode and "Register my Settings" to a Box mode as well. If the setting slot is not already named and you leave that name unchanged then the default name will be applied which is date/time.

You can easily edit to the name of your choice later.

This allows you to:

1) Copy a Box mode to a My mode (over-write)

2) Save a current My mode in its temporary changed form for current use only (over-write it with the Box version later)

3) Save the current modified My mode as the Box mode version and also save it to the My mode. But you can leave the My mode as it was previously to modification and merely change the stored Box version.

If this is making your head spin then just re-read it slowly a few times - it is not that hard and is in truth a very useful and powerful feature. But it might be beyond those that just want a camera to take pictures in non-demanding situations.

Note that there are other items that can be stored in My or Box modes that only show in the Box Edit Mode therefore setting up via normal menu access does not give you 100%. See my spreadsheet for the items that are unique to BEM.

What comes to my mind is that the Box modes be limited to broad sweep general settings and that on the fly modifications in the field be stored to the current My mode being used.

If you decide that the new changes are not working then you can return to the current My mode easily enough.

If you like them and wish to keep them for the entire current session but do not wish to make this permanent then save the set up to the current My mode you are using - you can turn the camera on and off at will and the set will be restored.

You can recall the saved Box mode to the My mode when finished for the day and you are back where you started. However if you decide that this new version is exactly what you want then you can save it to the Box mode as the best yet setting for these circumstances.

Therefore the Box/My mode feature can be fine tuned over a period of time in a fairly painless manner with just a little thoughtfulness.

You don't have to go out on a limb and try and pre-program your camera like I might seem to have been suggesting. Perish the thought.

On the other hand it does lend weight to my suggestion that Ricoh might set up (say) four or five (leaving spares) bog-standard Boxes already filled up. Then the user would have something to start with having a Ricoh-standard introduced naming phraseology that they could happily ever after modify to their personal preferences - even over-write the supplied name and make the setting do something completely different if they so wished.
 
Tom, I like your idea about two levels of temporary changes to the My-modes: the latest stable version in the box, the current tryout version in the my-mode, and usual adaption to the situation for the "session". This is a mental model that makes it much easier to understand the my-modes. But I think Pavel's idea with swapping modes (which is not the way it currently works) is even easier on the mind; you have nine different modes, of which you at any time can use three from the mode dial. With Pavel's model it would be easy to copy a stable mode (switch to it and register in a new position), rename it to foo*, and do the tryout there, and when satisfied, discard the old mode.

About the flash compensation vs the EV compensation, I think the biggest problem with having both set by EVC is that you'd typically always lower the EV a lot for flash usage. Also, GRDs have ttl flash, while CXs doesn't, so I'd expect them to behave differently whatever the possible settings are.
 
The jury is still out

Tommy

Thanks for your reply - it is good to get feedback as you know that you are not just talking to yourself (and being slightly mad).

The more I think about it the more I like the idea of a 'floating' set of changes in the model I have proposed. It is more natural and you just have to get the idea of use in your head. The whole concept of Box modes supporting My modes is a brilliant innovation. Perhaps we might see some more of this for other 'high level' cameras? I don't think it will catch on generally as you have to be committed to working your camera in detail and the concept does take some mental adjustment - consequently it would be more of a disincentive to anyone who just wants to switch a camera on and 'take photographs'. However the question begging to be asked is that the same 'everyone' is trying to find the camera that makes every photograph they take perfect - why then do they wish to have 'auto mode'. Probably because they are busy or mentally lazy or both - one might then wonder why they bang on about great camera IQ if they are not using their personal IQ to make their photography better? The silly part of this whole argument is that if you spend a bit of time getting your Box modes tuned (it can be fun as well) then the future use of a GRDIII with your Box settings just right for your purpose should be simplicity itself - but erase your boxes before you ever sell it or you will be handing a killer machine to the next owner (smile).

Returning to the subject: I can see no reason why Box/My mode swapping as Pavel mentioned could not co-exist with the current method of use - but I would be very sad if Box/My mode swapping replaced the current path: Test in camera -> Box mode -> My mode -> alteration in use -> My mode (or save in Box) - the whole idea is positively brilliant once you get your head around it. However if you could swap Box/My modes as well then our heads would really be in a spin until we assimilated the complexity.

I knew that the GRD had ttl metering and the R series Flashmatic. However Ricoh obviously had some sort of proprietary tweak there that allowed the camera to read exposure and adjust it to what the EV control was telling it. I agree that the EV was always lower when flash was used and therefore had to be reset for non-flash use. It was just simpler that way. Now that the GRDIII has FVC and EVC that seem to work together as you might expect ie: FVC = coarse adjustment and EVC = fine adjustment I am happy and Ricoh now throw in a manual flash control for good measure - great thinking and probably one up on the other manufacturers who 'merely' give us FVC and EVC where I am not sure if they actually talk to one another.

I am still not sure if the CX flash works the same way - a few quick tests I did said not. I will have to give it another try. Common sense says it should work: big stick / small stick as in the GRDIII. If they don't work together then one might wonder how to adjust the EVC when flash is being used.

PS if Ricoh wants me to review their firmware/cameras before release - please just send me a copy (grin).
 
Technical manual?

The last silly remark reminded me of another earlier allusion to a technical manual.

Ricoh manuals are still written for committed users who actually read them - many will never plumb the depths of their camera because they will just learn the basics and reading manuals is just too hard.

I am the same way with TV's, computers and video recorders - just try and figure out the cables, walk through the set up process, cursing all the way and impatiently head for the moment when the durned box will give the gratification of just working well enough to do is job.

With cameras I read the manuals and press all the buttons until I figure out how to make them sing and dance. However the manuals don't really go into great depth and some items are only alluded to in a little (almost afterthought) note. Other useful functions are not explained at all and I think that there are probable nuances that are never really teased out - sometimes found out by accident.

The interaction of Box/My modes is a good example. It is barely documented and could fill quite a few more pages of the manual. Notably the Box mode edit menu is different from the other menus and contains settable functions that are not accessible elsewhere.

Now manuals are expensive and have to be pitched at general user level. Furthermore even the exquisite GRDIII has users that are capable of using it very well but neither wish to delve deeply into a manual nor do Ricoh necessarily wish to frighten off potential purchasers with manuals as big as a dictionary.

My point was that the GRDIII (especially) is deep enough to require a separate technical manual. I suggest that Ricoh should explain the philosophy of the camera and how it can be made to work at its best in a separate technical Manual that might be downloadable from their site. This would make it cheaper to produce and also hide the complexity from those that do not need it but at the same time give more committed manual-fanatics a chance to get their teeth into the real stuff.

For example a sample spreadsheet-type layout for Boxes as per my own spreadsheet effort would be part of this as well as my thoughts on how the Box/My modes might interact. There are other areas but I just use what is more obvious to me. I am sure that I and many others would be happy to have our technical ramblings submitted and then worked over by an experienced manual writer for this purpose.

There is no doubt that using this forum and others can disseminate the information quite effectively without need of input from Ricoh however I might be wrong in some of my assumptions and there is a lot of wind and hot air being cast about as I and others blunder about in the semi-light of knowledge found by testing (rather than by informed) trying to find the exact processes and answers.
 
Tom, much thanks for your insightful comments on educating GRD III users about the box settings usage scenarios. I am sure it will lead to new discoveries by people both in their understanding of the camera, as well as in their photography. I know I am already planning my Box Settings and how and when I'd copy them into My Settings.

What I think you could consider as a way of sharing the spreadsheet is by having it community edited, or managed through a site like Google Docs, or Scribd. Perhaps you and Pavel would be owners of the master doc and take in additions via either permission based access, or manually allow them to be merged, as you see fit. There are other sites for document sharing, obviously, this is just an idea to perk your interests.

As to socializing the concepts involved here, perhaps a well rounded user story might be added to the document, so as to illustrate the points beyond the time-saving effort needed to recreate useful settings. This story, or perhaps even stories with the help of many, would give insight into how particular settings affect some in their creative efforts.

Finally, I fully agree with Pavel that Ricoh should provide presets for these boxes, perhaps attached to a firmware update, to illustrate the creative possibilities and encourage the experimenters out there. Is there a way for an email-write-in campaign to be initiated towards this that Ricoh would take seriously?

Thanks again for all of you making this happen!
Karoy
 
KaRoy

Thanks for your insights and I find your thoughts helpful. I am not aware (or was not previously aware) of community edited documents but it seems a good way to handle and manage a Ricoh-user tool such as my spreadsheet was designed to be.

Recognition for ones efforts is often the best form of payment. Thank you.

Pavel may have an opinion on this.

I would suggest that the principle of laziness will prevail for most and the majority of GRDIII users will never fully explore the Box modes or really use them unless Ricoh set up some specimens. However to set up specimens might be an 'Aunt Sally' where targets are made only to have rocks thrown at them. I guess the first thing Ricoh might get is criticism that they are not suitable, not good enough, or just smack of being an up-market set of scene modes.

My experience has been - a good bit of effort to master the Box settings - set up a few and then sort of just use the modes set in My Modes to the point that I am starting to glaze over on the finer points - even on my own rhetoric.

The GRDIII needs constant nourishment and one must continue to play with her regularly less we forget which buttons we have to press to make her smile (and just giggle a little).

Other cameras I can put down for months and then pick them up and be away again. It is not that the GRDIII is hard to use - it's just that I cannot always remember those little secret tricks - I will have to get the manual out so that I can remember how to magnify the screen for fine focusing - is it hold the ok button in? or ... Just checked - right first time - nice that you are not forced to use it. But unless you re-try it every so often it is easy to forget.

Remember that if you are in a My mode then press: Menu - Up Arrow - Menu - then half press shutter you are in whatever PASM mode you selected to 'go' with that My setting and you can now adjust your manual settings without ever leaving the basic My mode that you had selected and without altering your remembered PASM mode settings. Neat trick but you have to practice it and also decide and set up what mode you exit into. Also you are not changing your My mode in the process unless you decide to save these settings. It has the ability to make any aspiring photographic genius the star that they want to be once mastered but it might just bee too heavy for many.

But this is what I am saying over and over again. The GRDI&II were simple powerful tools. The GRDIII is similar and can be used that way just as well but it has a few afterburners built in that once ignited can make this little baby fly in the right hands.

Tom
 
Just experimented with live theatre shots from the audience using the GRDIII in silent mode.

Several things came of this some good and some bad.

My tests of the GRDIII at a circus with my 'circus' settings showed that it can work well for this use even if the wide is a bit limiting - the atmosphere can be caught and the wide range of lighting can be coped with - especially by correcting the image lighting casts and tweaking dynamic range through raw capture.

I had my 'quiet' mode set up more for street type shooting so I corrected it and saved this back into camera closer to 'circus' as an amended My mode. This worked well enough but the circumstances of being in an audience meant that I was shooting blind and relying solely on the focus tell-tale. I could not review what I had captured until interval. After interval for some reason unknown to myself I must have copied my Box setting for quiet mode back uo to the My mode I was using and of course the remaining images were horribly over-exposed. To simply take 'circus' mode and make it 'quiet' with one click would have been a dream.

This brings to the fore the need for a one-click switch to silent & quiet mode that can be applied to any other Box/My setting currently in use. A user cannot predict what sort of quiet mode might be necessary as quiet can apply to a lot of different lighting and location circumstances. As setting the camera to quiet requires up to five different adjustments currently and these are scattered through the menu it is not a real possibility to do this quickly when it is needed.

In my chart I have put blue rectangles and joining lines to show which settings are linked - it can readily be seen that the quiet mode settings are the most awkward to implement. I have not even tried to venture the sound settings as well - I switch all noises off on all my digital cameras - others who might switch sound off only for a quiet mode have added complications.

Tom
 
Tom Caldwell":23k9nqv8 said:
To simply take 'circus' mode and make it 'quiet' with one click would have been a dream.

This brings to the fore the need for a one-click switch to silent & quiet mode that can be applied to any other Box/My setting currently in use. A user cannot predict what sort of quiet mode might be necessary as quiet can apply to a lot of different lighting and location circumstances. As setting the camera to quiet requires up to five different adjustments currently and these are scattered through the menu it is not a real possibility to do this quickly when it is needed.

In my chart I have put blue rectangles and joining lines to show which settings are linked - it can readily be seen that the quiet mode settings are the most awkward to implement. I have not even tried to venture the sound settings as well - I switch all noises off on all my digital cameras - others who might switch sound off only for a quiet mode have added complications.

Tom


There are moments when you get a sudden flash of inspiration. After worrying about multiple quiet modes I found a simple way.
 
Simple way to make any My/Box setup 'quiet'

I had thought I would specifically have to set up a quiet mode and was asking for a single toggle to do this. The single toggle might still be a good idea but there is a pretty good work-around available right now.

The modes: Power Button Lamp; AF Aux Light; LCD Confirmation Time; and Information Display Mode are global and once set affect all setups used. Therefore if you can live with the first three off and the last on for all setups then there is scope for quiet mode. In fact the only setting that is assignable to seperate settings is the Display Mode.

Consequently if the first four are set globally the only one that differs from quiet mode is the display. Well, hang-on, the display is controlled seperately by the Display Button. Uh oh - doh, slap on forehead ....

No need to set Quiet as any specific separate mode - scratch one mode necessary - just set the global settings correctly and then any setting can become a 'Quiet' mode - whoopee - ideal. Set mode then press display until the screen goes off ...

Wait a minute - the Information Display Mode does not come on when this happens like it does otherwise - bother!

Everything appears dead - but the camera is fully functioning.

... but press F1 (left arrow) and the information display (only) lights up on demand (for a second or so) - neat.

All is forgiven - this is another easy set up and logical action once we work out the undocumented feature. Now I can have quiet mode over any other set up used.
 
I am loading up a revised Setup Modes Matrix Spreadsheet

Changes - I have dumped 'quiet' mode in the light of the fact that I no longer think it necessary as a separate mode. I have added a 'Macro' mode and a 'DOF' mode which is similar to 'Good Light' except starts at Aperture = F9.0. Call DOF 'Landscape' and Good Light 'Portrait' if you wish. Circus is still shown as Circus but 'Spotlight' might be better as it is a mode for capturing subjects under strong light without them getting blown away. I have also tidied up the general detail and added a summary of some shortcuts at the foot - let me know if I have missed any. In view of the fact that the GRDIII stores raw files at a reasonable speed I have now moved to raw format for everything except 'Quick'.



The spreadsheet is still quite colourful - I intend to remove the colour scheme once I have settled it down a bit - in the meantime it helps me find the settings I have more or less decided on and separates out the less important settings and the ones that I am just trialling.

No doubt anyone that cares to use it will make their own decisions and adapt to suit.

I don't think it would serve much purpose to continue to post up variations - it will just get confusing - I hope this is of use to those who need a place just to start from.

Tom
 

Attachments

  • EXIF
    RicohGRDIII.xls
    23 KB · Views: 177
Hi Tom,

What do you think, should I start new topic just for Matrix files? The problem of current post is that people may overlook the attached matrix file. So maybe a separate topic just for attached matrix files and index of available matrixes in first post (done by me) could be much more reliable solution?
 
Yes I agree Pavel

I sort of get verbose and off the subject a bit.

The latest spreadsheet upload will supersede any earlier references - it will be a works in progress for some time yet but I tought it might be a stater and time saver for those that wish to follow this path.

Others might well embellish it and perhaps one day some sort of subset can find its way into an official GRD manual?

My duh-oh moment over Quiet mode does make the fact that many of the silent mode switches are global more relevent - they had best stay outside individual boxes now that I happened upon an easy-fix. But most might wish to be able to switch silent mode features off and on more easily - almost needs a sub-setting for those items you like to be on normally ie: AF assist light = on and shutter button light = off, etc and this subset can be toggled on and off a one press - linked to display button? Disp+another button or the wheel?

Please feel free to edit down my posts and just keep the knowledge bits and make it a separate reference topic - otherwise the subject is going to be buried in trivia (mostly mine) smile.
 
Back
Top