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Ricoh GXR

Tom, I can't evaluate the accuracy of what you say - and to be honest, I haven't been following your arguments very closely - but perhaps Ricoh had no choice. Sometimes companies have to reinvent themselves to prosper and with new competition from Canon and Panasonic I don't blame Ricoh from being creative in response. At the very least, I think the GXR is a proactive move.

This camera has been out a day - it's not the end of the world. It can be a technical flop (or not), a sales flop (or not), but it is too early to say and I for one am very curious to see what happens.

Relax, enjoy your cameras and let's see how it works out. :geek:
 
Prog

Thank you for your wise summary - I fully endorse what you are saying.

I sort of put myself out on a limb trying to predict something from rumours - a lonely place to be and very likely the branch will snap. At least I was wise enough to make my own predictions as a result of the rumours and my reasoning was more correct than the rumours themself: compromises had to be made and the price was going to be high. At least I did not subscribe to the happy fantasy that Ricoh could overcome the laws of physics and make something no one else had been able to achieve. Ricoh were innovative but I think their business model to sell these things is a bit off track.

I had hoped that they would adopt a course that would see cheap split lenses as the modus operandi and perhaps this would have allowed them to have a nice expensive body and flood the market with lens types at prices that might be irresistible. However they have chosen to go with the surprising lens/sensor cartridge - innovative and out of the box that must be admired it does throw up the question of who might be the brave early adopters who will stump up premium prices for nice but not revolutionary lens packs? We must admit that the lenses currently on offer may work well but they are not standout enough to sell this system by themself. Promises of more lenses are not going to make buyers rush to buy something whose price is hard enough to swallow already. When someone has you by the price throat you are hardly about to try and gasp out "squeeze harder".

So what is curently offered as an attraction? Lots of gee-whizz accessories? Not priced and perhaps mock ups not far past ideas? Wow - I have enough camera toys cluttering up the place without cluttering it up with more. Give me some cheap lenses and the accessories will mature on me.

So "Plan B": get people using the back by allowing access to their existing dslr lenses on a Ricoh back. Seems a great idea to me but Ricoh have just left this option open. I hope this is only a corporate straight face as they need to get a lot of users out there using their backs and quick or their accessory ploy will fall flat as well.

Full size major make colour laser printers are now as low as AUD$350 here - I hate to think how much a GXR printer cartridge might cost let alone cost to run - nice small cute package but we are in real world today - I can wait until I get home to print my pics.
 
socket":pckw1hqq said:
Tom, I can't evaluate the accuracy of what you say - and to be honest, I haven't been following your arguments very closely - but perhaps Ricoh had no choice. Sometimes companies have to reinvent themselves to prosper and with new competition from Canon and Panasonic I don't blame Ricoh from being creative in response. At the very least, I think the GXR is a proactive move.

This camera has been out a day - it's not the end of the world. It can be a technical flop (or not), a sales flop (or not), but it is too early to say and I for one am very curious to see what happens.

Relax, enjoy your cameras and let's see how it works out. :geek:
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Thanks for the comments. I should relax - I don't own shares in the company - I only prop their market price up (smile)

I suppose it is just the accountant/business adviser in me coming out - it is hard to break the working habit of a lifetime. I guess I can see a bad business strategy when I see one - I have been consistently up the creek without a paddle since I took up making predictions from the only information available to me. So nobody should be listening to my rants. The die has been cast and we all must relax and wait for all the others to buy these cameras.

Most everyone is saying 'oh wow' but waiting for someone else to buy. Lets just wait for the rush. I am waiting. Anyone care to make a promise to buy one based on what they know so far?

Nothing would please me more than to see this camera a raging success - I am not expressing my doubts out of churlishness - I thought I used common sense. "Oh wow" by itself never sold cameras people have to actually commit to buying them with their own money.
 
Tom, I believe the GXR concept will be successful. Maybe not immediately in Europe, maybe not in the US, but definitely in Japan. What I appreciate on this system is new approach to camera design. I understand people's disappointment from absence of proper lens mount. But I believe the A12 and S10 are just starting units. I'm pretty sure there will be more lens cartridges invented and one day most probably also one with lens mount for selected lens mount. There is a serious demand for such thing and Ricoh usually listens their customers. What they did is very risky and might eventually fail. But A12 samples are excellent and people who want small system with extreme optical and noise performance will gladly pay premium price for GXR body and A12. It's still less expensive than Leica X1, with visibly better lens and way better feature set and handling. Not to mention future upgradeability, which a unknown word for X1 ;)

What Ricoh need to do (as soon as possible) is to release some more APSC based units. At least one wide (let's say 28/f3.5) and one medium tele (90 or 135/f2.8). These focal lengths should cover most requirements of street and candid shooters, who are the traditional Ricoh users. I would also like to see a cartridge with lens mount (for old manual lenses). But I don't need or expect it right now or in a near future, as long as there will be some more APSC based lenses available.
 
Tom Caldwell":2lxgdm01 said:
Anyone care to make a promise to buy one based on what they know so far?
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Tom, this camera is high on my consider list. I have wanted a GX100 when they were released and stupidly put off buying one, then wanted a GX200 but trialled the LX3 instead and never got around to buying a GX200 so I am considering the GXR (but keeping an eye out for any bargin GX100/200). I'm still curious as to if there will be a GX300.

I do hope that Pavel and/or perhaps Cris will be getting a trial unit and we can then see some of their excellent tests and RAW samples. Either way I suspect there will be an IQ improvement from all modules. The samples I have seen from the a12 certainly look promising.
 
The GXR with A12 (great for Ricoh who listen to my desperation on having a NORMAL fixed lens with bigger sensor!!!) are first on my shopping list. I´ll wait to see some RAW samples and perhaps I should wait for a A13? module, which must be a faster lens (50 mm 1.9?). With the GXR configured like this, and the beatifull 28 mm of the GRD2 and the 28-200 of the CX1, it will be the perfect compact kit for my artistic needs. I hope it will work.
 
I'm sorry I have not read all comments of this topic, but here is my reaction to GXR:

My biggest problem with this camera is size. Yes, I know it's a silly thing to say. It is unbelievably small considering what it does. But that doesn't make my pockets any bigger. I already find the GRD3 a bit cumbersome to carry along all the time. This is my constant conflict, I want a real camera, but I don't want to carry it. But if I do have to carry one, the GXR seems like a comfortable pick.

Next is the new system. Am I prepared to invest in this oddity? The psychology behind how we assert value to things and predict outcomes is irrational to the point where it can be quite funny. Will this be a new Betamax or a new iPhone? Whatever decides its fate it will likely not be the technical merits of the system.

Which brings me to the technical merits of the system. I think one should not under-estimate the appeal of projector and printer modules. The rational thing would be to buy a generic projector and printer that work with all cameras. But there is a certain coolness, ease of use, and a just works guarantee, with closed systems, like Apple's products, although iThings are made to attract attention, while RichoThings are made to be discrete. Hm, I wonder if that will work.

Personally I would value learning only one button interface and menu system. I'm happy as a child with my CX1 and GRD3, but sometimes the slightly different interfaces boars me. I think GXR should have a zoom ring, like the CX, and make the current zoom button programmable, defaulting to EV compensation, like on GRD.

Well, I recently bought a GRD3, and I'm not going to buy a new camera for a while. But this all-in-one Ricoh machine sure has caught my attention.
 
You are not going to actually promise to buy one Mike? - please say you will - even without waiting for your modules to arrive
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Tom

The answer to your question is yes subject to handling one at my local dealer when he gets his initial stock. I put off buying a GRD 111 because something new was coming and this really appeals to me.

I'm not scared of buying into a new system if it does what I want. If it goes belly up after a few months so be it. Buying into it would only be a mistake if the camera stopped working and Ricoh didn't support repairs. As long as it continued to work it wouldn't matter if it was in production any longer or not. The two modules in the initial release are pretty much what I would need for my purposes so I wouldn't even be concerned if they stop there.

Personally I think Ricoh have got it right and I'll make my decision once I have one in my hands.
 
It seems that Ricoh keeps our minds busy for the last days. I can not remember that a camera has caused so much discussion right right after its announcement.
For the last 2 days the word GXR has been constantly in my mind. It could very well be the camera for me. Well, I have pre-ordered the GXR-S10, I feel exited.

In the last 10 years I have had 43 other cameras and it has been a constant battle between pocket sized cameras and DSLR (-like) cameras. In 90% of all cases, I was totally happy with the quality of the pictures from the GR Digital, GR Digital II, GX100. For that other 10% I bought several DSLR's (again) and was not happy with them once.

The DSLR's stayed at home (Nikon D90, Pentax K10D, Oly E-P1,Oly E-420, Panasonic G1, Sigma SD14 just to name a few) where those little Ricoh's came with me all the time.

Sigma go the concept right with their DP1, but is was badly executed IMO.

The GXR-S10 will be my main-camera, and when I want a -sort of- DSLR, I'll click on another module, having multiple cameras in one. Brilliant!
On my short-list is a fixed 28mm or 35mm module, Foveon please :) When the funds are there, I will buy the A12 unit as well. It is not my focal length of first-choice, but I will adapt like the Borg.

Every camera is compromise, but the longer I think about it, the better the Ricoh GXR 'compromise' gets. Thinking outside of the box takes a lot of courage and I am glad Ricoh seems to have it. The GXR concept is the 'Wankel (rotation) engine' of the camera scene so to say.
 
Sorry,

I'm irritated.....

An APS-C sensor with the 'easy' length of 50mm (35 film equ.) and the real important range from 24mm to tele with the current sensor - this is very disturbing for (my) style of shooting. Using both options I have to switch in my brain to get the impression I want to have. This is already difficult using different lenses for just one sensorsize - but to change the length of the lenses plus sensorsize - sorry - this is not my cup of tea......

The new concept would allow now to offer a modul with a dedicated B&W sensor, but what kind of lenslength? Standard or for street a 28mm equiv. the same with a dedicated IR sensor. What fixed length or what size of sensor......
 
...,

ok Ricoh, now it's out
What would it be, heaven or hell, hop or top? I'm in mixed pickels :?
I think Ricoh has to come with more "big Sensor" Modules. For "small Sensor" Modules the price is a little bit high - my guess.
My wish: the 50/Macro Modul is out, (could be a little faster for me, but ok). So give me a fast wide angel and a fast mild tele/macro - modul with aps-c Sensor and i'm in heaven. :ugeek:
 
Yes, Silvio and silverbullet, you both are right. I won´t buy the GXR until Ricoh releases a very fast fixed 50 mm lens (1.7, or 1.4 better?) or a 28 to 70/90 mm zoom f 2.5 at it best, both with ASP-C sensor. Am I dreaming?
 
I don't know the glass/assembling capacitiy of Ricoh for the lens lineup. The GXR is the clever move from R. to widen the demand for electronic add-on components. Let's look at an attachable HDD for the data transfer in the hotel room just before dinner. Very convenient, it's easy electronics and no glass-grinding neccesary.
So my impression is that some new lenses are not on the roadmap of the nearest future. The folks which is trained in wide angle shooting by the GR lineup would like to get something like 24 or 28mm and will add the current zoom module for holiday trips.... :)mmmhhh, something would than be double in the bag......
 
GXR will be available in Japan on 18/12. The GXR + A12 will be displayed in major retailers/camera shops on the first day (27/11) with the S10 following suite. Wonder if it will be available here in Singapore before Christmas?
 
I am watching the developments on this system with great interest. Not being invested in any other digital system makes the GXR a viable option for me. Granted I want to see more lens/senor options, but Ricoh ui and lenses being paired with asp-c sensors appeal to me. I've gone through quite a few cameras (digital & film) in the past couple years and am happy with the OM1 & 2 system, Konica Hexar AF, and GRD set up I have right now. I feel the GXR with the 50mm & asp-c sensor to be very close to the Hexar and this would be the perfect digital camera in my mind. Like many of you I will continue to watch as details unfold for this unique camera system.....
John
 
Held one in my hands today ..... It is awesome ... I had my Hexar AF with me today when I was checking this camera out ... It is very much like a digital Hexar . ..and it is solid....very cool camera ...
 
I'm just curious - will the A12 GXR be a good night-time camera?

My GX100 is a great all-rounder, but I would consider buying a good night time camera or a camera with a longer zoom. Am I right in thinking the GXR meets neither of these needs (at this time)?
 
socket":1hwbm8q3 said:
I'm just curious - will the A12 GXR be a good night-time camera?
Click to expand...

It depends ;) The GXR A12 high ISO performance is impressive and I have no doubt about its usability in low light conditions. The only problem is that due to the smaller Depth of Field, the focusing must be much more precise than for example with GX100/200 or GRD. I will soon get the GXR for quick test. And because the daylight time is currently pretty short and I'm at work till 5-6pm, I will have a "lot" of opportunity to try the A12 under low light conditions ;) So I will soon be able (sometime next week) to answer your question more precisely.
 
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