soon to be ricoh user

[Doppelgangland]

Hi, not yet a Ricoh user, but I'm planning to buy a GRD III when they come out in the UK.

I used to be a keen film SLR user, but eventually took less pictures as I didn't want to carry all the kit around. Last year I bought my first serious digital camera and got the photography bug again. Having done that I began to realize that I wanted to be able to do more... after a lot of research I decided that the GRD II was the camera I wanted... a camera I really could take almost everywhere and that had the creative control and quality I wanted. I then started lurking here and found that rumor was that the GRD III would be out soon, so I have been (impatiently) waiting since then...

A quick question, I wonder how many of the GRD II or I users have it as their main or only camera?

Thanks.

Huw

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hjacob/
None of these on Ricoh (yet).

 

[odklizec]

Hi Huw and welcome here! There are some nice photos in your flickr. I'm sure the GRDIII will suit your photography style. The only things you have to accept is noisier output, lower dynamic range and huge depth of field (which is both advantage and disadvantage). Noise (and noise reduction artifacts) and lower dynamic range can be (partially) fixed in postprocessing, but you will have to use RAW. But from what I saw, GRDIII is a huge improvement in noise and noise reduction department. It's yet to be seen what's the GRDIII dynamic range.

I'm using GRDII+GT1 as my primary camera (90% of all my photos) and GX200 + TC1 for the rest of photos, mainly for portraits where I want nice blurred background.

Feel free to ask any question about GRDIII (and Ricoh cameras as such) you might have. I'm sure, there are many folks ready to help all newcomers

 

[Doppelgangland]

Thanks.

I'm looking forward to shooting within the constraints of the GRD III. Having lurked for quite a while and done more reading I can see the problems of small sensor camera's, but the form factor and the control that the GRD has out ways (for me) the drawbacks. I had a play with the EP1 but it is still too big for me, I don't want to go back to lugging around loads of equipment, which inevitably happens if you get a camera with multiple lenses.

I think I remember that you now use a Mac with Aperture, how well does Aperture work with Ricoh RAW files? This is what I am using, though not with RAW yet (I haven't has the nerve to hack the Canon).

Off topic, I see you are a fellow Red Dwarf fan

 

[odklizec]

I only tried Aperture, but did not purchase it yet. My trial is now over and the only reason why I'm considering its purchase is its photo management. The problem I'm facing now is that I already have a lot of pictures and my current photo management workflow based on the folders and subfolders does not work very well with so many files. Aperture has nice set of RAW editing tools, but I'm not quite happy with their RGB curves editing, which is the most important tool for my color style. Silkypix just suits me better. But I can imagine to use Aperture as a RAW management tool and for editing use Silkypix. And who knows? Maybe one day I will find Aperture editing tools as good for my style as Silkypix? There are rumors about new Aperture that should be available later this year? So I hope the RGB curves will be a bit more usable?

 

[Doppelgangland]

I didn't know about the upgrade to aperture, will look out for that. Will stick with it for now. I'm still learning when it comes to editing photos. It will be good to see just how much difference there is with RAW files. I know that the most frustrating thing I've found with digital photography is the small dynamic range - that has improved as my technique has improved (eg. underexposing to avoid the sky blowing). It will be interesting to see just how much more dynamic range I can get out of the GRDIII in RAW and also the HDR double shot feature. Do you know if this feature is only practical if you use a tripod by the way?