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Stepping up - GX200 vs. Fujifilm F50fd

Strappy

New Member
I ordered a Ricoh GX200 on Wednesday this week and it was delivered on Thursday. Excellent service, particularly considering I got it new for £230 including delivery! In case anyone's wondering, I bought it from discounteddigital on Amazon marketplace. Recommended.

I ran a comparison against my old compact camera, a Fujifilm F50fd, for another forum. Reproducing it here in case anyone's browsing with a thought to moving up to a more capable compact. :)

Both cameras are 12MP, have a short zoom and are a good size for slipping into your pocket. The GX200 is bigger than the F50fd but they feel roughly the same weight. Both can be used one-handed although the GX's large rubberised handgrip is more comfortable. The Fuji's lens packs away neatly into its body whereas the GX has a protruding ring. Both cameras offer image stabilisation and feature a large LCD screen. The F50fd has a number of scene modes and allows some limited user customisation whereas GX is almost fully configurable, offering practically all the functions normally included on a mid-range SLR but without shutter-priority (Tv).

cameras.jpg


The feel of the controls is important to me. If it doesn't feel comfortable, the chances of me using the camera are reduced. I considered the Panasonic LX3 but was put off by the cheap feeling dials and switches coupled with the niggling doubt that I'd end up breaking it.

Both of these cameras have positive controls, the GX feels more solid than the F50fd with the curious exception of the shutter release, which has an odd squidgy feel. Doesn't take long to get used to but it can throw you when you're trying to half-press it to lock the AE/AF. Biggest difference is probably the zoom, which is a rocker switch activated by your thumb on the GX compared to a ring around the shutter release on the F50fd. On balance, the rocker does make sense, if only to stop you from accidentally firing the camera if you're zooming in a hurry.

The GX is capable of storing RAW data but to keep the test balanced both cameras were used in automatic mode with IS on, writing Fine quality full-size JPEG images. The F50fd comes with an 8-24mm lens (35-105mm 35mm equivalent), f2.8-f5.1 with macro focussing to 7cm. The GX has a 5.1-15.3mm lens (24-72mm), f2.5-f4.4, macro to 1cm.

The F50fd feels as though it focuses faster than the GX, which could be due to the GX using multi-point AF in auto mode. The difference isn't significant enough to detract from using the camera, however, and the GX can be set for snap focus.

The first test shots illustrate the difference in the field of vision offered by each camera at the wide end.

F50fd
Fuji1.jpg


GX200
Ricoh1.jpg


Both cameras recorded the scene well with the GX noticeably more punchy. This contrasts with the next pair of shots, which show close-up performance (although not macro).

F50fd
Fuji2.jpg


GX200
Ricoh2.jpg


In this case the F50fd appears to have the brighter image. This may be due to the F50fd firing its flash whereas the GX captured the shot using natural light only, due to the fact that at the time I didn't know how to turn the flash on. :oops: Zooming in on these shots with a 100% crop highlights a significant difference between the cameras though.

ZoomCompare.jpg


On to the next test, a combination of dark, mid and light tones to see how well the cameras meter the scene.

F50fd
Fuji3.jpg


GX200
Ricoh3.jpg


In this case the GX's wide end of the zoom has captured considerably more sky than the F50fd, causing the meter to under-expose the statue. A fairer test would have been to step in to give a similar field of view to the F50fd but at least by shooting RAW this could be recovered to a degree in post-processing. The GX metering has been able to retain detail across the shot, however, so it proves that the metering works as it was intended to.

Finally, a test of the zooms. In each of the montages below the image on the left was taken at the widest lens setting, the middle image at the longest setting and the image on the right is a 100% crop of the centre of frame taken from the middle image.

F50fd
Fuji4.jpg


GX200
Ricoh4.jpg


Both cameras did well here but the GX images have more punch and the end result seems sharper.

To summarise, I'm extremely pleased with the GX. It's capable of some cracking results and the wide-angle short end of the zoom adds to the creative possibilities, especially when combined with the other functionality present in the camera. It would be nice to have a lens as fast as the LX3's (f2.0-f2.8 over a similar zoom range) but that's a small price to pay for a camera I'm happy with. Despite only having the camera for a couple of days I'm already comfortable with the menus and many of the settings, which goes to prove that this is a well thought-out and constructed piece of kit. Some B&W test shots from last night.

GX200 B&W ISO400 Exp.Comp -0.7 1:1 ratio
CafeNeroBW.jpg


IronRailings.jpg


ISO800
CaledonianHotelBW.jpg



This camera has made me excited about taking photographs again and it's difficult to think of a better accolade than that.
 
Great side-by-side comparison! GX200 is definitely great camera. Its 12MP sensor is not the best thing for low-light photography, but once you can live with low ISO and you are not afraid or lazy to use RAW mode, you can get some excellent results even at ISO400. I really wish it would use the same 10MP sensor as in GX100, which produces much warmer result.
 
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