Ricoh's 28mm GR Digital II camera gets reviewed

It's taken a little while for Ricoh's 10-megapixel GR Digital II to make the rounds since it was announced late last year, but it's finally wound up in the capable hands of the folks from Photography Blog, who've now turned out a full review of the camera. Among other things, this one is particularly notable for its use of a 28mm fixed focal length lens, which Photography Blog found helped deliver some solid images with "very little distortion." They were also pleased with the addition of a RAW shooting mode (even though it slows things down quite a bit), and the camera's intuitive control system, which can be "almost completely configured to suit your way of working." On the downside, they found the camera suffered from the common drawback of excessive noise at ISO 400 or above, and there is the small matter of the $699 price tag, which puts it on the level of some pretty impressive non-28mm cameras, and within striking range of the 28mm Sigma DP1. Still, the GR Digital II appears to hold its own, and seems like it'd be an even better buy if you can find a good deal on it.

[Tim @ Apr 30th 2008 1:25PM]

capable with the exception of taking a non-blurry shot, that is . . .

[Meatloaf @ Apr 30th 2008 5:04PM]

Reviews with non-blurry product photos:

http://reviews.cnet.com/digital-cameras/ricoh-gr-digital-ii/4505-6501_7-32826184.html
http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/ricoh/gr_digital_ii-review/
http://www.steves-digicams.com/2008_reviews/ricoh_grd2.html

[DaveHimself @ Apr 30th 2008 1:36PM]

I dig it 'cause its "murdered out."

[trumpton @ Apr 30th 2008 2:08PM]

The Ricohs are great cameras.

[Zeke @ Apr 30th 2008 2:17PM]

Though the shape of the camera let's it go into the pocket easier than the G9 - http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000V1VG5G/thatsnice-20

And it does have a slightly wider lens. My money is better spent on a camera that has a decent capture time with raw. And for now, at least for a pocket camera, I don't think you can beat the G9.

http://www.nicephotomag.com

[Steve Sparkes @ Apr 30th 2008 2:22PM]

Unless you buy a GX100

[Rich Armstrong @ Apr 30th 2008 4:35PM]

I have one. It's rad. Beats out the g9 in image quality IMHO.

[Brian @ Apr 30th 2008 4:37PM]

I love rad cameras.

[Sean @ Apr 30th 2008 4:39PM]

guys if you ever used GRD2 you'd know how amazing this fixed focal lens is.

[Alex @ Apr 30th 2008 9:08PM]

Bought mine when I visited Tokyo for work last month for 54,000yen ($518). Takes amazing photos, but definately a niche camera. It takes effort to use this camera properly. If you are lazy, I would stick with the G9 (which I also have and use it most of the time). The flash (nor the high ISO mode) isn't that great so I wouldn't recomend it for indoor use. But with enough natural light, the photos comes out very crisp. The RAW mode stores both the RAW data and a JPG file so if you reduce the quality of the JPG capture, the RAW capture speed increases somewhat.

[Nina @ Apr 30th 2008 9:30PM]

I've never owned any Ricoh products, but for $700 I think there are plenty of other good buys out there.

http://www.camera-forums.com

[Ryan @ Apr 30th 2008 10:16PM]

A Cannon SD870 pwns this thing. It's smaller, has a 28mm lens, and much better low-light performance.

Throw CHDK on it, and it shoots RAW, can run custom scripts (such as motion detection... etc.) - and has generally has features that would make this camera wet its pants.

http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK_firmware_usage

Oh... and it costs half as much.

http://www.amazon.com/Canon-PowerShot-SD870IS-Digital-Stabilized/dp/B000V1XICU?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1209607544&sr=8-2&tag=rye-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325

You're welcome.

[Schfelzerberg @ May 1st 2008 3:08AM]

Performance aside, that is one ugly camera.