Ricoh's been getting some love on its spendy GR series of late, but this new direction for what's apparently slated to debut as a new "GXR" system is a wild one indeed. Basically, the camera comes in two parts, a body with an LCD, storage and accessory shoe (which works with an electronic viewfinder), and different lens / sensor combos which can be slotted into the body. Interestingly (and perhaps to prove the point), the first two lenses and sensors that Ricoh is announcing are widely different, with a 24-70mm lens on top of a 10 megapixel CCD sensor that can shoot VGA video retailing for £300 (about $500 USD), while a 50mm macro lens with a CMOS sensor that can do HD video goes for £600 (about $1,000 USD). Pluses to this system include the fact that there's nowhere for dirt to get on the sensor or inside the lens, size advantages over
micro four thirds counterparts, and of course the glass and electronics can theoretically be optimally paired. The body itself will go for £420 (about $700 USD), which puts an entire setup rather up there price-wise, even without that wild British Pounds-to-dollars conversion rate. The system is supposed to be available in December. Video explaining the system was pulled by review site
Which.co.uk, who seems to have broken the official release date, but hopefully we'll have more official word on this from Ricoh soon.
posted Nov 9th 2009 4:13PM
I've had the same camera for 20 years. It's had 17 new lenses and 14 new sensors.
I still use film and get a new sensor with every click of the shutter. ISO sensitivity nor is archiveablity or format obsolescence is not an issue with my 36MP Kodachrome sensors.
@Barcode
Well.. Until they stop making 35mm film that is.
@barcode
Try doing what a d3s does on any film....find me colour 12,000+ asa
film for a start never mind film over 1600 thats clean. The time is
coming where most people that arent tech hungry geeks or top of the
line competitive photographers can be happy with their cameras now
until they break, a d3/s/x, m9 or 1d mk3/4 is a camera i would need
nor want to replace until it died.......even then if i could fix or
replace parts then i would do that.
these cameras perform better than any film can and dont give me this
32mp bullshit i scan film and there is a difference between usable
mp/resolution and scannable resolution.
having to resize a 32 mp image down to a 1-2mp just to have it look
as sharp or as clean as a digi at 5mp is stupid and pointless.
Saying that i love film and still shoot my m3 way to much to even
think about not ever using it and when film dies...which it will it
will be a sad day for all. Especially all those straight to digital
photographers who will never learn what real photography is :(
i actually heard the reason they did this is because Ricoh's actaully ran by a cyclops.
Surprised no-one's said it yet.... this thing looks like crap / toy camera?
@phenoum
i think noone has been stupid enough to say that yet because it makes no difference to the photos it takes.
Seems counter-intuitive. In the old days, film was the most replaceable part of your camera system, and lenses were (usually) the least. I believe this holds true today, with most lenses outliving the sensors (using a broad definition of "outliving" to include general usefulness to the photographer), and in fact most bodies working well and fine even once you've determined it time to upgrade the sensor again.
Why not just have bodies, sensors, AND lenses inter-replaceable? This system seems more limiting than what we've already got...
It's the processing gubbins that are more likely to be upgradable anyway. Any major changes to the sensor (like the ability to shoot very high resolution high-rate video) is likely to require a processing upgrade too. Why not just replace the whole body?
j_g_puff is right. This is pointless - and you can compare this to video card upgrades in a PC. Yes, for gaming your video card will be obsolete faster than your CPU, RAM, etc. But upgrading your video card to a top-line video card will not suddenly make your machine a monster performer - there is too much that's already obsolete, or nearly obsolete, for it to be really worthwhile.
So you can either upgrade sensors all the time, keeping the camera hobbling along... or you can outright replace the body and do a full, 100% upgrade, less often.
Not to mention glass lasts forever - if the sensors and lenses aren't separable this would be the dumbest thing ever. I'm shooting with 30 year-old lenses for crying out loud, and they work just as well as the day they left the factory - and optically they're as good as anything built today.
I don't quite get this, it has no advantages that I can see. The lenses are obviously interchangeable from the sensor so that doesn't stop dust and dirt, it's hella expensive and that sensor part to the left of the picture alone looks to be thicker than some EVIL cameras so that's the size advantage out of the window. The only way this could possibly be justified is the ability to upgrade the sensor without the body, but when the sensor alone costs as much as an entry level DSLR that's just stupid.
So Ricoh basically lost their frickin' minds. Interesting.
This one is going to go over like a lead Zeppelin.
That's actually not all that expensive if the lenses are high quality...
Brilliant idea. You can have a small sensor for your zoom. And a larger sensor for your faster prime. This makes the gxr the smallest interchangable lens digital on the market!
I'm looking forward to seeing reviews. Depending on what they actually put in there, it's either a stroke of genius or just batshit crazy.
Not so suave, Ricoh
Hrm. Give me a full-frame sensor module with my choice of mount ("M" mount for me, please!) and you suddenly have a compact, modular camera system that can meet the needs of many enthusiasts who may have legacy glass laying about.
$1700 sounds steep when you're talking about being locked into a 50mm Macro, but would anyone scoff at say $2000 for a body this size with a full-frame sensor? Bueller?
This approach offers many, many advantages over Micro 4/3rds.
Leica M9 is exactly what you just described.
Sensors, well, big sensors anyways, are expensive. Why would I want a new sensor for each lens? Ok, there are some advantages, true (you could put a small sensor in the zoom lens, and thus save money and weight on the lens itself), but somehow I think the disadvantages are too big. Unless you don't care about money.
Having a separate lens, sensor and body however... one will have to live with vignetting on some lenses, but you can crop that away anyway.
Minolta already did that 11 years ago:
http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/D15K/15KA.HTM
It didn't seem to sell that well, I think they only ever made two lens/sensor modules for the system.
Cost effectiveness. Could be an big issue this time around as well.
GXR : GX + GR. Ricoh's answer to "should I buy the GR Digital or the GX200" conundrum. Thing is it was actually pretty clear cut which camera was for you, a kind of personality litmus test, and if you were one you probably weren't going to be the other. The GX crowd were always pretty happy with their zoom lens, the GR group more than satisfied with their 28mm prime and neither one really was all that jealous of the other.
The huge gotcha with the GXR concept is lenses hold their value, sensors do not. Interchangeable lenses are a better investment. Two years down the road the GF1 owner upgrades to the GF2 writing off the loss, and keeps happily using his lenses with all the latest sensor and camera tech in hand. The GXR owner must replace the whole set, and write off everything as the lens modules will not be worth much by that point.
I'm a bit confused by Ricoh's decision-making. However, I do see potential for cartridges:
- Micro Four-Thirds mount
- Full-frame (with lens mount)
- Foveon sensor fixed lens (same as DP1 and DP2)
The thought of a Foveon sensor + Sigma lens on a Ricoh body + Ricoh interface gets me all hot and bothered.
I don't think the camera is big enough for a sensor module much larger than 2/3" or any kind of standard lens mount. Looks to be the same size roughly as the GR Digital.
I stand corrected, 50mm module is APS-C, zoom module is 1/1.7".
The point of this thing is not to upgrade sensors and lenses, but rather to form a collection of sensors and lenses and then upgrade the body as time goes on. Like an SLR, but smaller, and, as someone said, with the creative flexibility to change the sensor size around (to make smaller lenses). You end up with modern-day LCDs, faster AF, modern processing, modern battery life, all that stuff. I hope there's a way to decouple the sensor, but it's not a deal-killer since, as someone said above, the real technological improvements are with the software.
I contend that the design is very good since it theoretically allows for lenses to be 100% flush with the face of the camera (something you can't do with the E-P1 or GF1). My vision for something like this had the sensor attached to the camera body, but who knows, this could be a whole lot better. I just hope you can at least send your lenses in to get the sensor upgraded if technology improves.
I have yet to see a firmware upgrade to a camera that could increase the amount of bit color or even ISO with no degradation. There are physical aspects to sensors that are constantly being improved and no amount of post processing could improve quality that isn't there in the first place.
The only interesting part about this is that later Ricoh could release different body types and shapes and you could buy the appearance which you like. Though it throws the whole value of glass out the window as some already have pointed out.
It is sad when something different comes along and people are unwilling to consider it might actually be a good thing. Just because it's difficult to understand, mostly because it's not the same as what many people are used to... does not mean its bad.
The digital camera is very much in need of some innovation in fields other than 'art filters' and HDR. Digital camera hardware as it is today is strange in that at best its a holdover from the technology that it has replaced. It is peculiar that something that is the future clings so hopelessly to the past.
Take for example the form factor and workings of DSLRs, which are not ideal anymore. It was ideal for film technology... now it is just an awkward amalgamation. True, they have gotten better over the last five years... but they are fundamentally flawed. Rather than exploring the fullest advantages of the new technology it weighs itself down by conforming to film technology. Film technology is fantastic, but only when you are using film.
This problem is common across the board in digital imaging. The 'rear view mirror' mentality.
ANY innovation, such as this, is fantastic at the moment.
And how does m4/3rds technology not 'disown' the past so-to-speak? Removal of the mirror, in-camera distortion control, etc.
This concept is flawed in that it will become prohibitively expensive, to the point where one may as well buy a separate compact and a separate SLR for essentially the same price as two of these cartridges. And in photography, good glass will always be that. A lens which shows good sharpness and low vignetting will stay that way regardless of what sensor it is put on. The sensor? Not quite. Even comparing the last decade of progress shows huge leaps forward whereas the glass itself remains fundamentally the same.
That is why 'innovation' is being received so poorly.
It's a fascinating idea and one that I'll be interested to see whether it works. If the image quality is up to snuff then the added bonuses of the system might make it a via player in the market. Still, starting with a very small range of lenses is going to make it difficult to compete against the established players unless Ricoh can hit all the major targets with some high quality lenses pretty quickly.
Well done to Ricoh for thinking a bit more outside of the box than everyone else.