The Ricoh GR-IV has finally arrived in my hot sweaty hands!
It’s actually extremely small – my ‘bear’ hands envelope it, and it’s almost pocketable – I’ve added a ‘Squarehood‘ lens hood (and filter) which protects the lens but makes it much deeper (so you’ll need huge pockets!)
In terms of controls and functions, there’s everything I need (and more) – quite franly I doubt I’ll ever make a B&W movie, but it IS possible with this beasty. Aside from that, there’s auto ISO, recording in both RAW (DNG) and .jpg, anti vibration, etc.etc.
The files are stored on a microSD card which is fine in terms of capacity, but a fiddle to remove from the camera – it’s under the same cover as the battery – best to remove that first otherwise it’s a bit of a pain.
The lens ‘pops out’ when the camera is turned on, and the experts (GR-IV, and GR-III users) suggest using a Swedish made ‘Squarehood‘ which has a built in glass filter – this prevents dust getting into the mechanism (and obviously acts as a lens hood too) so I ‘invested’ in one. The only downside to this is the fact that it makes the camera a little more bulky as it sticks out quite a bit. Small price to pay for the protection, in my view.
The controls and functions are pretty much what we find on all modern digital cameras – condensed into a microscopic body! RAW data is output as DNG files, which most post processing software handles perfectly easily.
The ‘monochrom’ aspect of this camera creates an interesting problem in terms of exposure latitude – there isn’t very much at all. The ‘smoothing’ effect of multiple pixels being summed together simply doesn’t exist, and as such, getting a ‘correct’ exposure is much more important as there is less chance of correcting it in post.
As there is no Bayer filter (or anti aliasing filter) the 25.7 megapixel sensor outputs everything ‘undiluted’ or summed – the APS-C sensor measures 23,3 x 15,5 mm – so the results are very sharp – the 18mm f/2.8 (28mm equivalent in full frame) lens obviously helps here too. The dynamic range is very broad and the initial results I find very promising.
I tend to use the +/- exposure correction and this is easily accessible on the top right of the camera back. Also nearby is a button to turn on a red filter (on the ‘normal’ GR-IV this is a neutral density filter) This is useful to increase the contrast on sunny days with clouds etc. Anything red will be lightened, obviously, but for the B&W afficionados, this will probably be ‘on’ all the time!! I’ll be testing this too.
I’ll add to this article as I get used to using the camera.
Here are a few of my first images – pretty much ‘out-of-camera’ (not much post-processing)
