By now the whole world knows about the Fujifilm X100 VI and its hipster following, but who knows about the Ricoh GR III? In many ways this camera is even more extraordinary, but while the images it captures are just as impressive, the image it presents is not. It looks old-fashioned, limited and expensive. So why does a small core of enthusiasts still rave about it?
One reason is the way it packs an APS-C sensor into such a compact body. These days, everyone seems to aspire to a full frame camera, but APS-C camera have advantages. Very often it’s more useful to have more depth of field than less and that, effectively, is what you get with smaller ‘crop’ sensors. It’s also important to get a camera that feels right in the hand and suits your style of shooting. That’s why classics like the Olympus PEN-F are so sorely missed.
Ricoh is a sister brand to Pentax, which makes its own range of iconic, even old-fashioned digital SLRs, like the Pentax KF. I’m in the middle of reviewing the latest Ricoh GR III HDF (Highlight Diffusion Filter) models for Digital Camera World, so I won’t do that all over again here. Instead, I’ll run through the key features of the GR III that make so compelling today – despite its obvious limitations.
1. Size
This is the biggest single and most obvious strength of the Ricoh GR III. It is just impossibly small for an APS-C camera. There is no other APS-C camera as small as this. You can slide the GR III into a trouser pocket or even a shirt pocket. Nowhere else will you get such a high-quality sensor in such a small camera body. This camera is portable in a way no other ‘proper’ camera is.
2. Controls
On a camera this small, there’s not a lot of space for controls, yet Ricoh has somehow managed to put all the features that a serious photographer will look for right at their fingertips. This is a seriously well thought out camera. On the back is a spring-loaded Adj. button which quickly accesses five key settings. Four more are handled by a four buttons on the rear controller surrounded by a rotary dial that you can turn without accidentally pressing the buttons. There’s another control dial in front of the shutter release.
3. Lens quality
First impressions aren’t great. The lens is powered electrically and looks and sounds like an optic from a point and shoot camera. Don’t be fooled. This lens has edge to edge sharpness that most APS-C mirrorless camera owners would be VERY happy with. It’s a 28mm equivalent f/2.8 and it’s perfect for street life, travel and other random captures. If 28mm is too wide for you, the GR IIIx has a 40mm equivalent lens instead – and it’s just as sharp. It’s hard to understand how Ricoh has made an APS-C lens as small as this, and as good.
4. Focusing
To be fair, the Ricoh GR III’s AF is not the fastest by today’s standards, but it’s pretty snappy nonetheless. And it has a clever feature – Snap Focus. You can configure it so that fast, single-press shutter release switches to Snap Focus mode and the lens sets a predetermined focus distance it can achieve in a fraction of the time. The GR III’s lens does not have a manual focus ring, distance scale or depth of field markers, but it makes focusing fast and fuss-free, even zone focusing, thanks to a clever ‘deep’ program line that favors small apertures.
The Ricoh GR III’s obvious disadvantages
- There’s no viewfinder, and while you can get clip-on optical ‘finders, they seem unreasonably expensive
- You only get a fixed prime lens – though that doesn’t seem to have hurt the Fujifilm X100 series much. And you can choose between the GR III (28mm equiv) and GR IIIx (40mm equiv)
- The rear screen doesn’t even tilt. Yes, this is annoying for low-angle shots. It’s also easily swamped in bright light so that you have to push the screen brightness up to maximum
- This doesn’t help the battery life, which is already a pretty paltry 200 shots. You’ll either need to carry a spare or take a USB power bank for a quick recharge during a break in shooting
- It only shoots 1080 video, not 4K. In its defence, you would say that the GR III is aimed almost entirely at discerning expert photographers, not vloggers
Clearly there are lots of reasons NOT to buy the Ricoh GR III, and it’s a camera that’s not going to suit the majority of users. However, its size alone makes it unique, and that’s backed up by excellent image quality and rather good handling for a camera of this size. I’ve not been a huge fan of the GR series in the past, but spending time with the latest models has made me realize that they have some rather good qualities that take time to sink in.