High end pocket camera
Written: Sep 19 '02
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Pros: excellent 28mm f:2.8 lens; tiny size; decent exposure control for a p&s.
Cons: exposed on/off switch; finicky auto-focus
The Bottom Line: A great pocket camera for someone who needs more control and better picture quality than possible with an average point and shoot camera.
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| kaiplarson's Full Review: Ricoh GR-1 35mm Film Camera |
The Ricoh GR1 is a truly tiny camera, especially considering that it has autofocus, automatic film advance and a built in flash. It is about the size of a pack of cigarettes. It has a very sharp 28 mm f:2.8 lens. It has programmed and aperture priority exposure control, and exposure compensation for funky lighting conditions. It has a rugged, magnesium case. It weighs next to nothing. You can put it in your pocket and forget it is there.
There are very few other pocket cameras out there that have exposure compensation or anything other than fully automatic exposure control. Those that do tend to cost a lot more than the ricoh GR1. The combination of aperture control, and exposure compensation give you flexibility to deal with depth of field and situations such as snowy or heavily backlit scenes that are beyond the capabilities of your average point and shoot.
The light meter works well, and the lens is very very sharp. Lens quality is as good as many slr lenses, particularly once you get to 5.6 f-stop.
This is a great camera, but has a couple of annoying traits which keep it from perfection. The first is that the autofocus mechanism is a bit finicky. It often takes several tries and a fair amount of tilting the camera back and forth to obtain a focus lock. The other truly annoying trait of the GR1 is that the on/off button is extremely susceptible to getting activated unintentionally. The camera is constantly turning itself on while in your pocket or even when carried in a pouch. This can become a real headache after a while. I finally cured the touchy on/off button problem by cutting up some small pieces of plastic and super-glueing them in a circle around the on/off button to make the button more recessed and protected from inadvertent pressure. With this modification, which took about 20 minutes, I have had no further problems with the camera turning on by itself, although it is now harder to turn on and off when wearing gloves. I used to hardly carry the GR1 at all because of the on/off switch issue, but now it is my camera of choice for carrying in my shirt pocket.
The only durability problem I have had with this camera is that the film counter portion of the lcd display sometimes flickers in and out. This started when inner workings of the camera got fogged up from going in and out of hot-humid and cold-dry situations on a recent trip to China. I think that the moisture may have affected the lcd display some. It is an intermittent problem, and so far hasn't seemed to affect the other functions of the camera.
I bought mine for $325 at B&H. I have heard rumors that this camera is no longer being imported into the U.S., but "grey market" distributors still sell them.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 325
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Epinions.com ID:
kaiplarson
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Reviews written: 23
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