Taking the GR Digital II for a test drive

I’m not a pixel peeper. I like a camera that’s easy and fun to use and takes good photos. 99.9% of the time I’m going to take an image I like, maybe crop it, scale it down to fit the width of my blog, and call it a day.

With that in mind, Stephanie and I went out exploring the Castro on foot this afternoon, it was a beautiful, crisp, cloudless day, perfect for soaking up the winter sun outside Cafe Flore, not so great for well-lit urban photography. But we did have fun playing with the GR Digital’s fixed 28mm field of view, which is quite a bit wider than the standard 35mm FOV we’re used to.

Justin from above
Stephanie from above
Baby riding fish

This shot of San Francisco from Dolores Park is not one that I’d usually put up on my blog (because it’s not that great), but in the spirit of test driving, I thought I’d at least post an urban landscape with a link to the original file for those interested in greater scrutiny.

San Francisco from Dolores Park
Click here to see the original file

I’m not sure if the sun was just really low and late in the day (it was), or if this camera is just hyper-aggressive about brightness compensation. Come to think of it I should have taken some shots with my SD400 for comparison. In any case, I’ve got a bit of learning to do.

Update: In response to Daimon’s request, I just posted a few sample shots different ISOs: Ricoh GR Digital II at ISO 400

6 Comments

Brian/Dad

Why the top down point-of-view for your two pics?

The wide angle lens accentuates that perspective, making our heads look big and in focus, while our feet are small (and in Stephanie’s case) out of focus.

Thanks for the photos. I’ve been meaning to update my Facebook profile photo for some time.

Facebook? What’s that?

how is the noise of the camera at 400 and 800 iso?
is it fast in raw? can you show some pictures taken at iso 400 with shadows? I realy would like to see how they made the noise reduction..

thanks for the post

Daimon, so far I’ve been shooting with ISO set to Auto or Auto-Hi, so I haven’t really touched 400/800. I don’t expect it to knock anyone’s socks off, given the small sensor conundrum.

As I mentioned, I’m not a pixel peeper, so I have little interest in image quality at 100%, but if I’ve got a spare moment tomorrow, I’ll try to take a shadowy shot at ISO 400 for you.

Brilliant pictures on your site, btw.

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