If there's one camera I've been especially looking forward to over the past couple of years, it has to be the recently announced Ricoh GR IV. In the end, The Ricoh GR IIIx is my everyday bag. (alternative GR III with a 40mm lens), and its successor is long overdue.
I'm familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of the Ricoh GR series, and there's a reason why I'm one of the many passionate photographers who can push beyond its limitations, knowing how powerful and discreet a tool it can be in the right hands.
Besides my phone, my The GR IIIx has become my choice for documenting my life. “I became familiar with it and developed a way of seeing and a style of shooting that became instinctive.
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A step in the right direction
I can only speak for myself, but my wish list for improvements included a tilting screen, built-in flash, better build quality, and smarter autofocus. And I wanted all of these upgrades to be packed into an equally compact, pocket-sized package.
Plus, slightly better autofocus – and an emphasis on A little – GR IV doesn't work and is significantly more expensive. So of course this is an update worth skipping, right? These were indeed my first thoughts, but after using it for a while I was pleasantly surprised in other ways as well.
There are subtle design changes that make this camera overall more comfortable to use: the thinner body combined with a larger grip makes it easier to use one-handed in both landscape and portrait formats. On my GR IIIx I added a thumb grip for a secure grip, but it's not needed here.
The USB-C door is much easier to open and close (see above), whereas the GR III cameras are frustratingly clunky.
The rear shifter above the thumb rest is now a full-featured control wheel, making it much more versatile, and the ± switch on the thumb grip – which was in the GR II and has a return – makes it easy to adjust exposure compensation (even if accidental presses are common). Simply put, each component of the exposure triangle—shutter speed, aperture, and ISO—can be controlled directly using assignable controls.
Yes, even smaller dimensions (body depth) are an upgrade in my opinion. We also get a bigger and better battery with a 20% higher CIPA rating, as well as more onboard storage from 2GB to 53GB. And there is one internal component upgrade that has me hooked, if my photos are anything to go by.
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Amazing and exciting new feature
Once again we get a large APS-C sensor housed in a really tiny body, but the sensor has been upgraded. Resolution has increased slightly from 24MP to 26MP – barely enough to write home about – but, crucially, stabilization is now five-axis rather than three-axis, meaning stabilization performance is improved.
Simply put, image stabilization is better. Given a 28mm lens, I would expect it to be possible to take sharp handheld photos with shutter speeds as short as one second, and my repeated experiments with long exposure photography have proven this to be the case.
I regularly get sharp handheld photos at 0.5 second shutter speeds, with creative motion blur effects such as moving vehicles and people (see above). And since I travel to London – one of the busiest cities in the world – I have had many opportunities to experiment with this technique.
In fact, if I look through my image gallery (and there are over 1,000 and counting), I can say that I've become somewhat addicted to long exposure photography, which is now much more possible with the new sensor, as is low-light photography.
It's also obvious that I gravitate towards black and white photography, often choosing the sharp, infrared “Hard Monotone” color profile. Given this, I am particularly interested in recently announced GR IV Monochromewhich is expected to launch next year.
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Reach GR IV – first impressions
I'm not planning on switching to the GR IV from my GR IIIx, although it would be nice to have both!
Even after two weeks of using the GR IV, I can already see that I will encounter problems related to the build quality, which is almost the same as the previous model. The reality check is that I've had to take my GR IIIx in for repairs twice – thankfully an inexpensive fix for stuck buttons – and I expect the same thing to happen if I use the GR IV for a long time.
You may do things differently than I do, but this is not a camera I want to wrap in cotton wool. I want to put it in my pocket without a bulky protective case so it's ready to go when I need it. Without a doubt, my main desire remains to improve the build quality in future versions. However I still I was tempted by the GR IV and the upcoming monochrome version is now top of my wish list.
Sure, the GR IV doesn't appear to be the upgrade I was hoping for, but it's also an amazing improvement that brings out creative new styles in an even smaller, easier-to-handle package. It's a small step in the right direction, not one giant leap, but it may be enough.
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