On our trip to Cameron Highlands in mid June 2024, we woke up to the beautiful morning sunrise on Saturday 15th Jun in our hotel and my wife took a few shots of the mountain, clouds and pink sunlight with my OnePlus 11 camera. The shots were good, but definitely not as refined as it would have been if taken from a DSLR or the Canon G12 that I had. Camera phone technology has definitely improved in leaps and bounds to give you a pretty good shot, but with low light conditions and details, you could still tell that the picture was touched up and enhanced. I also was also NOT a great fan of using the “Pro” functions on the smart phone app to set the ISO and other exposure settings, as the photo that came out still would be as the refined quality you got with a proper lens camera.
Since I had used both the smaller G12 and the mirror-less Sony NEX-6, I knew that I enjoyed taking photos on the G12 more than the NEX-6 and decided to I should buy a small camera with a very good picture quality. Between the Sony RX100 VII and the Ricoh GR IIIx, I decided to go for the Ricoh because it was slightly smaller and the photos were better than the RX100 because it used a full ass APS-C sensor. In fact, it is as small as any ASP-C camera you can get. Being small was quite important, because I wanted to just slip it into my jeans pocket and carry it, which I definitely couldn’t do with the NEX-6. The RX100 may be pocketable as well, but given that it was slightly bigger, I knew that the Ricoh would just reduce the friction / inconvenience of bringing a camera with you. There is a phrase ‘The best camera is the one you have with you’. I also opted for the newer Ricoh GR IIIx compared to the slightly older but similar GR III because the IIIx provided more of a street photographer photos that focused your attention to a scene with its 26.1 mm focal length, which is more akin to a 40mm focal length in the 35mm full frame world.
The Ricoh GR IIIx with its lens extended
The reasons to go with the Ricoh GR IIIx were:
Full exposure control.
3 axis stabilisation, allowing for a slightly lower F stop to allow more focused pictures.
USB charging.
Responsive touch screen which I use to point out the focus area of the picture.
Macro focus starting from 12cm.
Small and discreet.
Street photography focal lens just like a smart phone.
I got the camera, case and lens cover yesterday, Friday the 21st of Jun 2024, fully charged it with my phone charger USB cable and took it for a spin for dinner last night. I am really happy with it.
The camera is quite small. And I’ve decided to take it around in the original Ricoh leather soft case (GR-11), which I bought separately, instead of using the camera without a case but with the lens cover. The soft leather cases just feels quite nice carrying it around. It fits quite snugly and is easy to take out. The only thing that I am not too happy about with the camera is the USB-C cover, which is plastic and is a little bit difficult to take out, considering that I would be using this for charging as well as transferring photos to the computer. My Pop OS computer readily recognises the camera and its really nice that you can go into the memory card or the internal memory of the camera to copy your photos out.
The camera is small. But it takes really great photos. When I took the photos from dinner last night, I could immediately see why I went for a high quality camera such as this, instead of taking photos with the phone. In the restaurant, I could open up the aperture wide and take photos of my wife and her friend, and it came out very well. It was so apparent how good the photos are compared to using the phone. Coupled with my work iPhone, my OnePlus 11 personal phone and this camera, they are all around the same width and height, so its easy to carry them around together. And since it has got a USB-C port, I was able to charge it the car on the way to dinner, which is really convenient and needed I am told as the battery life on this thing isn’t all that great. I’m anyway going to get some spare batteries which would be required if I’m taking a lot of photos on trips.
One of the other things I like about this camera is that the Program Exposure mode can be defaulted to 3 different settings:
Normal - where the aperture is opened somewhere in between I guess.
Max Aperture Priority - for portraits
DOF Priority (Deep) - for landscape photography
With Program Exposure mode, you select the ISO and the camera decides the aperture and shutter speed. Normally, when you take photos, you do want to specify the aperture priority, so that the camera then decides the appropriate shutter speed. On this camera, in Program Exposure mode, because you have the ability to tell it what your preference is for the aperture as well, I think I may use this camera mode a little more than just shooting with aperture priority all the time.
I’m definitely very happy with the quality of the photos, its size and its ability to touch the screen to tell it where to focus that it has already won me over.
Oh, and another thing. My alternate for this camera would have been the Sony RX100VII which has a better focusing system when it comes to low light and has zoom. But, checking on the Reddit groups today, I saw the Ricoh GR had about 25.8k members, while the Rioch GRIIIx had about 2.9k members. But, the Sony RX100 does not even have a sub Reddit! Which seems to tell me that Ricoh GRIIIx camera owners are quite a passionate bunch of photographers! So I’m definitely in the right group and probably made the right choice going with the GRIIIx instead of the Sony.
Well, its been slightly over one month now since I got the Ricoh GR IIIx, as I am writing this on the 8th of August 2024.
The biggest factor that makes this camera so practical, is its small size. It’s so easy to carry around that I take it work in my satchel most days that I go to the office. And as they say, you can only take a good photo if you have a good camera with you.
Even though my Sony NEX-6 is only around 1.5 times bigger than the GR IIIx, just that difference means that I can bring the GR IIIx with me easily. And, last weekened, I got my Pentax AF201FG flash to complement this camera. With the flash on auto, its a no-brainer. Both camera and flash just work so very well together. And more importantly, the flash too fits into my satchel easily. So, there’s no reason not to get a good photo!
The pictures that come out of the GR IIIx are awesome. I’m still learning how to use this camera, but I must say, its been a joy to have this camera with me to take photos. And I love taking good photos with the cameras, but there is still quite a bit to learn. And the best way is to read the manuals, read about photography, learn and take photos often.
Why?: The reason for this customisation is because I use the touch screen in live preview mode to point out where the focus needs to be. But I can’t tell the camera where the light metering needs to be.
Use case: If I am using the flash at dusk for a portrait shot, the exposure metering needs to be on the background of the subject (person in this case), because the shutter speed should take the ambient reading instead of the subject so that the background is correctly exposed. The subject’s lighting would come from the flash, so I don’t need to worry about metering on the subject.
