The Leica Itch

[jeen]

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Being a seasoned owner of both Digilux 2 and D lux 2 and also an old tattered M6, it really is a torture not being able to afford upgrading to the latest M8. Nonetheless, the buying/trading bug has caught up with me....but not with another Leica. Instead, what caught my attention was a Ricoh GR Digital with wide angle lens combi. Was wondering if it would be a wise decision to trade my mintish Digilux 2 with the brand new Ricoh set. Anyone on this forum has made comparisons between both of them? (with regards to quality at 28mm)

My D2 has just been returned from it's CCD transplant in Germany and this has somehow dented my faith in it's long term health condition. Please advise me before i make a wrong decision.

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[wilfredo]

Jeen,

 

I suggest that you post your question on the Fred Miranda forum:

fredmiranda.com - Portal

 

There are people there who have used the camera in question. I have read mixed reviews and some have expressed serious problems with noise. From what I've read the image quality will not be as good as your Digilux 2.

 

Cheers,

Wilfredo+

Benitez-Rivera Photography

[SteveP]

Ricoh make some very interesting cameras and have excellent service - but the cameras have one fatal flaw - noise levels. At anything above 100 ISO you will be using noise reduction post-processing software on every shot. This includes the GR Digital, unfortunately.

 

I've owned several Ricohs (and tested the GRD). The original RX is a stunning 3MP camera with low noise but then it all went downhill as they crammed in more pixels. The Ricoh RAW file is a non-standard TIFF format as well. Takes forever to save (at least 8 sec.)

 

I made a point of trying to explain this to them at Photokina because I think they are doing a lot of things right, but they need to address those two issues (noise and save speed) to stay in the race.