| Re: Anyone got a Ricoh GR Digital????
Edmond - Well here goes. Very elegant small package. Pocketable. Build quality is extemely robust. Huge, bright lcd. Ergonomics are excellent except that the shutter release is too firm for me. (My baseline for digital performance is my Canon 1DsII; what I had hoped to find in the GR was a digital equivalent of a Contax T2; the GR's 28mm equivalent focal length is my sweet spot.)
Raw format is of little use - this is very disappointing - like other cameras in this class raw files are not buffered - if you use raw format the shot-to-shot timings go up to 6 or 7 seconds! Shooting jpeg fine gives very crisp shot-to-shot timings - the camera feels very responsive. Focus and exposure accuracy are very good. By the way the fine jpeg files show less jpeg artifacting than any other point and shoot that I have worked with.
The lens is fabulous. Performs very well, center to corner, at f.28 to f5.6. There is no noticable loss of quality wide open. There is an overall softness, which doesn't vary accross the frame, which I attribute to a fairly strong AA filter. Aggressive low radius USM (400% r=.4) brings out a great deal of fine detail. At f8 sharpness declines dramatically. Almost perfectly rectilinear - very slight (3 pixels or so) barrel distortion. Slight RG CA in the corners. Very nice contrast. I haven't tested dynamic range, and don't have views yet on white ballance accuracy (most of my work is b&w).
Now the problem: noise. At ISO 64 and 100 this is not an issue at all. My comments above on lens quality and USM are based on ISO 100 files. Noise becomes quite evident at 200 - and is pronounced at 400. Color noise is more pronounced than luminace. Next week I'll have a chance to do Noise Ninja profiles - I'll report on how it works. I also need the chance to print some sample files - to see how the noise translates onto paper. I may have completely unrealistic expectations - the GR's noise at ISO 400 is probably less of an issue than film grain shooting Tri-X.
Odds and ends: I love the fact that this thing has a hot shoe - I plan on experimenting with on-camera flash. I don't see the ND filter referred to in the Ricoh press release documented anywhere. The supplemental finder works fine for me. The battery is not available anywhere in the US (I guess that I'll be ordering a couple of spares from Japan) - it can also be driven by 2 AAAs, but you only get 40 or 50 shots out of them. It has a 3:4 aspect ratio, which I prefer to 24:36.
Those are my very preliminary thoughts. This thing is a lot of fun.  | 
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