Ricoh GR "Auto ISO" Question

Mark_Adams · #1 07-09-2006, 02:28 PM

I just bought a GR and overall I am very impressed. I am loving the way it handles B+W. My question is about the "Auto ISO", it seems that the auto is limited to between 60 and 160. On the bottom of page 91 the manual says that "In Wide-angle Zoom mode" the ISO is limited to 60-160. But this camera is a fixed 28mm, no zoom mode other than digital zoom (which I have turned off). Does anyone out there have an idea of how I might get the "Auto ISO" to "auto" select higher values? Please be assured that I'm not lazy, just obsessive and curious.

Warm Regards, Mark Adams

Tony_Gamble · #2 07-11-2006, 03:38 AM

I raised this point in the long Ricoh thread and nobody came back with a solution.

Auto does not seem to go much faster than 160. Like you I think this is a pity and I also wasted my initial low light sequence by assuming that it did.

I cannot comment on whether the fitting of the wide angle converter makes any difference, but with the normal lens you get stuck at around 160.

What is also necessary to remember is that changing the ISO speed with the back selector does require you to use Select to confirm the change. You can swop to 1600 and press the shutter button to get rid of the menu and still be on your original speed of, say, 100. Dangerous.

Have you spotted that you can alter the speed using first the nurled knob on the back followed by the one on the top at the front? This seems less likely to error.

There is a software upgrade to improve this recording of the ISO change, but I must admit I have not installed it.

Tony
London UK

Mark_Adams · #3 07-12-2006, 10:19 PM

Tony,
Thanks for the input. Mine is new and must have the upgrade because just changing the ISO with the back adj knob then pressing the shutter button half way seems to lock in the new ISO. Do you have any thoughts on a 2X tele for this camera? Every now and again my wife wants her nose normal size.
Mark

Tony_Gamble · #4 07-13-2006, 04:20 AM

I would not buy anything to add on to the camera as my ideal p&s is a camera that I can pick up and put in a pocket. I don't want the decision as to whether to take other bits with me - or not.

I was nervous about the practicality of the hot shoe viewfinder (both my wife and I need it as we wear reading glasses) but it does not add much to the bulk and we've found a suitable little pouch that takes the camera with the viewfinder permanently attached.

I sympathise with your wife's concern about how some 'portraits' look. But you are getting a cracking good jpg from the camera. I'd be inclined to take a pace backwards and then crop the resulting shot in your picture editor. I suppose you could even shoot RAW, but I have never tried as I've been told the write times are a bit grim.

That wider than normal lens can produce some great images. My wife took the camera on a painting day yesterday. The shots of the windmill they were painting are totally lost - until she got round to photographing her chums in the foreground, with their paints, and the windmill in the distance. You could never have achieved those shots with a normal focal length lens.

You have a winner.

OH, and I'll do the software update asap, if that fixes the ISO locking problem.

Rgds

Tony

Mark_Adams · #5 07-13-2006, 12:59 PM

Tony,
This camera has a nostalgic element for me. My first camera was a Pentax Spotmatic with a screw on 28mm (the only used lens the camera store had). The only film I could afford to shoot then was B+W. This little Ricoh harkens back to the days of yore.
Mark

Tony_Gamble · #6 07-14-2006, 04:38 AM

Mark,

Another plus is the way the autofocus usually settles for the nearest object in the frame.

My wife never remembers to focus and re-compose when she uses my 350D - but the Ricoh almost always deals with those shots where the person you are photographing is deliberately at the side of the frame. As proved on her painting day when she put her chum in the right hand side of the image and the windmill in the centre.

Tony