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Ricoh Caplio GX - The digital GR1, Epic... ?


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BTW ... the AF auxiliary lamp for dark situations is a pre-flash. It fires if needed if the flash is on, and at any setting.

<p> The one gripe I have is that when using the hotshoe the in-camera flash has to fire anyway - I had to cut a small cap from an eyepiece cover (not tape!!) to cover it for close up situations.

<p>Oh, and maybe the fact that there is no in-camera B&W conversion, but never mind ...

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Sandeha---

 

Are you saying the li-ion is stronger or weaker than AA?

I use the same regular (non ultra or extreme) sd 256mb but with AA

battery. I have not tried non compressed tiff but I can get off

three shots (one after another) before it pauses and writes (for about 15 sec.)

 

the following sounds contradictory and makes no sense to me:

 

>>>> 2592 Fine, compressed JPEG ... ... 4 seconds from shutter click to 'ready for next shot'. <<<<

 

>>>>2592 Fine, compressed JPEG ... ... 8 shots before hiatus for card writing. <<<<

 

anyway, the manual says one can only get 3 frames(in a row) before it writes and this is what i experienced as well. I would give the li-ion/hood set another thought if the li-ion is stronger.

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Hi Leslie ... yes, the Li-ion appears to be stronger. I don't know the technical reason why one source of power should make a difference over another, but what the dealer told me seems to be correct.<p>

 

Perhaps the GX does start writing to the card after three frames, but I can continue shooting until the "Writing to card" message comes up. <p>I just tried that with AA batteries and took six shots, but with the Li-ion battery I was able to take 12 shots before the card came up. Sorry if it didn't seem clear, just a confusion of terms perhaps.

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Hi Leslie ... yes, the Li-ion appears to be stronger. I don't know the technical reason why one source of power should make a difference over another, but what the dealer told me seems to be correct.<p>

 

Perhaps the GX does 'start' writing to the card after three frames, but I can continue shooting until the "Writing to card" message comes up. <p>I just tried that with AA batteries and took six shots, but with the Li-ion battery I was able to take 12 shots before the message came up. Sorry if it didn't seem clear, just a confusion of terms perhaps.

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Are you trolling? There's no way you can get off 6 shots one after another @fine-max-resolution-jpeg with AA and 12 with the li-ion battery even with super fast cards. With mine and every report i heard thus far, you can get three with AA and you are telling me you can get 6 and 12 with li-ion @max-fine-jpeg resolution. you made have a different camera all together or you maybe shooting it at a lower resolution.

 

Perhaps the li-ion is stronger but i would doubt it is exactly twice as stronger as the AA. You are doing a lower resolution right?

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Not at all ... but note that I am saying "from shutter click to 'ready for next shot.'"

<p>That is, using the LCD information.

<p>If I go click, click, click using the viewfinder as if expecting to get so many frames per second on F2952, then the "Writing to card" message comes up after two or three shots. Apologies, my response was not relevant to your issue.

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That IS good news. I just received my Simple Tech PROX 256M high speed card yesterday. Now if the camera would only show up!

 

My biggest concern has been the purple (and green) fringing, but in researching some other 5 meg digicams such as the Canon S50 and G5, many of them also share equally this annoying characteristic. There appears to be some pretty effective PS techniques to deal with it though. Have any of you current owners found this to be a big problem, or is it more something for those who like to analyze 100-200% crops looking for problems?

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I wrote to Ricoh Europe support with the following questions:

 

1. Using AA batteries, the write time are 60 seconds for a NC image to a normal SD card, and 30 seconds to high speed SD card.

 

Would it make any difference if I use the special Ricoh battery?

 

2. In the manual, pages 38 and 52, there is a reference to "AF auxiliary lamp", but I cannot see any lamp light up in low-light conditions.

 

 

Their reply was:

 

"Dear sir,

 

For the question 1, the batteries do not change anything for the writing time on a sd card. We advise you to use rechargeable batteries NIMH of minimum 1800 mAh.

The recording time is normal in uncompressed mode.

 

2. There is no such function on the camera. Probably, a function that

disappeared in the development but stayed in the manual. Sorry for that.

 

Regards,"

 

**********************************************************

Your technical Support Center RICOH

Frederic

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Wow the Ricoh customer support response is incredibly arrogant. Makes me wonder what to expect should problems arise. Oh well.. I've got the focus assist lamp on my Elph and find that I usually have it off as it attracts attention or perplexes subjects.

 

Has anyone tried the "Text" mode for regular photos? I had that on my Ricoh rdc5000, and found it was pretty much their term for B&W. It is high contrast. I remember getting a few pretty interesting pictures using the rdc5000 version though.

 

I've been reading the pdf online manual and about the manual focus option. Is the focussing speed gradual enough to allow effective use of manual focus? It would be nice is it could lock focus and retain it after power down. Is there a LCD distance indicator?

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A focus assist lamp has nothing to do with flash. You're talking about a preflash, and that's generally used to set the flash exposure level. A focus assist lamp is like a little flash light that illuminates the subject just enough to allow the AF to lock on in dim conditions. Doesn't matter if you are using flash or not.
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I guess I was just too hopeful, but note that the manual (for what it may be worth) states "if the flash is switched off the AF auxiliary lamp does not flash". <p>I had originally expected the focus assist to be a red beam from one of the front 'eyes' - which it clearly isn't. But I am surprised by the idea that a pre-flash would be necessary when (and only when) the scene is dark.
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Perhaps you are correct, and this is just Ricohs' implementation of the focus assist? It's rather different in operation from what I've had on my Canons, and a shame if they do not allow it without flash, but interesting. Maybe they've just assumed that it is only necessary in circumstances that typically would call for flash and have only implemented it there. The specifications I've seen all mention the focus assist, so if it is a mistake they should certainly correct it so that they are not falsely marketing the product. That seems unlikely and what you've discovered is perhaps what they are calling an auxilary focus assist lamp. Thanks. The service center may have simply wanted to blow-off the question without really looking into it. I've run into that with a lot of customer service depts.
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Dean, I have a suspicion that the reason the AF assist doesn't work with the flash off will turn out to be much the same as the reason why the on-camera flash fires even when you are using an external flash - they couldn't organise the electronics in a better way for the same cost !!
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Sandeha,

 

Yes I see you are correct, from page 38 of the manual

 

"? When shooting in a dark place, the AF auxiliary

lamp may flash to raise the focusing

performance. If the flash is switched to off,

the AF auxiliary lamp does not flash"

 

My apologies, I don't even have the camera yet and I'm contradicting those who do!

 

Yes, perhaps if they upgrade the firmware at some point they'll remedy some quirks.

 

One can hope.

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Hi everyone,<p>

 

I am glad to see that some of you are already playing with their new toy :-)<p>

 

About the AF & flash issue, some comments:<br>

- I agree that the pre-flashes are (very) probably also for helping the passive AF in low light.<br>

- The logic probably used is that if you don't want to use flash, you don't want to use the AF assistance flash as well (ex: not to disturb subjects, etc...) => they gathered the Flash and AF assistance into the same setting.<br>

- This being said, the GX is equipped with active AF (IR), and should be able to focus even in total obscurity. So maybe when the light is too low and the Flash has been turned off, the camera just rely on its IR AF and can still get perfect focusing...<p>

 

This is just an idea, but I would be interested to know the following results:<br>

- In total obscurity, Flash=On (NO RED EYE REDUCTION), if you press fully the shutter release button directly => there should not be any pre-flash, as the IR is always used (fully depressed) - it would also be interesting to test the focus accuracy.<br>

- In obscurity, Flash=On, if you press halfway, you should get pre-flashes and the AF should take about 0.5s or more.<br>

- In obscurity, Flash=Off, if you press halfway, you shouldn't get pre-flashes and the AF should be near immediate.<p>

 

If the results are as expected, this is rather good news, and there would be little gain from having separate settings for Flash and AF assistance. Just my opinion, though...<p>

 

Olivier

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John: thank you for the feedback...<p>

 

I thought that the external AF system (the 2 small windows near the flash) was an actice (IR) thing. But it is the usual external Phase detection Passive system (needs contrast & light) => no IR system...<br>

...so much for my previous post, and the "no light" ability of the GX :-(<p>

 

Olivier

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Olivier

 

Sorry if I shouted at you. It's just that I am disappointed about the missing AF light.

 

On the positive side: the camera is much better at focusing in low light than any of the other digicams I have had. But it will not focus in total darkness.

 

I have written to Ricoh marketing this time about the misleading manuals and brochures. Interesting to see their reply.

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Well, the GX is certainly "interesting", isn't it? They specify a hybrid AF system and that usually (although I've already found out that "usually" doesn't apply to Ricoh's definitions) means it does both passive and IF focussing. But apparently not? For myself it's good news if it is passive AF because I don't like the effect windows and so forth have on active auto focus, ie shooting through glass etc, not knowing what you are focussing on and all that. It sounds to me that the camera does a good job at autofocus in normal/dim light, and I guess the bottom line is how much total darkness shooting does one do? Especially given the high noise levels of the 400 to 1600 ISO settings that have been reported.

 

It's important to be realistic about it, most want a digital version of a GR1 or more realistically perhaps an Epic, cameras that do a couple of things very well, yet we expect this camera to do everything. The Epic has a single focal length, is noisy, not particularly fast in the shutter lag dept, and you don't always know exactly what it focussed on (but usually if it is in spot mode you're good). But is small, has a great and fast lens. The GX offers responsiveness, multiple focal lengths, multi ISO, the feedback and interaction only available from a digital, and from what I've been able to tell (I'm still waiting for my GX..) a "reasonably" nice lens for a zoom. I'm mostly interested in the fixed focus feature, and anticipate using mostly 28mm, f8, 2.5 meter focus, and hope to acheive very fast shutter response because it won't have to focus. Has anyone tried this? And the af shutter response is great anyway. If it can do a couple of things like that well, I'll judge it a big success for my purposes.

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After using the GX for a few days, and after switching to a high speed sd card, I feel confident in saying it's a darn good camera, especially at this price.

 

It doesn't have all the bells and whistles of other fashionable cameras, (My Optio S has some fantastic "wow" features. It can even serve as an alram clock and say miaw when you switch it on, but cannot compete in focusing speed, image quality, manual settings, movie mode etc..)

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Just received the camera, and I'm rather impressed, although I picked it up on lunch break and haven't played with it but maybe 30min. The only things I would criticize are that the battery/sd combo door makes me nervous as it appears it could be quite easy to break, the 4way direction buttons aren't quite as robust as they could be.. but just quibbles there. I find the optical viewer, while certainly rather tight, is nice and bright, but the lack of a diopter adjustment seems a bit strange. I also got the filter/lens hood adapter, and in order to mount it, one has to unscrew the outer ring around the lens housing, and this was quite difficult - the ring seemed to have been crossthreaded - so that got me on edge. Re-screwing it on requires patience and a deft touch as it not easy to get it to thread on straight. It's fairly light plastic. The hood/adapter is quite nice but I haven't attempted to thread it on yet.

 

I've snapped a couple shots, and I've got the db43 battery... it was in the camera.. but no charger is included. The ebay seller did not include the battery in the list of accessories either, just the HA-1 adapter and it has a 3 year Ricoh warranty, so I'll have to let that comfort me, as I wonder if this unit was a return :| For what it is worth, there isn't the slightest mar or sign of where anywhere on the camera. Anyhow... I'm looking forward to exploring it's capabilities.

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