Our dreams of the perfect, barebones camera come a step closer to being answered. Ricoh's GR Digital II has been fully tested at the Photography Blog and the conclusion is that, while there are flaws, it delivers great pictures and is a joy to use.
Probably the most important for a serious photographer, the GR II shoots RAW. Adobe DNG RAW, which means no pesky compatibility problems with processing software. The camera does struggle to record these files to a memory card, though, with a write time of up to four seconds and no real burst mode (you can squeeze off two shots before the camera locks up).
Noise at settings above ISO 400 is a problem, too, although not surprising as Ricoh has squeezed 10.3 million pixels onto a sub-APS sized CCD chip. Another possible problem for those too lazy to get up and walk is the lack of a zoom. The GR II comes with a fixed 28mm lens. The prime glass should make for better images, though, and it also allows a fairly fast maximum aperture of ƒ2.4.
Ricoh has also decided to leave out an optical viewfinder. This seems like a serious omission until you realize that you can buy an accessory viewfinder for the hot-shoe slot. It seems even less important when you consider just how crappy are the optical viewfinders in other compact cameras (we're looking at you, Canon G9). The camera costs $700. This makes it more expensive than many DSLRs, and the same price as Sigma's 2003 throwback, the DP-1. It's still not the perfect pocket camera, but it's baby steps, people, baby steps.
Review page [Photography Blog]
