Since last week I decided to shoot, for a while, with the Ricoh GR3. I’ve had this camera for almost 3 years and I’ve hardly used it … It’s a little bit backwards that I’m using it, but I’m going to try to invest myself in it to get over its big flaws and try to get the best out of it. This Blog is called week 1. I will try to share my impressions with you over the next few weeks. As the holidays are approaching, it will be about Street Photography, but not only, because I have less opportunity to do it when I have the kids with me.
This week I rediscovered the GR3. The first thing I am happy about is its performance at high ISO! Even in alleys with little light, I was able to keep the aperture at f8 and the shutter speed at 1/800s. I often happily exceeded ISO 5000 and the colour was still correct. On the other hand, the AF slips quite a bit. Yes, I often use the AF with the Ricoh because I also have the Snap which is zone focusing that I set to 1.5m. It’s the plus of the GR series. You can use AF and zone focusing at the same time. I may have to adjust the AF zone differently, but I found it weird going back and forth…
The camera always overheats. I always find it annoying … Oh yes, to take 300 pictures, I used 2 batteries ! It’s just scandalous as autonomy … And yet, I don’t use the touch screen. I also had a weird thing when I was at the limit of the battery. The camera would turn itself off with the lens out. Kind of like a forced standby. But it’s kind of weird not to retract the lens. On my old Ricohs, when the battery runs out, the camera shuts down and retracts the lens. I don’t know if this is normal or if my camera has a defect. After I put in a new battery, the problem was no longer there.
I’m getting used to the layout of the shutter release and on/off buttons. I haven’t accidentally turned the camera off while taking pictures. This was not the case when I started using the GR3 3 years ago. The camera seems to me to be more fragile than the previous iterations though. Clearly, I am not yet comfortable with this camera in the streets of Saint-Denis.
The image quality is good and it feels like there is a lot of potential that I haven’t touched yet. Weeks and weeks of practice are needed to find its limits. The opening photo of this blog is a 2 year old photo that was lying around on the SD card. The last photo of this blog was taken yesterday while I was playing volleyball with Joachim.
All the photographs were made with the Ricoh GR3.
Thanks for this, I’m thinking about gr3x haven’t seen any heating complaints. Andrea Bianco did great articles on GR2 and GR3, that’s where I learned stay away from 3. Look forward your next article!
Stay away from the 3 ! But when you only have the GR3 as a valid GR, you need to make with what you have ! 😉 My idea is that a lot of people are happy with this camera. I need to figure out if it doesn’t come from me. I need to give his chance to this camera. I’m switching from a 10 MP camera to a 24 one ! It’s a huge step
These are great! I’m thinking about the GR3x … need to save up! I love my GR2 so much I can’t really justify the investment in the GR3 especially given its various problems. Will follow your reports with interest!
I’m not convinced by the GR3x … My first feeling is that this number is doomed to me. The GR3 is not what I expected. The second thing is that the focal length is not mine. 40 mm is too narrow to me. I used to have the pancake lens on the Fuji XE2, the 27 mm. It made the combo on the XE2 so tiny. But I wasn’t able to get use to it. I just hope that the futur iteration of the GR will be more interesting. In the meantime, I will try to use the GR3
I also have the GR iii, but I’ve only used it twice. I mainly use my GR ii because I can process the RAW files using the Digital Camera Utility that came with my purchase.
Hello Reuel, in terms of ergonomics and feeling I prefer using the GR or the GR II. My preference nevertheless goes to the GR which has a better AF. But in term of pure performance, the GR 3 is way better. But as you know the number of MP has nothing to do when it comes to Street. The only reason why I use the GR 3 is that all my cameras (GR, GRD IV) have flaws … As I don’t want to invest anymore, I just use what I have. It’s been a few months now that I only shoot with the GR3 and I get use to this camera. The AF still sucks, the autonomy is just lame and it still overheats… But hey I only have this camera left ! Well I could use the Fuji XF10 which is very good but I love the GR series.
The biggest step of the GR 3 is the better performance at high ISO. But for the rest the GR (or GR II) is enough and frankly the GR feels better in hands. May be the GR 3 is to tiny. I really mean it. The feeling I have is that the camera is not well balanced compared to the previous iteration