The Ricoh GXR is a totally new kind of compact camera. Big words, true, but there’s really nothing like this modular system available at the lower end of the camera market: you don’t just swap lenses here – you swap entire front sections, including a lens AND a sensor. So does Ricoh’s innovative system really mean more flexibility and better photos than a regular compact or a Micro Four Thirds snapper like the Olympus E-P2? Read our full Ricoh GXR review for the answer.
At present there is only a single back module available. Priced at around £450, it provides a crystal clear 3-inch LCD screen, built-in flash, hotshoe flash mount and the usual plethora of buttons and dials. Onto this back you can slide one of two lens/sensor units: the S10 24-72mm f/2.5-4.4, 10-megapixel CCD standard zoom (around £300); or the A12 50mm f/2.5 Macro lens, which comes with a 12.3-megapixel APS-C CMOS sensor (around £600).
While the idea behind the Ricoh GXR is pretty radical, once the camera is assembled it works pretty much like any other compact digital model. Slide on the S10 unit and you’ve basically got a standard 10-megapixel 3x zoom point-and-shoot suitable for general purpose shooting and capable of decent close-up macro snaps. Albeit one that costs £750 – way more than the Canon G11 and Nikon P6000 it’s going up against. In all honesty, we’d much rather use either of those cameras – the S10 unit is slow to grab autofocus, and its pictures are decent but nothing exceptional.
Read our Olympus PEN E-P2 review now
The A12 50mm unit is another story altogether. While it’s a fixed focal length, the wide f/2.5 aperture and physically larger sensor give you better low light performance and the ability to shoot with a narrower depth of field. The lens itself is also very sharp, so you can take some nicely creative snaps: portraits with blurred backgrounds, super-detailed macro shots and “standard” landscapes and street scenes with zero distortion. Sadly the autofocus is slow and unreliable, and we found ourselves switching to manual to save time.
So basically you have to whack a £600 module on a £450 body to achieve truly great shots with the Ricoh GXR. That’s over a grand, a sum which could net you an Olympus E-P2, or a Panasonic GF1 with a couple of lenses, or a very good full-size DSLR.
Is the Ricoh GXR worth the outlay? Not really. It’s not a bad camera at all, and the idea behind it is pretty sound, but the pricing just doesn’t make it particularly tempting at the moment.
In our initial review, we said the Ricoh GXR did not do video. This is not the case: the 50mm A12 module handles 720p clips, while the S10 does standard def. We apologise for any confusion.
