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We clicked with:
Excellent build quality
Responsive performance
Lens quality
Vivid images from ISO 80-400
Overall ergonomics
Shots in the dark:
No hot shoe
No viewfinder
High ISO better than before, but not by much
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Ricoh does it differently. No pre-PMA launches (Ricoh doesn't have a presence in the USA, so no need for PMA) no big shout and no three month delay from press launch to product release. Instead, the company quietly announced the new Ricoh R8 on its website, then handing over the camera for review on the same day in key areas like the UK. So, yesterday we got the launch and the preview… now comes the review proper. The product itself ships in the beginning of March. Phew!
Ricoh dropped the Caplio name with this camera - it's now just the R8. How Leica will take this - the company's previous film SLR had the same R8 name - is unclear. The R8 - Ricoh's that is, not Leica's - also drops the pretty case colours and is now finished in all-black, all-silver or a panda finish with silver flashes offsetting the black body itself. The fit and finish (whichever you decide on) is exemplary for a £250 camera. It feels purposeful.
The Ricoh R8 has also been extensively cleaned up ergonomically, with mind to making the camera join the GX100 and GRD II as a candid photographer's tool. So the simple lines and buttons (just a power socket, zoom and shutter control and mode dial on the top panel, four control buttons and a four-way thumb controller next to that 460,000, 2.7” LCD screen. The rubberized grip on the front and back of the right hand side of the camera does make it a natural partner with the hand and everything all makes a lot of sense, with no unnatural stretches or contortions - one handed operation is a practical reality. The 10 megapixel sensor with 7.1x zoom, face detection, anti-shake and other modes all help too.
Ricoh has included its latest Smooth Imaging Engine III image processor and works from ISO 80-1600 with an auto setting option, with an adjustable cap on the highest possible ISO used in auto (it's capped at ISO 400 as standard… we'd leave it there because over that and you hit poor noise performance). You do have full manual override, driven from the menus. It takes a little while to learn how to do manual properly on the Ricoh R8, because shutter and aperture priority and manual are driven from the rear thumb controller button, rather than options on the top thumbwheel.
One specific function that's exceptionally useful for many photographers is the step zoom; rather than a smooth zoom from 28mm to 200mm, the step zoom has distinct jumps (28mm, 35mm, 50mm, 85mm, 105mm, 135mm and 200mm). The restriction seems odd in the face of a smoother action, but it seems to work by making you more conscious of your focal length. The zoom itself is good, albeit with surprisingly little barrelling or pin-cushioning and not much vignetting either. Yes, the Ricoh R8's image barrels and vignettes at the wide end - and this is not as good as either the Ricoh GX100 or GRD lens, but no more than most zooms of this intensity. As standard, the camera does underexpose slightly, but this preserves highlights, and you can pass the standard images off as 'moody'.
There are a couple of omissions that make the whole 'candid photographer' concept slightly less well thought out. There's no optical viewfinder, nor a hot-shoe to hold either a flash or viewfinder. Given the step zoom, it would also be good if the lens had a memory option, so that it could remember what setting was used the last time the camera was powered down. Fortunately, that's exactly what the My Settings options kick in - you can store your favourite lens position, assign key functions to the four-way adjustment button in exactly the way you like them, even set the camera to trap focus, which speeds up the camera for street work.
//img: street photo.jpg//
Mostly though, the Ricoh R8 performs well. It's reasonably fast to power up, responds well (it focuses fast and there's little shutter lag) and makes a good all round compact. The battery is claimed to take around 270 shots per charge. The flash is improved too. There are more options (including a slow synchro or rear flash mode), meaning it's more likely to nail the image, although it still falls off fast (up to three metres or so… fine, over that… forget it). However, this isn't a camera for flash users - it's the candid snapper's best rig and that's what it does best. And the two user modes allow you to fine tune the camera to your candid photo needs, plus you can tweak your quickly-grabbed images in camera, like this extreme example (you can also control perspective, too).
No Ricoh camera is an all-rounder - they go for specialist targets, and so it is with the Ricoh R8. This is a camera for a photo enthusiast, but not one that wants the demands of a dedicated camera like the GRD II. Ricoh calls this 'a tool that you can use every day'... and that really works here. It's tough enough and simple enough to survive life in a pocket or bag day in day out.
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Megapixels
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10
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Screen
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2.7” LCD (approx. 460,000 pixels)
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Zoom
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7.1x Optical Zoom (28-200mm 35mm equiv.), 4.8x digital zoom, optional step mode
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Picture Modes
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15 modes
AVI movie
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Stabilisation
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Yes
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Sensitivity
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ISO80-1600 + Auto
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White balance
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Auto, 5 options, Manual option with bracket
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Storage
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SD
24MB Internal memory
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Battery
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Lithium ion rechargeable
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Other / Key features
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Face recognition
Five flash modes
Two user setting options
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