What I’d like to share with you is not really so much as a review of the Ricoh GRii, but why I purchased it in the first place, why I think the camera is so popular, and why it tends to be the camera I tend to pick up most of the time. If you want some self justification on buying one yourself - read on..
About 20 years ago, I had the film version of this camera - the Ricoh GR1s. I loved that camera. The ultra sleek compact design, sharp lens and great form factor - however I had it only 3 months. It ended up in the waters of Sydney Harbor whilst taking photos of the fireworks after the Sydney Olympics - and having the camera sitting on a rock to keep it steady for the long exposure whilst drinking a beer, it slowly slipped down the ever so slight incline of that smooth granite and plopped into 3 feet of crystal clear salt water loaded with a roll of Velvia50 - I can still replay that moment at 120FPS in my head... It’s most probably still stuck between the two big boulders today.
Since that day, I have owned many (and I mean MANY) cameras that is an adventure I’m sure a lot of you can relate too. It is a never ending cycle of getting something new that somehow promises to make your photography better, where in fact, it is just takes sharper, higher resolution of our mistakes and highlights the shortcomings of us as photographers - which is no bad thing when you come to know this fact (As Jamie Winsor points out here)
David duChemin articulates it very well in his book “The Soul of the Camera” in saying that it takes discipline in pushing past the good to being great at your craft, and to do this we need to take more images to see what works and what doesn’t. The Ricoh GRii is one of those cameras that allows one less block in wanting to take a camera with you, even if it is just having a campfire with your children, taking a trip down the street or walking in the outdoors by yourself. If by chance, you capture an image that you really like, it will be far better working with a camera that provides more scope in editing and printing if you wanted to. Yes - we always seem to have our phones on us these days, but the Ricoh GRii has a smaller footprint than my Google Pixel 2XL (The phone is obviously thinner though).
The Ricoh is smaller than many modern day smart phones (Google Pixel 2XL pictured) with the benefit of having a sensor size 23.7 x greater than the camera on the smart phone (Google Pixel 2XL Camera sensor 4.54mm x 3.42mm Vs 23.6mm x 15.6mm of the Ricoh)
At some point I think you can relate to the time where going on a holiday, you have become all excited and packed your “minimal” camera gear - maybe even a small DSLR or a Fuji X-T2 with a small zoom lens (because we have to cover every focal length) - and hardly took it out. The Ricoh can be held in your hand with no effort - just like holding a phone (only smaller). I had even downsized my travel camera at one point to a Fuji X100s which I really liked a lot when it came to the images it produced, the ergonomics and the looks of course - but I found even this too big and was leaving it behind most of the time, or left in our travel backpack at best when I did bring it along. With all that I have written now, you have to decide for yourself exactly what it is that you want from your images. If it something to simply document an event or moment to share on a social media platform, then your phone will be more than enough to be displaying the image on a smartphone or laptop screen. If there may be a chance that the picture you want to capture is going to be something that you would want printed or edited, then seriously consider the Ricoh.
In wrapping this short little post up, I think it was said well by my wife when she said “Oh, that’s a nice little light camera” and enjoyed using it herself. My daughters aged 8 and 10 like using it - and tend to act and play up when taking photos of one another - capturing images that I would have never got. You don’t have to look far to see that I really cannot praise this camera highly enough - but some people will talk of the high cost. Yes - it is not cheap (But the prices have come down a little since the new GRiii has been released), however if I can put it to you another way - many people upgrade their smart phones every two years at a cost the same (or even more) than this camera costs. A single lens for your photography may cost more in many cases - but if you do decide to purchase one, you may just find that the Ricoh GRii was the camera you didn’t know you needed.
