Ricoh GRIII Review

(Full disclosure: Ricoh kindly lent me the GRIII for a two-month period. I was not asked to write a review. These are my genuine thoughts.)

I’d never shot with one before but I was no stranger to the GRIII - you can’t be a street photographer in Tokyo and not notice all the GRs everywhere. (Several of my friends own one, too.) Nonetheless, it was a massive departure for me as someone that's been shooting manual focus lenses on full-frame digital bodies for several years.

It's light. Tiny, too. Pocketable. Years ago I used to keep up with camera reviews and the writers seemed very generous with the label "pocketable". There was a habit of touting bricks (or thereabouts) as being pocketable. The term fits the GRIII however, which sat comfortably in my jacket pocket when I wasn't shooting. And you know what they say: the best camera is the one you have with you...

I threw on an old thumb grip from another camera I used to own to improve my hold, but given it's size and weight, I don't think it was really necessary.

I opted for the 28mm over the newer 40mm GRIIIX, but feel I would've enjoyed that too. As it happens, 28 and 40 are my two most-used focal lengths.

The lens and sensor combo is capable of producing very sharp images. The 24mp sensor provides more than enough resolution (if you don't crop into your images) and it being APS-C lends itself to large depth of field street compositions better than full-frame does.