Ricoh GXR

There are enough interchangeable lens formats available on the market today to make any Luddite quiver with trepidation.

First out of the blocks came Panasonic and Olympus' joint collaboration on Micro Four Thirds, Samsung emerged earlier this year with its NX system, and now Ricoh's GXR enters the fray.

To put it simply, the GXR is just the camera body. No image sensor, no lens, just a shell with operational controls, the battery and card slot, and a small amount of processing power. In the front slides a lens with a sensor unit. The lens block configurations available at the time of writing include an A12 unit (the one which we received to test alongside the GXR) and the S10 unit.

The body-only component of the GXR. (Credit: Ricoh)

The A12 lens block consists of a 50mm f/2.5 macro lens backed by a 12.3-megapixel APS-C sensor, and the S10 is a 24-72mm (3x optical zoom) f/2.5-4.4 unit with a 10-megapixel 1/1.75-inch sensor.

It's a curious move from the manufacturer renowned for its focus on the "serious" photographer, from the all-black utilitarian GR Digital series or the extended zoom CX series. The interesting thing about the GXR is the future applications of the system, whether that's for other lens and sensor combinations or additional features that could be provided down the track like a GPS unit, for example.

As with all new technologies, the price for being a first mover isn't cheap; AU$699 for the GXR camera body, AU$999 for the A12 50mm f/2.5 macro camera unit, AU$649 for the S10 24-72mm f/2.5-4.4 VC camera unit, and bundle packages including the GXR camera body + A12 unit for AU$1599, GXR camera body + S10 unit for AU$1199 and the GXR camera body + A12 + S10 units for AU$2099.

If you thought that was enough of a mouthful, just imagine trying to explain this concept to someone who is just starting out with photography. From the outset, we can tell this is no casual camera.

Design and features

The GXR camera unit shares a similar design to the GR Digital III. It's a no-nonsense layout of buttons and dials along the top and the back. The hotshoe attachment also doubles as the mount for the electronic viewfinder which clips in just underneath a la the Panasonic GF1. There is a pop-up flash included too, activated by the button directly underneath.

With a lens unit attached, the GXR feels sturdy and well made; bigger than a compact camera like Ricoh's own GR Digital or CX range but considerably smaller than a standard digital SLR. As with the company's other digital cameras, the 920,000-dot 3-inch LCD screen looks beautiful. The electronic viewfinder is bright and displays all the same information that appears on the LCD screen, though the refresh rate makes it headache-inducing if you're liable to motion sickness.

The viewfinder's resolution is 920,000 dots (the same as the LCD screen) and it covers 100 per cent field of view. It can also tilt up and down on its axis.

Naturally, as the lens and the sensor are combined, this mitigates an issue for many digital SLR owners: dust. The contained system in theory protects the sensor from any possible dust particles. In fact, the only part of the system that comes into contact with the environment is the front of the lens, the GXR unit itself and the connectors which snap the lens block into the GXR.

The GXR can process images in JPEG or RAW format (open DNG format), HD (720p) video when the A12 lens block is attached and standard VGA with the S10. On the side of the GXR is an HDMI out, AV out and USB port.

With the A12 unit attached, the GXR looks like it means serious business; it's a sturdy and well-made camera.

The A12 lens and sensor block that can be mounted on the GXR. (Credit: Ricoh)

We've put the GXR side by side with one of its main interchangeable lens system competitors, the Olympus E-P2, to compare.

Performance

From the outset, the GXR doesn't feel like a fast camera. Unfortunately, we couldn't compare the A12 and S10 units side by side to ascertain if the lens units or the GXR itself was the cause for the slow performance. Start-up time is close to three seconds from turning the unit on to it becoming responsive to shoot. This is incredibly slow when compared to the average digital SLR start-up time. Shutter lag with pre-focusing measures 0.1 second, and without, 0.45 second.

Autofocus with the A12 is infuriatingly slow. The lens seeks focus back and forth even in ample light, which makes it all but useless for action photography and fast-moving subjects.

Note that the GXR is a little temperamental when it comes to recording images to memory cards — you will need to format the card in the camera before it will let you do anything. Ricoh's menu system also takes some getting used to, with myriads of options available in some oddly nested structures.

Image quality

Coming from a world of compact cameras, an APS-C-sized sensor in a small body is almost the holy grail of imaging (well, a full frame sensor would be really, but that's not going to happen any time soon). As the sensor is physically larger than those found on traditional compact cameras, you assume and expect the A12 to have better photo quality than a compact and even a Micro Four Thirds camera.

Overall, the GXR impresses with images from the A12 lens; natural colours, sharpness from edge to edge of the frame, and pleasing tonality. What was slightly surprising was the A12's tendency to overexpose highlights in areas of high contrast.

An example of a macro shot taken with the A12 lens block. Note the pleasing shallow depth of field. (Credit: Alexandra Savvides/CNET Australia)

Automatic white balance is generally on the mark of JPEG shooting, if a little colder than expected.

Inside the convoluted menu structure you can find different image effects, including vivid, standard, neutral, a black and white setting with adjustable contrast and sharpness, and also a black and white setting to put a tone (for example, sepia) over the image.

Most surprising of all with the GXR's image quality was its high ISO performance. Other Ricoh cameras in the past have been incredibly noisy at high ISO levels, particularly at ISO 1600 and above. The GXR performed admirably even at ISO 3200 delivering good images, even with a slight amount of noise, but little discolouration, particularly when put side by side with a shot from the Olympus E-P2 at the same ISO.

The same shot taken at ISO 3200 with the Ricoh GXR with A12 lens block (top) and Olympus E-P2 with 14-42mm lens (bottom). (Credit: Alexandra Savvides/CNET Australia)

One striking difference between the two cameras that we noticed in testing side by side was the quality of the LCD screen. The Ricoh's 920,000-dot resolution simply blew the Olympus E-P2's 230,000-dot screen out of the water.

The same image taken with the Ricoh GXR (top) and Olympus E-P2 with 14-42mm lens (bottom). (Credit: Alexandra Savvides/CNET Australia)

As with many other compacts equipped with HD video, the GXR (equipped with the A12 lens block) suffers from a small amount of rolling shutter. Despite this quality is fairly good, and audio is underwhelmingly recorded in mono from the in-built microphone. Video clips are recorded in AVI (Motion JPEG) format.

Conclusion

Ricoh has made a bold move with the GXR, a camera system that relies on an interchangeable lens and sensor combination. Fortunately, it delivers excellent images but it is an expensive investment. We're also not sure of the next step from here; photographers migrating to the GXR system will want the benefit of different focal lengths and other options that are immediately available to conventional SLR photographers (and even Micro Four Thirds ones). Plus, we were only able to test the one lens/sensor combination, the A12 lens and APS-C sized sensor. We've got great hopes for the GXR's potential though, and can't wait to see what Ricoh will come up with next.