Special thanks to Futuromic Malaysia (official distributor of Ricoh/Pentax in Malaysia), I got a loaner Ricoh GR IV to play with for about more than a week. I have been all around the city trying to grab enough sample shots for the past one week, and the poor weather conditions did not help with my productivity level. I managed to get just enough shots to support my video which I made on YouTube, sharing the things that I like and dislike about the Ricoh GR IV. Spoilers alert - there are way more things that I like about the GR IV, you can watch the video here (click). It truly is a marvel how Ricoh can make such a capable camera in a tiny package, and the improvements over the predecessors are also worth mentioning!
I do not own this Ricoh GR IV, it was on loan from Futuromic Malaysia and I have returned the camera to them after making my content. This is not a review of the GR IV, I only had one week with the camera and it was not enough for me to fully test the camera and go through every single feature. All I did was do some street shooting with the GR IV at various locations in Kuala Lumpur and based on my limited experience with the camera I am sharing what I like and dislike about it here.
If you shoot a lot with wide angle, say 28mm equivalent for your street photography and you want something much smaller in footprint, the Ricoh GR IV is possibly the best camera you can get at the moment. It features a fixed 28mm F2.8 equivalent lens on a pocketable slim form body, packed with large APS-C sized 26MP image sensor (possibly the latest one from Sony) and surprisingly it does have a few tricks up its sleeves. Here are the things that I really like about the Ricoh GR IV:
- Truly Pocketable - I love that Ricoh can squeeze in large image sensor into a small body, and still have a reasonably bright lens, downsized into a pocketable form factor. This is already encroaching Micro Four Thirds territory, and there really is not much compromise happening in terms of performance and delivery.
- Sharp Lens - Ricoh claimed they have redesigned the lens compared to the predecessor GR III, and I can tell from the results I got from the camera. Images are generally excellent in sharpness, even at wide open F2.8 aperture, and sharpness is consistent from edge to edge and corner to corner. The fine details and contrast rendering are also commendable. Image sharpness improves a little when stopped down to F4 or F5.6, but I won't hesitate to just grab my shots quickly at F2.8 if I have to.
- Image Quality - the new image sensor used in the GR IV is a different one than the previous GR III, perhaps the latest APS-C iteration from Sony. While the improvements may not be breaking new grounds, I find my images having good color depth and more than sufficient dynamic range, especially in harsh Malaysian sun on the streets.
- Autofocus - perhaps this is the biggest improvement, and most significant for the Ricoh GR Series cameras. I have mentioned that I was not satisfied with the GR III and GR IIIX, not that their AF was bad, but just not confident enough for my usual grab and go method. However, things are very different with the GR IV, AF has improved so much, it was almost instantaneous and my hit rate on the streets was very high. If I miss certain shots, it was most likely my own fault now instead of the camera. Yes, I admit there is snap focus for quick execution, but snap focus to me is just a lazy excuse for poor autofocus. If I am spending this much on a modern, latest and greatest camera, I expect the AF to work effectively for my street shooting. Thankfully, it exceeded my expectations.
- Image Stabilization - this is what truly took me by surprise, I knew Ricoh claimed some improvements on the image stabilization but I did not expect it to be this good. Based on my quick tests, I can confidently hand-hold the camera steady down to about 4 seconds long exposure! That is insanely good, and of course I am not shooting everything in long exposure, but the benefits are gamechanging. Now I don't have to worry about hand-shake for images I shoot at dangerously slow shutter speeds, like 1/20, or 1/10 second shutter speed, and I can be more creative with my shots with intentional motion and blur capture!
- Responsiveness - the camera was generally very smooth to operate, from start up time to AF to shot to shot recovery, everything was snappy and efficient. Any adjustments on the settings and menu navigation was also very well implemented, I did not notice any stutter or hesitation, which added to the positive feeling while using the camera shooting on the streets. When things happen so fast, you expect the camera to respond immediately, and the GR IV did.
- Handling - this is an often overlooked aspect of a camera, but one of the most important. It isn't easy to make a small camera that handles well, and I am happy to report that Ricoh did not compromise the handling of the GR IV. It has sufficient beefy hand gripping area that is also textured for anti-slipping. Overall, the camera is so comfortable use for long duration of shooting, I did not experience any issues or disconfort handling the GR IV.
- Internal Storage - I really wish every manufacturer would implement this, the GR IV has internal storage 53GB built in, which means you don't need an external memory card for the camera to work. This simplifies the workflow, all I need to do is turn on the camera and I am ready to shoot! 53GB is more than sufficient for several rounds of shooting, storing more than 1000 RAW images.
There are not that many things to complain about the Ricoh GR IV, but here are a few issues I have found, though none of them are dealbreakers.
- Thumb Grip Area - there is just too many buttons and controls cramped around the thumb grip area. The plus minus buttons, a control dial, playback button and Fn button, all placed too close at the thumb grip, making it too easy to accidentally press or adjust any of the given settings. I wish Ricoh did not put so many things there!
- Plus Minus Buttons - which is a weird implementation, I'd prefer traditional wheel or control dial adjustment which would be more tactile and efficient compared to button pressing. I find this totally unnecessary and did not improve anything.
- Total Burst Blackout - while shooting sequential continuous drive, the LCD screen is in total blackout. I expect a modern camera to be able to mitigate this problem, or at least have partial visibility while burst shooting is in operation. I only use burst mode when shooting moving subjects and action, and how can I follow the movement or effectively nail the moment if I cannot see anything?
- Battery Life - this could have been better, I have used cameras about the size of GR IV or slightly bigger with double or triple the battery capacity. For the GR IV, I almost emptied the battery in 2 hours shooting duration with about 300-400 shots captured.
Overall, the complains are mostly minor issues and should not impact the performance of the camera. I believe the Ricoh GR IV is still a fantastic little street shooting machine. Yes, it is stuck at 28mm equivalent focal length, which is not a bad thing, and there is a reason why many street photographers choose and love to shoot with 28mm, it just works for wide angle, environmental shots. The camera is fast, responsive, delivers sharp images, and all that packed into a truly pocketable package. While some may argue that the asking price is on the higher side, and I do agree to a certain degree, the truth is, there is none like the Ricoh GR IV in the market at the moment. It has a unique position, and having such massive improvements of AF, image stabilization and overall responsiveness over the predecessors made the GR IV even more appealing, as a one camera to do it all street shooting machine.
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