When Ricoh launched its very first workplace copier, the Ricopy 101, in 1955, the product’s recognition sparked a time period — supposedly people would say “make a Ricopy” as a substitute of “make a duplicate.” And with the corporate’s present digital camera lineup, the GR III, they’ve made a variety of Ricopies, making solely slight modifications to every of the pocket-sized point-and-shoot cameras 12 months over 12 months.
The newest of which is the $1,066.95 Ricoh GR III HDF. It has the identical 24.2-megapixel APS-C sensor and exterior {hardware} as the entire different GR III cameras, together with the primary GR III digital camera that was launched in 2019. However what makes it value speaking about right this moment is the brand new “HDF” a part of its title. It stands for “excessive diffusion filter.” Whereas earlier Ricoh cameras had a built-in ND filter, which you’ll consider as sun shades to your digital camera that decrease the quantity of sunshine hitting the sensor, the GR III HDF has a diffusion filter as a substitute. When enabled, this causes highlights, corresponding to a backlight on somebody’s head, to diffuse or unfold out. It additionally ever so barely, and I can’t stress each so barely sufficient, softens the picture as an entire.
I spent over three weeks with the Ricoh GR III HDF. And whereas I recognize Ricoh dropping the ND filter, which I hardly ever enabled in earlier GR III cameras, for one thing I’ve been taking part in with much more, the HDF filter, the core tech of the digital camera is beginning to really feel dated. Tune in to my video above for extra on that and a great deal of photograph samples with the brand new diffusion filter.