The Ricoh GR Digital II | Digicam Photography in New York
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- Опубликовано: 17 окт 2024
- CORRECTION: I originally thought this camera to be the original GR Digital, but when I looked at the bottom of the camera I saw that it was the II. My apologies for the mistake. The GR Digital II was released in 2007. It has a 1/1.75” 10.1MP CCD sensor.
I flew to New York last minute to film a golf event in Westbury for a friend who fell ill.
To say I was anxious about the whole thing is a dramatic understatement. Part of what helped me work through the anxiety was knowing that this would be a great opportunity to take some photos in a new place with a new (old) camera and make a video about it.
I knew heading into NYC wasn't feasible with the limited time I had in New York, so I opted to head to the beach for a number of reasons - one being that I hadn't seen the Atlantic Ocean since I was in Boston working on a show back in 2009 when I was living in Los Angeles.
I had recently equipped my Ricoh GR Digital II (purchased for $80 at a local camera repair shop) with the GV-1 28mm optical viewfinder - which, oddly enough, was nearly $30 more expensive than the camera itself. I don't know that I can really get in the flow with photography without a viewfinder of some kind. After using the GV-1, I get why it's so expensive.
It's BEAUTIFUL.
I've been shooting mostly with 35mm focal lengths with my Leica X1 and my point & shoot film cameras so I was bit surprised by how much I struggled with 28mm on the Ricoh. It was definitely a challenge, and I had to overcome my instincts for framing based on a 35mm lens. I found myself adjusting my stance quite often to get the right composition but even when I did the 28mm still felt too wide.
The public beach here in Long Island wasn't going to be busy enough to do anything close to street photography, so I had to settle for "urban landscape." Fortunately there were enough interesting visuals for me to get in the flow with taking photos -- abandoned structures from this beach's heyday, a closed up restroom building with odd concrete structures that, I assume, were meant to provide shade to beachgoers visiting a now closed pier.
While taking pictures I mistakenly underexposed a few but felt that the preview image on the camera of those images was interested. My instinct was to purposely underexpose more and see what they'd look like when "recovered" in editing. Although I wouldn't shoot all of my photos this way, there is something kind of magical about these noisy, distorted images. The digital grain is so intense and the colors so poor that it gives it a look of Digital Impressionism - maybe even a feeling of Pointillism that we see in art museums in major cities.
I could definitely see embracing this look for a specific project where the subject matter paired with the degraded images combines to create a powerful experience for the viewer.
I'm glad I botched the exposure a few times. It led to an exciting discovery.
Ricoh GR Digital II 👉 m.dpreview.com...
Lens Distortions 👉 www.lensdistor...
RNI Films 👉 reallyniceimag...
mVCR by MotionVFX 👉 geni.us/mVCR
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#digicam #ricohgrdigital #ricoh
I'd love to know your thoughts on the underexposed images. There's something about them that really resonates with me - like a Digital Impressionist painting. I wouldn't shoot this way all the time, but I could definitely see purposely underexposing this camera to get some of the subtler digital noise found in a few of these photos. Some are just way too gone for me while others I'm really drawn to.
The grain really nicely approximates vintage film in a way that you don’t see on modern cameras. They give the photos a really dreamlike quality. I’d love to know more about how you edit photos generally, the red tones in everything you do always look really gorgeous
@@BenHildred Agreed (about the grain/noise)! The images I only slightly underexposed look really good to me if noise/grain is what you’re going for.
As far as editing goes, I wish I could take more credit for those color choices like you see with the reds. I use the RNI Films app and almost always use their Portra 400 film emulation but I reduce the strength significantly. Even with these older CCD sensor digicams it does something special with the images that I find myself drawn to repeatedly. I find that sometimes the reds go a bit too far, and I wish the app allowed for a bit more control over specific colors.
For the underexposed images I didn’t use the RNI Films app - just the Photos app, and about all I did to them was crank up the exposure, tweak the highlights and shadows, and maybe the contrast on a few of them to make it so you could even tell what was what. Definitely a fun little experiment.
Thanks for the photo shot with this vintage camera and ancestor of the current GR
You're welcome! It's a pretty cool old camera, and I don't know that I'll ever get rid of it. Definitely going to make another street photography video with it soon. Appreciate you watching and commenting!
@@somephotovideos I received as a gift of GR Digital 3 before getting one of the modern GRs. It has a fond place for me.
I’d love to check out some of the newer versions. Gotta keep looking on eBay, Craigslist & FB Marketplace!
@@somephotovideos I got my used GR3 off of keh, but before the craze drove up used prices.
@StarrysLostandFound The prices have definitely gone up. And I realized late last night that I am an idiot and misunderstood the camera repair shop owner and thought this was the original GR Digital. The camera didn’t come with a box or documentation, and I didn’t know the tag on the bottom of the camera showed the model.
It’s the GR Digital II from 2007. I wish I could update the text in the video without deleting it and re-uploading 😣
Hi I was wondering how did you get the look of the image in 8:13. The hazy quality and colours are stunning and I'd love to take similar photos. I recently purchased a grdii by accident and I'm trying to make the most of it. Thank you.
Those images are just SEVERELY underexposed. I most likely set the aperture high to something like f/8-f/11 (possibly even higher than that), I probably kept the ISO at 200 and then just cranked the shutter speed to a very high setting until it was really underexposed.
In post I had to crank exposure and lift the shadows and pull up the highlights to even see an image.
I really love how they turned out!
$80 is a steal for this camera, especially with the viewfinder. I've been looking to pick one up for a while now, but they're usually in the $2-300 range so I always balk. My favorite shot was the last one with the guy sitting on the beach.
I was surprised you could recover much, at all, from the underexposed shots. The grain is not unpleasant - sort of nostalgic. Did you try converting some of those to mono? The grain may work in your favor that way.
Well, the viewfinder was an extra $115 on eBay (seller was in Japan) and that was one of the least expensive ones. Camera alone with one battery and the charger (no packaging, cables, etc.) was $80. But yes, still a very good deal overall, and I really, really love having optical viewfinders on this digicams.
Yeah, I really like that last photo as well. There's just something so painting-like about them that really intrigues me. I may have to do a video here and there where I underexpose these digicams and then recover them like with this video. Definitely going to think about a mono version as well but I'm just so in love with colors that it's hard for me to shoot black and white.
Cool vid - enjoyed the images you made set to low fi ambient track, fitted beautifully. There’s something about these older Ricoh cameras … I’ve got the GXR with the optical viewfinder and a couple of the modules. Tbh I prefer it to the GR111 … those underexposed shots are fantastic. :-)
Thanks for the kind words. And I agree that there is definitely something about these older Ricoh cameras. It amazes me how similar recovering underexposed images is to shooting expired film - the look of the images. Thanks for watching!
Nice video. You might want to look at the Ricoh Caplio GX100 which seems to have the same sensor as your Ricoh Digital II but with a 24-72mm zoom lens and often comes with an electronic viewfinder that tilts. The GX100 and EVF usually go for a decent price and many people prefer the GX100 over the 12MP GX200 which used a lot of noise reduction. Terrific macros on the GX100 and the 24mm wide end is a useful option.
The original Ricoh digital had 8 MP and a very slow processor but a great analog look. It took almost 15 seconds for a RAW image to be written to the SD card and the max card it would take was 2GB.
Thanks for the recommendations! I will definitely take a look at those cameras. I wish they were more prevalent here in the Omaha area to either buy them used through the few camera shops we have or to pick them up on Facebook Marketplace/Craigslist. I'm on lockdown right now with acquiring new cameras that cost more than, oh, $25 because I've got quite the backlog of cameras I've already acquired that I need to make videos about.
Planning on doing another Ricoh GR Digital II video this week!
Ayyy love the underexposed ones that you recovered the most. 5:59 and 7:59 were my favorite. ❤️
Appreciate that! I was pleasantly surprised with the underexposed images. Not a style I want to use exclusively but a cool form of digital Impressionism for sure.
@@somephotovideos I get that. Wonderful all around. It’s so funny I’ve bought this camera twice and sold it but here I am recently waiting for another to come in the mail. Finally realizing after buying and selling so many cameras, looking at my LR catalogue helped me realize what i didn’t want anymore was a Leica (which I sold digital and film) Fuji, Sony, Ricoh GR’s as well etc. I just want the 8.1mp Grd and my Polaroid cameras. I guess the Polaroid film will make up for the price of the high end bodies 😅
@@lmlolxl Yeah, I’ll be keeping my GR Digital II forever and it helps that I only paid $80 for it. My biggest issue with it though is dust on the sensor. A new spot emerged since I made this video, and I’ll have to take it apart to clean it off. Funny you mention Polaroid… I just bought a two-pack of 600 at Wal-Mart for $30 when just about 6 months ago I’m pretty sure I paid $40. I don’t know that I’ll use Polaroid for my work, but I absolutely love it for big family events like a kids b-day, the 4th of July, etc.
@@somephotovideos the sensors are annoying to clean for Ricoh cameras. I’ve had success with a blower sometimes otherwise I just edit it out. Buying Polaroids from targets are a hit or miss at least for mine. If it’s a ghetto target I don’t have faith that they’ll store it correctly or leave out film that’s nearly two years old. I try to buy straight from Polaroids site as much as possible since it’s been produced within months and they store it in their giant fridge! Also it’s cheaper and you get rewards points.
did you took this with RAW? it looks like NR didnt applied to most of pictures :)
Yes, shot in RAW. It’s possible. I was a little bored with the location so I wanted to experiment by dramatically underexposing the images… I dig the look for this but wouldn’t want to make it a regular thing.
it's good
Agreed.
is this really that much worse than a digital IV? im trying to decide and i cant find anything but this and the original GRD
I think there are a few meaningful updates to the IV versus the II. This is what DPReview has to say about the IV vs the III:
“The Ricoh GR Digital IV high-end, fixed focal-length compacts is built around the company's GR Digital III 10MP 1/1.7" CCD sensor but gains sensor-shift image stabilization. It also adds 'Hybrid AF' that uses twin CMOS AF sensors allowing the camera to assess focus distance and bring focus times down to 0.2 sec (twice the speed of the GRD III). This, combined with the camera's distinctly photographer-focused interface and compact size, prompts the company to tout the GR Digital IV as a street-shooting tool. The camera also gains a high-resolution RGBW 1.23M dot LCD.”
I love my II but I’ve also never shot with the the III or IV, and I use range focusing when shooting street so faster auto-focus isn’t a big deal to me. The improved display would be great, but again I use the optical viewfinder accessory and almost never compose shots using the LCD.
And I much prefer a CCD sensor over CMOS.
@@somephotovideos i understand your point yes! thank you for the long answer btw, and tbh the thing im concerned about is the resolution, i saw some GRD 3 and 4 pictures that looked so high quality and when i see samples from the grd 2 it looks like a 2006 cheap camera EXCEPT for some examples like your video, your photos looked amazing so im trying to decide...is the resolution good enough or does it look ''old'' ?
Did you watch my video on the GR Digital II in Los Angeles?
ruclips.net/video/ocoz2GVJkI0/видео.html
More photos there to check out.
I mean, I do think the GR Digital II does have a kind of low quality to it but in the sense that the image has character reminiscent of 35mm film. Is it as crisp and sharp as the photos from my Leica X1? No. But there's something really special about the photos from the Ricoh GR Digital II.
I'm keeping the camera FOR SURE.
@@somephotovideos im gonna watch it rn! i was actually looking for the film look but yk without all the post process it needs for digital cameras..so since i cannot afford a ricoh gr 3 i was looking at the digital ones. but even there the difference in price from a digital 2009 and a IV from 2011 is gigantic lol
I hear you! It's a hard decision to make. I'm lucky in that I wasn't really looking for to get a Ricoh GR Digital II but my local camera repair shop had one in their sale case for a whopping $80! I don't know that the shop owner understood how much demand they have these days. It was too good a deal to pass up so I bought it on the spot. And then of course paid well over $100 for the Ricoh 28mm optical viewfinder haha
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