Black brick professionals! The Ricoh GR Digital II and the Sigma DP1

How do you feel about these two 28mm little black brick cameras that are aimed at the serious photographer.
Here are two cameras, both offer RAW, have a 28mm fixed lens in solidly built pocketable cameras.

One, the 10MP Ricoh GR Digital II has the advantage of a fast superb 2.4 lens the other, the Sigma DP1 offers the advanced and much larger DSLR sized tri-layer RGB Foveon sensor, with the x3 factor, 14 MP. Have you considered these?

The ~ $600 GR Digital II already has a following because of the pedigree of its quality fixed 28mm lens and the unique grain (some would call it "horrible", others "distinctive") of the B&W images it can produce. For sure, the camera reacts fast and is blessed with perhaps the best set of buttons for manual control of everything including "favorite settings".





For the well received Ricoh, it's the fast lens that is the selling point. "The key criteria for lens performance , sharpness and low distortion, have been pursued without compromise. The widely acclaimed F2.4/f:5.9mm lens (35mm equivalent: 28mm) features improvements to compensate for various types of aberrations and vignetting on the subject's periphery - areas that are particularly problematic - to provide outstanding sharpness and high contrast all the way to the corners of the image as the data in the lens' MTF curve demonstrates. This achieves high image quality particularly when taking pan-focus shots. Other refinements include reduction in mechanical noise from the AF drive during focusing. The GR Lens is the story of constant efforts at improvement. The more the user understands photography, the more he or she will want to put this lens to use.

The brightness of a F2.4 aperture and various aberration compensation. The superb optical performance of the GR Lens is achieved by a 5-group, 6 element lens that incorporates 3-groups with 2 aspherical elements and high-precision assembly techniques for sharper images in a more compact size. Use of high quality optical glass and special lens polishing and multi-coating technologies ensure natural colour renditions, overall sharpness and excellent contrast characteristics. The design of an original "retracting lens system" allows for the lens to draw level into a thin, 25mm camera body. In the course of the lens retracting a portion of the optical system withdraws from atop of the optical axis, thereby realizing extreme high-precision and control of the lens unit - a successful merger of exceptional optical performance within a slim body form you can carry with you anywhere." Source.

I am impressed how photographers have become religiously attached to the Ricoh, even embracing the noise as some character like we might remark on in swirling a taste of a great wine. There's lens adapters to provide focal lengths equivalent 40mm and 21mm. Fans even crave versions with these 40mm and 21mm focal lengths and it seems many would carry all three! Hello guys! What's the point of a compact if you are schlepping a whole compendium of lenses and or variants!



I however, look to the upcoming ~ $800 Sigma DP1, for far greater quality image implied. A more impressive picture is expected from the Foveon sensor, as found in in the flagship Sigma SD14 DSLR. After a puzzling delay which appears to have been a matter of getting the last software quirks solved, the 28mm fixed lens DP1 is due out in Europe and the USA in weeks. The Sigma company has put both it's flagship larger Foveon sensor and it's lens expertise into its compact DP1 offering. "Sigma DP1 compact digital camera featuring a 14 megapixel FOVEON X3 direct image sensor (2652 _ 1768 _ 3 layers) as used in the Sigma SD14 digital SLR."

"16.6mm F4 LENS DESIGNED EXCLUSIVELY FOR THE DP1
The DP1 is equipped with a 16.6mm F4 lens, equivalent to 28mm on a 35mm SLR camera, which has been designed exclusively for DP1. The large-diameter of aspherical glass provides low distortion and high contrast images. It also offers superior peripheral brightness. The super multi-layer coating reduces flare and ghosting. It allows photographers to take pictures in difficult light conditions. This lens and SLR-sized image sensor provides natural shallow depth-of-field." Source Sigma

Well, what about the Sigma not having the 40mm lens for portraits? Just take the image and crop! What about a 21mm attachment like the Ricoh? Turn the camera vertically and take adjacent overlapping pictures. That's what stitching is for. One camera for everything! However, I'd guess it will be best used at ISO settings at 400 and below given the performance of the same sensor in the Sigma DSLR. At the lower ISOs one should get really wonderful color.

Asher

Have you used a fixed 28mm camera? Share you pictures and your reasons for going this way! Is this on your wish list?

Asher

Asher Kelman said:

How do you feel about these two 28mm little black brick cameras that are aimed at the serious photographer.

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I guess they both will be fine cameras for their intended use. It's too soon to pass any kind of judgement on the DP1 (since it's not available yet as a production model), so comparison with the Ricoh will have to wait.

What can be said about the DP1 is that is't not a 14MP camera (unless you want to count co-located RGB as separate spatial samples), and that it's Raw files will be approx. 21 MB (depending on bit-depth, and before compression) due to the RGB recording of the Foveon sensor. So bring more/larger memory cards when hiking with the DP-1. We'll also have to see how it handles aliasing (it probably doesn't have an AA-filter), and how battery life works out. We'll also have to see how they both handle AWB, color, and noise at various ISO settings and how they compare on things like shutter lag and LCD quality.

There are lots of criteria that carry different weights for different users, so we'll need to see them perform side by side. Image quality differences will be very important at these price levels.

Bart

Asher Kelman said:

The ~ $600 GR Digital II already has a following because of the pedigree of its quality fixed 28mm lens and the unique grain (some would call it "horrible", others "distinctive") of the B&W images it can produce.

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I suspect that this is simply because the JPEGs are not plasticized to death with noise reduction, as many small-sensor cameras are prone to do, to please a public who thinks that noise should never be seen at 100% pixel view, at any cost. You can get much better B&W images from RAWs converted specifically for B&W with any camera, and this is especially true of small-sensor cameras.

For sure, the camera reacts fast and is blessed with perhaps the best set of buttons for manual control of everything including "favorite settings".

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The rich feature set of this camera makes it interesting to me; especially the hyperfocal lock. It also shoots a little wider than my Panasonic FZ50, which has similar RAW noise stats, but is a bit larger.

I am impressed how photographers have become religiously attached to the Ricoh, even embracing the noise as some character like we might remark on in swirling a taste of a great wine.

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That may be the result of merely not having much NR. I've looked at RAWs from the camera, and its RAW performance is very similar to the Panasonic FZ50. All cameras should offer near-literal RAW conversion options in their JPEGs, adjusting only for colorimetric issues, WB, saturation and color space, IMO. Especially if the camera doesn't offer RAW.

However, I'd guess it will be best used at ISO settings at 400 and below given the performance of the same sensor in the Sigma DSLR. At the lower ISOs one should get really wonderful color.

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Even at ISO 100, the shadows have big blotches of green and blue, and the default conversion keeps the shadows just dark enough that you barely notice them, if at all. You can't pull up the shadows, however, without revealing them.

To me, other than high-key low ISO shooting, the Foveon technology is only suitable for B&W, as ironic as that sounds. If you combine the RAW green and blue channels in just the right amounts (very close to 1:1), you get a very clean cyan channel with no blotches, and a clean red channel. Any combination or difference of these two resulting channels can give very good B&W. I am not a fan of aliasing, at all, however, and can't imagine myself using a camera that is only 4.6MP without an AA filter. Only a very mild one would be required with the Foveons, to prevent the boldest of aliasing artifacts. The Bayer cameras have much better color accuracy, even if it has inferior color resolution per spatial pixel, and are getting to MP counts almost 4x the 4.6MP X3F. I'd much rather see a camera of this size with the sensor of the Canon XTi or XSi or Pentax K10D or K20D. Either would offer much better high ISO performance, and shadows at ISO 100. The K20D sensor would offer red and blue resolution almost as high as the Foveon.

John,

I must say, your view of the Foveon is worse my expectations of the technology.

For B&W, where fans adore the Ricoh, you like the potential of B&W. So, do you think the Sigma DP1 with its comparatively vast size and large pixels would in fact deliver far superior quality than the valued Ricoh. Have seen the output?

Next, for the compactness and size then, which small camera like these, and for color or B&W, have un-damaged RAW or the closest to it? Could it be that a Contax G film camera or smaller, simply beats these Digital cameras in quality of output except for bother of processing, scanning and number of shots.

Asher

Just in case you haven't seen it, the sample files are out for the DP1:

http://www.sigma-dp1.com/jp/sample-photo/

-Colleen