Enjoying the View

GR, f5.6, 1/500, ISO 100, RAW

Took this while out for a quick walk in Greenwich park. Liked how they were each standing different but looking in the same direction, decided to frame them centred and have the fence posts as an additional frame..

Afternoon Snack

GR, f2.8, 1/320, ISO 100, RAW

Took this while out in Greenwich Park for a walk, it was a bit grey and rainy but still warm so quite nice to be out.
Made some use of the macro mode of the GR, it is nit as good as on the previous GRDs thanks to their smaller sensors but it is still really nice to have and delivers great results.

The Painter

GR, f8.0, 1/250, ISO 100, JPG

Another photo for my artists series and it would have also been a good fit for yesterday's post. Took it while out for a walk in Greenwich park, where I have also processed it in-camera using the Positive Film effect.
I do like the JPGs in the GR, Ricoh has finally improved and moved away from the smudgy low dynamic range JPGs to quite excellent JPGs so the in-camera RAW development and effects make a lot more sense now.
Another nice thing about the GR is that you can shoot RAW while having the effects applied to the image, unlike the GRD IV and GXR where you could only use the effects in JPG only mode.

After Wimbledon

GR, f8.0, 1/250, ISO 100, JPG

Took this while out enjoying the sun in Greenwich park. Wimbledon is over now but at least the British had something to celebrate.

Sitting on One Tree Hill

GR, f6.3, 1/650, ISO 100, RAW

The weather has been great today. Went for a walk around Greenwich and Blackheath but was not hugely inspired so did not take that many pictures, this is one of the first pictures I took.

Dog Day Afternoon

GR, f6.3, 1/250, ISO 400, RAW

Took this while walking through the park, been a grey and rainy day here so the sad expression on the dogs face was certainly fitting.

First Ricoh GR Outing and Impressions

This morning my GR sample finally arrived, taking it out and turning it on gave me a very familiar feeling. While on paper the GR is slightly bigger and heavier than the previous GRDs, when you have it in your hand it just feels right and you forget it's a new camera.

The day has been haze and grey mostly so not ideal to go out shooting, instead I spent some time to go into the menus and set the camera up, the new menus are nice and as usual very efficient but I doubt I will ever see them again now that I set the GR up as I like.

By late afternoon I had to go out and take some pictures. In use the GR is simply fantastic, everything has been improved and refined from the previous generations, the start up time, shot to shot time, AF, write time have all been improved and are now at least twice as fast when compared with the GRD IV or the GXR A12 28mm.

The image quality is equally great and beats the GXR A12-M in terms of noise, dynamic range and even detail (now I really want thus sensor in a new M mount module!). Even the JPGs (usually a poor showing from Ricoh) are excellent and the b&w JPGs almost rival the GRD I JPGs although they lack the film look due to the sensor being cleaner and having a higher dynamic range.

I will write more and post a full review in the coming days and weeks but for now I am hugely impressed, despite being sceptical at first.

This is a series of pictures I took during my walk, I wanted to show a varied selection of images so I hope you like them.

Flower

GRD IV, f4.0, 1/400, ISO 80, RAW

The GR did not arrive yet so I took the GRD IV out again and took a picture which won't be possible with the GR, at least not like this.

Raindrops

GXR A12-M, f1.9, 1/233, ISO 200, RAW, 65mm (Pentax Limited f1.9 43mm L)

A mostly rainy day but the rain finally passed in the evening so I took the chance to go for a walk in the park, took a few pictures of the flowers there so nothing too exciting but it was good to get out.

Lady in Red

GXR A12-M, f6.3, 1/1150, ISO 200, RAW, 65mm (Pentax Limited f1.9 43mm L)

Another mostly grey and rainy day but the sun did show itself in the evening and the light was great even though for a short while only. Took this on my way to an event in the Maritime museum.
Like how the greens came out, the light was very good but the lens also rendered the scene very well and there is a lot of detail in there. They say the best camera is the one you have with you but you should really have a GXR with A12 Mount with you and some nice M or L lenses for it, it never stops to amaze me with the quality, this is the same with the GRD I and the LC1.

Walking Home

GXR A12-M, f1.9, 1/233, ISO 200, RAW, 65mm (Pentax Limited f1.9 43mm L)

Another grey and rainy day so just went for a walk in the park in between the rain and took this picture. I took a similar one a few days ago but it did not turn out as I wanted so this time I was more patient and go it right.

Crow

GXR A12-M, f5.6, 1/440, ISO 200, RAW, 202mm (Jupiter-11 f4.0 135mm L)

Another great day, the weather has been fantastic and I had the time to chill and go to the park. Took the Jupiter-11 with me to do some more bird photography, always tried to take a picture of a crow but never really managed as the crows are not posing quite as much as the pigeons and squirrels.

Feathers

GXR A12-M, f4.0, 1/1150, ISO 200, RAW, 202mm (Jupiter-11 f4.0 135mm L)

Another nice and sunny day in London and a perfect bank holiday. Went for a walk to Greenwich park and decided to take the Jupiter-11 135mm lens with me, it was fun to use and it's a very sharp lens. I am more comfortable with wideangle lenses rather than telephoto but at times it's fun to play around with longer telephoto lenses.I will have to try some more bird photography with it in the coming days if the weather holds up.

Some Colour

After all the grey in the past days, some more colour and some sunshine from today.

Decided to post a series to show some of the colour but most important to bid farewell to my Leica Elmarit-R f2.8 28mm lens which is for sale now on ebay. It is a fantastic lens but overlaps too much with my GR 28mm lens to be worthwhile keeping, it focuses quite close but this is not enough to keep it.

Looking at the Flowers

GXR A12-M, f2.0, 1/3500, ISO 200, RAW, 75mm (Jupiter-8 f2.0 50mm)

Took this while walking through Greenwich Park to meet friends for a BBQ, the weather was perfect to be outside today.

I decided to take the Jupiter-8 lens with me and get a different look to the pictures.

Holga Macro

Since my converted Holga lens only works for close up photography, I figured I take it out for a walk around Greenwich Park and use it for some flower macros. This is a small series with some pictures to give an idea of the lens 'quality'. I like it and it's fun playing with some unusual and fun lenses.

Daffodil

GF1, f8.0, 1/50, ISO 200, RAW, 50mm (Holga f8.0 25mm)

Decided to take my GF1 out again and use one of my toy lenses, it was a decision between the Holga lens or the Pinwide pinhole lens but in the end I decided to take the Holga. It was strange going back to the GF1 but it also showed me how slow the GXR is to respond at times compared with the much faster GF1.
It also reminded me to finish work on my Holga lens conversion for the M mount so I can use it on the GXR.

Saturday in Greenwich Park

When heading out for a walk through the park I decided to take the Jupiter-9 lens with me, I planned to take pictures of the squirrels and other wildlife in the park and some flowers. As you can see from the first two pictures, this worked ok for a short while till I switched back to taking pictures of people.
I am not used to long telephoto type lenses so I struggled a bit with framing in the beginning and since I like to get close some pictures qualify more for street portraits than street photography.

On my way back while walking across the University, I came across the set for the new Chavez movie with Michael Pena so I took my paparazzi picture of him to have it next to my picture of Nicole Kidman.

5 Years Later

It all started with a candle and a clock on the day 5 years ago, it was also a Monday but we had no snow then and I knew a lot less about photography or blogging.
This below was the very first picture of my 'Ricoh GR Diary' blog.

When I started this blog I needed something to keep me taking pictures every day rather than just carrying a camera back and forth and never using it. It was always planned as a personal project and I highly doubted anyone but me would even look at it. But a few comments from Wouter and other bloggers later, I realized people were actually looking at my blog.
This made a big difference, for one it inspired me to keep on going even when in doubt or when I did not have enough time but also meant there was more pressure to not just post any picture but a picture I can share with others. Over the years this was at times a very difficult task as some of you who are doing a similar 'photo-a-day' project have experienced.

One of my biggest surprises came while visiting Photokina in September 2008, not only did I get to talk to Ricoh representatives there but they actually knew my blog and were following my impressions of the Ricoh GRD cameras. While meeting them I also first played with the idea to write camera reviews, met Pavel from the Ricohforum and decided to plan our very first Ricohforum meetup and got the invitation to visit the Ricoh factory in China.

A lot has happened in 2008 and this was very motivating, not least meeting some fantastic people from Ricoh, Photographers and Ricoh enthusiasts at the Ricoh meetup and through my blog in HK and Macao. I realised that my blog does matter and it pushed me to keep on going even on days when I was not inspired or had not enough time due to work.

Over the years there have been a few more Ricoh meetups and I have written quite a few reviews of Ricoh cameras, the reviews are always the top posts on my blog when it comes to views and comments which is nice considering the work it takes to write a review although I would prefer to get more views and comments on my pictures ;).

Some of the best things that happened to me through my blog, next to meeting some fantastic people from all over the world, is Ricoh asking me to do a promotional book for the Ricoh GRD III, you can see and order the book here, Ricoh using my pictures to advertise the GRD III in Germany at Foto Koch, me selling some pictures to use for CD covers by Nancee and Clever Stranger, having one of my GRD I pictures chosen for all promotional material for a concert at the Barbican (see picture below) and again to meet some great people through my blog who kept me going.

I have tried to make some changes and even temporarily split the blog into two, one for photos and one for reviews, tried to move it completely to Wordpress and even took a  few short breaks to figure out what to do next, just to end up back where I started. This goes to everything as even my design has not changed much over time. Sometimes keeping things simple is a good idea and so far it has worked well for my blog.

Having said that, there is always time for change and I believe the time has come to make a bigger change this time. I am not completely sure how or what exactly needs changing and most important, when I will have the time to do it but I know a big change is in order and this will be soon.

There are some photography related projects I have in mind and some I had in mind and wanted to do for a while but work usually got in the way so I will try to take the time and get them done this year.

What do you think, what needs changing on my blog and what do you like and would prefer to leave as it is?

And finally in order to keep up with the theme of the blog a picture from today.

GXR A12-M, f8.0, 1/3000, ISO 200, RAW, 42mm (Ricoh GR f2.8 28mm L)

Snow in Greenwich

While we had some snow in the past days, it only started coming down properly today. Since it is a Sunday people were all out in the park and every slope was full of people with sledges and every flat area had people building snowmen.

I like it when it snows and could not resist walking around taking some pictures, the first one is taken and processed with the Nexus 4 and the rest are all with the GXR A12-M and the GR lens. I decided on the GR lens for two reasons, it is slightly wider than the Nokton I have been using most recently but most important, the lens element is quite far back so not exposed and will not get wet or covered in snow that easy.