Tonbridge Castle

While visiting friends I went to take a few pictures of the castle. The text mode works very well and gives a look like it has been pencil drawn.

Travel Information

What I find interesting about the text mode is that even with the little bit of detail it actually captures, it is always esasy to know what is going on in the picture. Taking pictures of people it is always possible to see their expression and enough of what they are doing.
This is interesting as most people want their camera to capture more and more details because they think it will improve their pictures. In the end if you did not capture the decisive moment it does not matter how many tiny details are visible as it will never make a picture any better.
Using the text mode can be very rewarding as it makes one focus more on the composition and less on other things, at least this is what I found by using it so far.

Waiting Room

Took this while waiting for the bus after work.
There has been an interesting rumor about the next Ricoh camera here. While it is fake, it is interesting and shows what people expect from the next Ricoh camera. There have been a few rumors about the new camera and I guess we might see more in the upcoming months until Ricoh will announce it officially.
More concrete is the new Panasonic GF-1 which will compete with the Olympus E-P1. I find it very interesting and more appealing than the E-P1, the Panasonic lenses should also deliver much better quality than the rather poor Olympus offerings. It is a shame though that Panasonic has decided to make the GF-1 look like the LX3 instead of the excellent LC-1.

Looking

Took this picture while out for a walk during lunch with the 21mm lens but found it a bit too far away so I cropped it to the 16:9 format. I like to use 16:9 sometimes so it's a shame that Ricoh has not adapted this format yet.

Text Cranes

The weather has been again dull and grey today. This is not good when trying to use the text mode which needs a bit more contrast for best results. I took this picture on my way home and had a similar picture in my mind when I started the text mode week.

In My Head

This week will be all about the text mode. The text mode is one of the unique features in Ricoh cameras but not really advertised with by Ricoh and unknown to most people using Ricoh cameras. I will try to use the text mode for my usual pictures and see how it works and what results one can get out of it.
I will not provide any Exif information since it will be more or less useless here but if you want to see it let me know and I will add it.

Going Up

GRD II, f3.5, 1/540, ISO 100, JPG text

I think the Text mode in Ricoh cameras is pretty unique and very cool but not utilized enough. Maybe it is because people don't quite know what to do with it. It is not an easy mode to use for general photography so I will try to post some pictures taken with it and see what works and what doesn't. Then maybe have a whole Text mode week soon.

Black Dog

GRD, TIFF text

After my film week, I decided to take my GRD I out again and take some pictures. I did not want to take any color pictures though and decided that b&w would be best for today, even better was the text mode however. I really like what you can get out of it and together with the audio recording mode it is the best scene mode you can find in any camera. I hope the new Ricoh cameras will all keep the text mode and bring back the audio recording mode.
I am actually thining of having a whole week dedicated to the text mode.

In the Train

GX200, f2.5, 1/7, ISO 154, JPG text, 24mm

Took this picture in the train on my way home today while playing around with the GX200. It came out pretty well and is a different kind of picture so I decided to post it today. I used the text mode a few times to take pictures and really like the results if you can get the contrast just right.
In the evening I got out to experiment a bit more with the GX200 and tried some very long exposures of the sky but found that they did not come out as I wanted. Need to try again soon.

Drawing St. Paul's

GX100, f4.9, 1/800, ISO 100, JPG, 72mm

Using the GX100 is text mode showed me the difference between the lenses from the GRD and GX. The GRD lens has more contrast so work better with this mode and the GRD also saves the picture as TIFF for some reason.

I did not spend much time taking pictures today but worked instead on my Wordpress blog to improve it and make it more usefull. If you remember I've set it up on my 100th post to use it as a backup or to move my blog here. I did and still do not really like the Wordpress interface so have just been using it as a backup and imported the posts randomly. I started thinking of deleting it a while ago but then decided to use it for something more usefull.
So today, I have set it up as an archive of all my reports, comparisons and reviews I did on this blog. This should make it easier for people to find things and I will also be able to post more news and other things that would be too long or would just not work within the format here. You can check it out at Ricoh GR-Diary @ Wordpress. It is still work in progress so let me know if you have any comments or suggestions.

Connecting

GRD, f7.1, 1/380, TIFF text mode

The GRD I is not a camera that will offer you 34 scene modes and even the Auto mode is not auto at all. All you get is a fully manual camera with a whopping 2 scene modes. One is the extremely usefull voice recording mode, which unfortunately has been dropped from the GRD II, and the other is the cool Text mode. I have used the latter before and really like experimenting with it. It works great for all kind of pictures as long as you have enough contrast and the scene is not too busy or it will get confusing.

Renaissance Robot

GRD, f2.4, 1/28, TIFF text mode

Sometimes when I watch a movie with an interesting look, I ask myself how they did this and if I can get a picture with a similar look or feel. Not to copy it but to challenge myself and pay a tribute to something that inspired me.
Today it was the other way around, I bought the DVD because the look of the film reminded me of the images the GRDs produce when in text mode. The movie is Renaissance, a European production with interesting visuals but only average story. Still worth watching for the visuals alone. So this is my take on the visuals from the movie.