Time

R10, f5.2, 1/25, ISO 400, JPG, 200mm

This is the last post and picture for the year.

Happy New Year to all and thank you for following my blog!!
Have a great time and all the best for the new year. Enjoy the celebrations and keep taking pictures.

Flying By

R10, f8.1, 1/1250, ISO 100, JPG

Been out today during lunch to take more pictures with the R10. It was a cold but sunny day so great for taking pictures. After all the recent color pictures I decided to use a b&w picture for today.

December Sun

R10, f5.1, 1/800, ISO 100, JPG

Took this picture on my way to work this morning while walking across London Bridge. This is a picture where the R10 was best due to the extra zoom. I cropped it to the 16:9 format since it reminds me a bit of a scene from a Michael Bay movie.
Changed the levels in Photo Shop and used the highlight recovery tool but did not change much else. Turning sharpening down to -1, contrast to +2 and color depth to +1 gives great results with the R10 as long as you don't underexpose much. RAW would be great to have or the option to turn the noise reduction completely off.

Richmond Park Standoff

R10, f4.5, 1/200, ISO 80, JPG, 200mm

A very nice and cold day so perfect for another walk in Richmond park. Today, I had the R10 with me and it allowed for better pictures of the deer. I am still quite pleased with the R10 and think it performs excellent if you watch your exposure and use the right settings. If Ricoh could add RAW via firmware it would be the perfect companion to a GRD or GX. My full review will be up in the next days.

Neighbourhood Watch

R10, f4.9, 1/90, ISO 200, JPG

Quick update today as I haven't been taking that many pictures. I see E.T. every day on my way home and always thought to take a picture but never got round to do it. Today I had the R10 with me and decided to take the picture and see how it comes out. It is not as I hoped for but at least now it's done and I can walk past without thinking how it would look in a picture.

Get Well, Eat Healthy

GX200, f3.5, 1/6, ISO 800, RAW, 50mm

Took only one picture today while waiting for the train at London Bridge and this is it. I find it pretty ironic but then, it's probably healthier than the hospital food you'll get ;).

Treescape

GX200, f4.4, 1/70, ISo 64, RAW, 72mm

Went for a walk in Richmond park today and saw this tree trunk. I found it fascinating since it looks like a real landscape. Had to think of the movies where people got shrunk to ant size and wondered how this would look and feel like if you are that small.

Merry Xmas

LC1, f2.4, 1/60, ISO 100, RAW, 90mm

Merry Xmas to you, enjoy the holidays!!
Still did not manage to find any Christmas decoration worth taking pictures of in London.

Sale Sale

LC1, f2, 1/60, ISO 100, JPG, 34mm

Following some recent comments on my blog by Lili and Wouter, I decided to change the cameras and take the Panasonic LC1 with me for an outing again. It has been a bit neglected due to the size and weight but still has some of the best controlls on a digital camera although it is impossible to control it fully with one hand like the GRDs.

Initially, I planned to take a few pictures of the Christmas decoration in London. Well, there was only one problem with that. There is not Christmas decoration at all in London and if you have something that looks like it could be decoration it is really boring. I do not expect the decoration in any european city to come close to Tokyo, Hong Kong or New York but this is just appaling. Since I moved here, the decorantion around Christmas got worse and worse and is none existent this year. But who needs to decorate their shop windows if it's enough to put a big red sign with 'Sales' written on it and people will come in masses.

Itsy Bitsy Spider

GX200, f6.3, 180 sec., ISO 64, RAW, 72mm

Ok, it get's dark early and it is grey when it's light so it's not the best time for outdoor photography. On the other hand it is a good time to experiment a bit. I saw this spider in front of my window a few months back but did not have a tripod to help stabilizing the camera. Now with my new small and flexible tripod and a chair it was possible to use a 3 minute exposure to get this shot. The most difficult part was manually focusing in darkness where the LCD was almost completely black. Processed it to get the look I wanted, including adding noise and vignetting.

Logo

Ok, today's post is probably extremely boring from a photography standpoint but I finally managed to create a logo for my blog. I did take the picture of my GRD I that used for the logo but unfortunatelly it is not the real 2006 Red Limited Edition GRD I, although I would like to own one :). It is only a photoshopped image of my GRD I where I colored the red bits in.
I have to say while I am not a fan of the blue 1st Anniversary Edition, the red GRD I looks extremely cool.

Make Your Choice

GRD, f2.4, 1/15, ISO 400, JPG

After my holidays in Hong Kong I decided to take it easy this weekend so have only been out for a walk around Greenwich Park and the Observatory. It gets dark very early, this does not help to inspire me to go out and take pictures.

White Figures

GRD, f2.4, 1/15, ISO 1600, JPG b&w

Back in the UK it is difficult to take many pictures, it gets dark at 4pm already and I am so far not overly inspired. I find it a bit boring when compared with Hong Kong. Need to re-adjust and start seeing the pictures again, also for street photography it is important to anticipate the picture.

At Her Feet

GRD, f3.2, 1/160, ISO 400, JPG b&w

Back in the UK but not much time to take pictures. It gets dark early and the weather is not very nice either. Took this picture during lunch, as always.
More and bigger updates will be coming soon. I will publish the R10 and GX200 reviews, a long exposure and landscape comparison and of course more about my factory visit.

Sleeping

R10, f4.8, 1/4, ISO 400, JPG, 200mm

Quick update today with another soft and out of focus R10 picture. It's nothing wrong with the camera and it can deliver sharp and in focus pictures but my choice of using it, this in case you wonder.

Face

R10, f4.8, 1/97, ISO 80, JPG, 200mm

Last day in HK, flight back is tomorrow morning so a quick update today to bring my blog up to date again.
Went to Lantau Island again but did not climb the peak this time, just visited the big Buddha and monastery. They had a festival so it was very nice to take pictures. Used the R10 and GX200 only. Both did a good job but the display freeze and shutter lag on the R10 makes it almost impossible to use for fast changing shots.
The picture is from one of the statues there, I wanted something different for today. This is unprocessed straight out of the camera and looks exactly as I wanted it to, including the blur and softness.

Old Man

GRD, f4.5, 1/320, ISO 400, JPG b&w

Today, I got the chance to take more pictures around Mong Kok and also saw the "Ginger Man" from my previous post again. He did remember me and smiled when he saw me, this was very nice. Thought of featuring him but this picture works better.

Another very nice thing was getting to meet Nevin and walk with him around the night market. As you might have guessed it from his blog he is very enthusiastic about the GX200. It was a very nice meet up and shows how a camera and a blog can connect people from all around the world. I am very happy I could meet up with both him and Mike during my stay here. Both are very enthusiastic about photography and their Ricoh cameras. Both also bought them for the same reason, the great controls and excellent, award winning design.

Sunset over Lamma Island

GX200, f3.5, 1/230, ISO 64, RAW, 50mm

After Guangzhou it was nice to have a break and be away from crowds and big cities. Lamma island is fun and a nice visit, at least once.
The GX100 got drenched by a wave while being on but it still worked fine and after drying it for a while it's like new. The lens might be wobbly as a design choice and there are dust problems with it but it survived this without a problem.Water definitely god inside but drying got rid of it. My GRD I started acting up after having water get inside through the lens.

Rowing in Guangzhou

R10, f5.2, 1/125, ISO 80, JPG, 200mm

After the factory tour yesterday I decided to spend the day in Guangzhou. It is a crazy place and people are everywhere. This gave me the opportunity to take some of my best street shots. I know that this is a different picture and more a canal shot ;). The reason I chose this is because it is a stark contrast to the rest of my pictures as it's more calm and has warmer colors but also because it is a picture taken with the R10. You can find all other pictures as usual in the Dropbox gallery.
The R10 is very nice and capable but just does not work as well for me. The massive zoom is too much and the lens not fast enough. It is however very versatile and well built so I like using it.

The Factory

Now after looking at today's title and picture you're probably wondering what I've been up to?

Well, today was the highlight of my trip to Hong Kong and made the trip really special. Thanks to the great people at Ricoh I could visit the factory where all these fantastic cameras are produced.

We left HK in the morning and took the ferry to China where after a short drive we got to the factory. I got to meet some of the people working there and got an introduction about the factory. After this we started the tour and I got to see how the GRD II lens gets assembled and how the GX200 gets built. This was a fantastic experience and I will write more about it when I am back on my Wordpress blog.

For now, let me say that the cameras are indeed all assembled by hand and can go through 120 people before they are ready. Then they are tested by computers and people in the QC team. Every measure is taken to avoid any problems with the assembly or dust getting into the lens from the factory. The manufacturing process is also constantly reviewed and refined.

I will write a full report as soon as I am back so there will be more details coming.

Let me finish by thanking all the people at Ricoh for making this possible, this is more than I ever expected.