Ricoh Caplio R3 Review
Review Date: December 13th 2005
Image Quality
All of the sample images in this Review were taken using
the 5M Fine mode, which gives an average image size of around
2Mb.
Noise
There are 5 ISO settings available on the Ricoh Caplio R3
which you can select at any time if the camera is in any of
the manual exposure modes. Here are some 100% crops which
show the noise levels for each ISO setting:
The Ricoh Caplio R3 is one of the noisiest cameras that I've
reviewed. There is no discernible noise at the slowest settings
of ISO 64, as you would expect, but it's already starting
to appear at the very slow speed of ISO 100, and is all too
obvious from ISO 200 up to the unusable setting of ISO 800.
Sharpening
Here are two 100% crops which have been Saved as Web - Quality
50 in Photoshop. The right-hand image has had some sharpening
applied in Photoshop. The out-of-the camera images are quite
soft at the default sharpening setting of Normal and benefit
from some further sharpening in a program like Adobe Photoshop.
Alternatively you can increase the in-camera sharpening by
choosing the Sharp option.
File Quality
The Ricoh Caplio R3 has 2 different image quality settings
available, Fine and Normal, with F2592 being the highest quality/largest
image size option. Here are some 100% crops which show the
quality of the various options, with the file size shown in
brackets.
Chromatic Aberrations
The Ricoh Caplio R3 suffered badly with chromatic aberrations
during the review, with many images showing purple fringing
present around the edges of objects in high-contrast situations,
as shown in the examples below.
Macro
The Ricoh Caplio R3 offers a Macro setting that allows you
to focus on a subject that is just 1cm away from the camera.
The first image shows how close you can get to the subject
(in this case a compact flash card). The second image is a
100% crop.
Flash
The flash settings on the Ricoh Caplio R3 are Auto, Red-eye
Reduction, On, Slow Synchro and Off. These shots of a magnolia
coloured wall were taken at a distance of 1.5m.
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Auto Flash - Telephoto (200mm) |
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And here are some shots of yours truly. As you can see, both
the Flash On setting and the Red-Eye Reduction option caused
a tiny amount of red-eye (or to be more accurate, purple-eye).
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Flash On (100% Crop) |
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Flash - Red-Eye Reduction (100%
Crop) |
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Night Shot
The Ricoh Caplio R3 maximum shutter speed is 8 seconds, which
is fairly good if you're seriously interested in night photography.
The shot below was taken using a shutter speed of 8 seconds,
aperture of f/4.8 at ISO 64. I've included a 100% crop of
the image to show what the quality is like.
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100% Crop |
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Anti Shake
The Ricoh Caplio R3 has an anti-shake mechanism, which allows
you to take sharp photos at slower shutter speeds than other
digital cameras. To test this, I took 2 handheld shots of
the same subject with the lens set to a focal length of 200mm,
with the ISO speed set to 64. The first shot was taken with
anti shake turned off, the second with it turned on. Here
is a 100% crop of the image to show the results.
As you can see, with anti shake turned on, the images are
much sharper than with anti shake turned off. This feature
really does seem to make a difference and could mean capturing
a successful, sharp shot or missing the opportunity altogether.
Overall Image Quality
The Ricoh Caplio R3's image quality can only be described
as "poor". The Ricoh Caplio R3's main drawback in
terms of image quality is noise. The 5 megapixel sensor used
in the Ricoh Caplio R3 should have resulted in relatively
noise-free images at the slower ISO settings, but even ISO
100 has some obvious noise, particularly in shadow area. The
noise gets progressively worse as you go from ISO 200 to ISO
400 and finally the unusable ISO 800 setting. The 5 megapixel
images were quite soft straight out of the camera at the default
sharpen setting of Normal and either require some further
sharpening in an application like Adobe Photoshop, or you
should set the in-camera sharpening to Sharp. The Ricoh Caplio
R3 did not handle chromatic aberrations very well at all,
with obvious purple fringing effects appearing in high contrast
situations. The night photograph was poor, with the maximum
shutter speed of 8 seconds allowing you to capture just enough
light for most situations, but the resulting images lacked
detail and were blurry (perhaps an attempt to mask the noise).
Macro performance is the stand-out highlight, allowing you
to focus as close as 1cm away from the subject, although there
is a lot of lens distortion and shadowing at such a close
distance. Anti-shake is a feature that sets this camera apart
from its competitors and one that works very well when hand-holding
the camera in low-light conditions or when using the telephoto
end of the zoom range. The built-in flash worked OK indoors,
with little red-eye and good exposure. Overall, though, the
Ricoh Caplio R3 is a camera to avoid if image quality is top
of your list of must-have features.
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