Ricoh Caplio R6 Review
Review Date: May 10th 2007
Author: Mark Goldstein
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Image Quality
All of the sample images in this Review were taken using the 7M Fine mode, which
gives an average image size of around 2.5Mb.
Noise
There are 6 ISO settings available
on the Ricoh Caplio R6 which you can select at any time if
the camera is in the normal shooting mode. The Ricoh Caplio
R6 improves on the noise performance of its
predecessor, the
R5. There is no discernible noise at the slowest settings
of ISO 64 and 100, as you would expect, and ISO 200 also
looks good. There is some noise at ISO 400, and
by ISO
800 it
is very obvious, together with blurring of detail. ISO 1600
is in my opinion virtually unusable, looking good on the
spec sheet, but terrible in reality. Here are some 100%
crops
which
show the noise levels for
each
ISO setting:
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 a little soft at the default sharpening
setting of Normal. You can change the in-camera sharpening
level to one of the preset levels (Sharp, Normal or Soft)
if you don't like the default look.
File Quality
The Ricoh Caplio R6 has 2 different
image quality settings available, with Fine being the highest
quality 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 R6 did suffer from
chromatic aberrations during the review, but it was generally
well controlled. Limited purple fringing was mainly present
around the edges of objects
in
high-contrast
situations, as shown in the examples below.
Macro
The Ricoh Caplio R6 offers a Macro
setting that allows you to focus on a subject that is just
1cm away from the camera when the lens is set to wide-angle.
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
R6 are Off, Auto, On, Red-eye Reduction, Soft Flash and Slow
Synchro. These shots of a white 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.
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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 R6's 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 1/80th second, aperture of f/3.3
at ISO 400. I've included a 100% Crop of the image to show
what
the quality is like.
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Night
Shot (100% Crop) |
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Anti Shake
The Ricoh Caplio R6 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 the same focal length, with the ISO speed set to 100.
The first shot was taken with anti shake turned off, the
second with it turned on. As you can see, with anti shake
turned on, the images are definitely 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. Here is a 100% Crop of the image
to show the results.
Overall Image Quality
The Ricoh Caplio R6's image quality
is above average. The Ricoh Caplio R6's main drawback in
terms of image quality is noise, with ISO 400 showing some
noise and blurring of detail. The noise gets progressively
worse as you go from ISO 400 to ISO 800 and finally the completely
unusable 1600 setting. The Ricoh Caplio R6 handled chromatic
aberrations quite well with limited purple fringing effects
appearing in high contrast situations.
The 7 megapixel images were a little 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 night photograph was OK, with the maximum shutter
speed of 8 seconds allowing you to capture just enough light for most situations.
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 also 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 overall exposure. There is some obvious
softening of detail in the corners of the image when the
lens is set to wide-angle focal lengths. Overall, a slight
improvement on previous Caplio R models.
 PhotographyBLOG
is a member of the DIWA
organisation. Our test results for the Ricoh Caplio R6 have been submitted to DIWA
for comparison with test results for different samples of
the same camera model supplied by other DIWA
member sites.
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