Ricoh GX200 Review
Review Date: June 26th 2008
Author: Mark Goldstein
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Image Quality
All of the sample images in this Review were taken using the 12M Fine JPEG mode,
which gives an average image size of around 4Mb.
Noise
There are 6 ISO settings available
on the Ricoh GX200 which you can select at any time
if the camera is in the normal shooting mode. There is no
discernible noise at the slowest settings
of ISO 64 and 100, as you would expect, and ISO 200 also
looks pretty good. There is some quite obvious noise at ISO
400 though, and by ISO 800 it is very obvious, together with loss of fine
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:
I decided to repeat the noise test for the Ricoh GX200's DNG RAW files, to find out if there were any significant differences when compared to the camera's JPEG images. The amount of noise at each ISO speed from 64-400 seems to be very similar, regardless of whether you shoot in JPEG or RAW, but at the faster speeds of 800 and 1600 the camera is applying a lot of processing to remove some of the noise that is apparent in the equivalent RAW files, at the expense of reducing fine detail. Here are some 100%
crops which show the noise levels for each ISO setting:
File Quality
The Ricoh GX200 has 2 different JPEG 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.
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 (Hard, Normal or Soft)
or configure Setting 1/2 if you don't like the default look.
Chromatic Aberrations
The Ricoh GX200 handled chromatic aberrations excellently during the review,
with very small levels of purple fringing
mainly present
around the edges of objects in high-contrast situations,
as shown in the example below.
Macro
The Ricoh GX200 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 GX200 are Flash Off, Auto, Red-eye Flash, Flash On, Slow Synchro and Manual Flash. These shots of a white coloured wall were taken
at a distance of 1.5m. As you can see, the built-in flash
is quite powerful, although there's obvious vignetting at the 24mm wide angle setting.
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Auto
Flash - Telephoto (72mm) |
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And here are some portrait shots.
Both the Flash On setting and the Red-eye
Flash option caused a tiny amount of red-eye.
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Flash
On (100% Crop) |
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Flash
- Red-eye Flash (100% Crop) |
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Night Shot
The Ricoh GX200's maximum shutter
speed is 180 seconds, which is excellent news if you're seriously
interested in night photography. The shot below was taken
using a shutter speed of 15 seconds, aperture of f/2.5
at ISO 64. 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 GX200 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 and aperture, and the ISO speed set to 64.
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 significantly 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 GX200's image quality
is good. The Ricoh GX200 handled
chromatic
aberrations very well
indeed
with
limited
purple
fringing
effects appearing only in high contrast situations. Macro
performance is also a stand-out highlight, allowing you
to focus as close
as
1cm away from the subject, although there is lens
distortion and shadowing at such a close distance. Anti-shake
is another 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 night photograph
was very good, with the maximum shutter speed of 180 seconds
allowing you to capture as much light as you need for the
majority of after-dark situations. Note that the camera takes
the same amount of time to process the shot as the shutter speed set e.g.
30 seconds processing time for a 30 second exposure, so 60
seconds
in
total. The 12
megapixel images
were just a little soft straight out of the camera at the
default sharpen setting of Normal. The built-in flash worked excellently indoors,
with little red-eye, excellent range and good overall exposure.
The Ricoh GX200's main drawback
in terms of image quality is noise, with ISO 400 showing
obvious
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. Overall, a good performance that is only let down by the
noise levels at ISO 400 and above.
 PhotographyBLOG
is a member of the DIWA
organisation. Our test results for the Ricoh GX200 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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