Ricoh CX4 Review
Image Quality
All of the sample images in this Review were taken using the 10 megapixel Fine JPEG setting, which gives an average image size of around 3.5Mb.
The Ricoh CX4 produced images of excellent quality during the review period. The Ricoh CX4's main drawback in terms of image quality is noise, with ISO 400 showing some noise and blurring of detail. The noise and loss of fine detail get progressively worse as you go from ISO 400 to ISO 1600, with the fastest 3200 setting not really worth using. The MAX noise reduction mode does noticeably reduce the noise levels at each ISO setting, but at the expense of further reducing detail in the image.
The Dynamic Range mode works really well, resulting in images that have noticeably more dynamic range that those shot in the Normal mode. If you want to shoot images that retain detail in both the highlight and shadow areas, then the Ricoh CX4 is a great choice. There is one main drawback though; the DR images have noticeably less saturated colours than the Normal version, which more accurately matches the scene.
The Ricoh CX4 handled chromatic aberrations well with limited purple fringing effects appearing only in high contrast situations. The 10 megapixel images were just 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 a 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 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 well indoors, with no red-eye and good overall exposure.
Noise
There are 6 ISO settings available on the Ricoh CX4. Here are some 100% crops which show the noise levels for each ISO setting, with noise reduction set to Off and the strongest setting of MAX.
| Noise Reduction Off | Noise Reduction MAX |
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ISO 100 (100% Crop) |
ISO 100 (100% Crop) |
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ISO 200 (100% Crop) |
ISO 200 (100% Crop) |
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ISO 400 (100% Crop) |
ISO 400 (100% Crop) |
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ISO 800 (100% Crop) |
ISO 800 (100% Crop) |
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ISO 1600 (100% Crop) |
ISO 1600 (100% Crop) |
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ISO 3200 (100% Crop) |
ISO 3200 (100% Crop) |
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Focal Range
The Ricoh CX4's 10.7x zoom lens offers a very versatile focal range, as illustrated by these examples:
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28mm |
300mm |
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Dynamic Range
When the Ricoh CX4 is in DR mode (Dynamic Range double shot) it takes two images with different exposures, and then records a single image that combines the properly exposed parts of each one. You can also choose to take a DR and Normal image at the same time (both are saved to the memory card). Here is an example which was shot with Normal and then the four DR modes (Very Weak, Weak, Medium and Strong).
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Normal |
Dynamic Range - Very Weak |
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Dynamic Range - Weak |
Dynamic Range - Medium |
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Dynamic Range - Strong |
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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.
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Original (100% Crop) |
Sharpened (100% Crop) |
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File Quality
The Ricoh CX4 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.
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10M Fine (3.41Mb) (100% Crop) |
10M Normal (2.03Mb) (100% Crop) |
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Chromatic Aberrations
The Ricoh CX4 handled chromatic aberrations well during the review, with limited purple fringing present around the edges of objects in certain high-contrast situations, as shown in the examples below.
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Example 1 (100% Crop) |
Example 2 (100% Crop) |
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Macro
The Ricoh CX4 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.
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Macro Shot |
100% Crop |
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Flash
The flash settings on the Ricoh CX4 are Auto flash, Red-eye Flash, Flash On, Flash Synchro and Flash Off. These shots of a white coloured wall were taken at a distance of 1.5m.
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Suppressed Flash - Wide Angle (28mm) |
Forced Flash - Wide Angle (28mm) |
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Suppressed Flash - Telephoto (300mm) |
Forced Flash - Telephoto (300mm) |
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And here are some portrait shots. As you can see, neither the Flash On or the Red-eye Flash settings caused any red-eye.
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Forced Flash |
Forced Flash (100% Crop) |
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Red-eye Reduction Auto |
Red-eye Reduction Auto (100% Crop) |
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Night
The Ricoh CX4's maximum shutter speed is 8 seconds via the Time Exposure main menu option, which is fairly good news if you're seriously interested in night photography. The shot below was taken using a shutter speed of 8 seconds at ISO 100.
The new Night Landscape Multi-shot mode takes up to 4 shots and combines them to help prevent blur and reduce noise. This mode can also be used hand-held without a tripod.
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Night Shot |
Night Shot (100% Crop) |
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Night Landscape Multi-shot |
Night Landscape Multi-shot (100% Crop) |
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Anti Shake
The Ricoh CX4 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 same settings. The first shot was taken with anti shake turned off, the second with it turned on. Here are some 100% crops of the images 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.
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Shutter Speed / Focal Length |
Anti Shake Off (100% Crop) |
Anti Shake On (100% Crop) |
| 1/14th / 28mm | |
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| 1/9th / 300mm | |
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Sample Images
This is a selection of sample images from the Ricoh CX4 camera, which were all taken using the 10 megapixel Fine JPEG setting. The thumbnails below link to the full-sized versions, which have not been altered in any way.
Sample Movie & Video
This is a sample movie at the quality setting of 1280x720 at 30 frames per second. Please note that this 11 second movie is 46.3Mb in size.
Product Images
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Front of the Camera |
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Front of the Camera / Lens Extended |
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Isometric View |
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Isometric View |
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Rear of the Camera |
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Rear of the Camera / Image Displayed |
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Rear of the Camera / Turned On |
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Rear of the Camera / Main Menu |
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Rear of the Camera / Adjust Menu |
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Top of the Camera |
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Bottom of the Camera |
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Side of the Camera |
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Side of the Camera |
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Front of the Camera |
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Front of the Camera |
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Memory Card Slot |
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Battery Compartment |
Conclusion
With only a few new features on offer the CX4 offers very little reason to upgrade from the 6-month-old CX3, and the removal of the useful handgrip actually makes it less easy to use than its predecessor. With rival models offering bigger zooms and more manual controls, Ricoh's CX-series is starting to slip behind the pack with this modest update.
The enhanced image stabilizer makes it easier to achieve sharp hand-held photos, as does the innovative Night landscape multi-shot scene mode, while the Subject Tracking AF system works reliably and accurately, if a little too noisily for our liking. The only other new feature, three additional creative filters, are fun to use initially but have little shelf-life. With the smoother, reshaped body being less easy to get a firm hold of, the CX4 offers little new to shout about when compared with its predecessor.
The same 10 megapixel back-illuminated sensor offers noise-free settings of ISO 80-200, usable settings of 400-800, and useful in an emergency ISO 1600, identical to the CX3 but now falling behind the of more recent and comparable cameras which offer better performance at ISO 400 and 800. The improved noise reduction system from the GR Digital III does significantly reduce the noise on its maximum setting, but with the side-effect of smoothing out fine detail - you'll need to decide which is most important to you.
The High definition 720p video mode is again unchanged and again suffers from some problems, most notably the AVI format creating large files sizes, the inability to zoom or focus during recording, and the lack of stereo sound and an HDMI port.
The CX4 is virtually indistinguishable from the older CX3 in terms of its design, image quality and feature set, with just a few new additions that are difficult to get truly excited about, and the retrograde removal of the CX3's handgrip. While the CX4 remains a good point and shoot camera and the price has commendably dropped to £259, it doesn't offer enough to either justify the upgrade from the previous generation or to keep up with its rivals.
| Ratings (out of 5) | |
|---|---|
| Design | 4 |
| Features | 4 |
| Ease-of-use | 4 |
| Image quality | 4 |
| Value for money | 4 |
Specifications
| Items | Specifications | |
| No. of Effective Pixels (Camera) | Approximately 10.00 million pixels | |
| Image Sensor | 1/2.3-inch CMOS (total pixels: approx. 10.60 million pixels) | |
| Lens | Focal length | f=4.9-52.5mm (Equivalent to 28-300 mm for 35 mm film cameras. With Step Zoom set, focal lengths can be fixed at eight steps: 28 mm, 35 mm, 50 mm, 85 mm, 105 mm, 135 mm, 200 mm, and 300 mm) |
| F-aperture | F3.5 (Wide) - F5.6 (Telephoto) | |
| Shooting Distance |
Normal shooting: Approx. 30 cm - infinity (Wide), approx. 1.5 m - infinity (Telephoto) (from the front of the lens) Macro: Approx. 1 cm - infinity (Wide), approx. 28 cm - infinity (Telephoto), approx. 1 cm - infinity (Zoom Macro) (from the front of the lens) |
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| Lens Construction | 10 elements in 7 groups (aspheric lens: 4 elements and 5 surfaces) | |
| Zoom Magnification | Optical: 10.7x zoom (equivalent to 28-300 mm focal length for 35 mm cameras) Digital: 4.8x up to 51.4x (equivalent to 1440 mm) when used with optical zoom Auto Resize: 5.7x*1 up to 61.0x*1 (equivalent to 1710 mm) when used with optical zoom |
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| Focus Mode | Multi AF (contrast AF method) / Spot AF (contrast AF method) / Face-priority multi-AF / Subject-tracking AF / Multi-Target AF / Manual Focus / Fixed Focus (Snap) / Infinity (AF auxiliary light) | |
| Motion Blur Reduction | Image sensor shift method image stabilizer | |
| Shutter Speed*2 | Still image | 8, 4, 2, 1 - 1/2000 sec. |
| Movie | 1/30 - 1/2000 sec. | |
| Continuous Shooting | Continuous shooting speed*3 | Approx.5 frames/sec. (10M 4:3F shooting time; shooting speed after 12 pictures is approx. 3 frames/sec.) |
| Continuous shooting capacity | 999 pictures | |
| Exposure Control | Exposure Metering Mode |
Multi (256 segments) / Center Weighted Light Metering / Spot Metering |
| Exposure Mode | Programme AE | |
| Exposure Compensation |
Manual Exposure Compensation +/-2.0EV (1/3EV Steps), Auto Bracket Function (-0.5EV, ±0, +0.5EV) | |
| ISO Sensitivity (Standard Output Sensitivity) | AUTO, ISO100 / ISO200 / ISO400 / ISO800 / ISO1600 / ISO3200 | |
| White Balance Mode | AUTO / Multi-Pattern AUTO / Outdoors / Cloudy / Incandescent 1 / Incandescent 2 / Fluorescent / Manual / White Balance Bracket Function | |
| Flash | Flash Mode | Auto (during low light and when the subject is backlit), Anti Red-eye, Flash On, Slow Synchro, Flash Off |
| Built-in flash range | Approx. 20 cm - 4.0 m (Wide), approx. 28 cm - 3.0 m (Telephoto) (auto ISO with a maximum of ISO 1600, measured from the front of the lens) | |
| Flash compensation | +/-2.0EV (1/3EV Steps) | |
| Monitor | 3.0-inch Transparent LCD (approx. 920,000 dots) | |
| Shooting Mode | Auto shooting mode / Movie mode / Scene auto mode / Scene mode (Portrait / Discreet Mode / Night. Port. / Night Landscape Multi-shot / Sports / Landscape / Zoom Macro / Pets / Skew Correct Mode / High Sens / Text Mode) / My settings mode / Continuous mode / Creative Shooting Mode (Dynamic Range / Miniaturize / High Contrast B&W / Soft Focus / Cross Process / Toy Camera) | |
| Picture Quality Mode*4 | F (Fine) / N (Normal) | |
| No. of Pixels Recorded | Still image/multi-picture | 3648 x 2736, 3648 x 2432, 2736 x 2736, 3648 x 2048, 2592 x 1944, 2048 x 1536, 1728 x 1296 (multi-picture only), 1280 x 960, 640 x 480 |
| Movie*5 | 1280 x 720, 640 x 480, 320 x 240 | |
| Text | 3648 x 2736, 2048 x 1536 | |
| Recording Media | SD memory card SDHC memory card (up to 32 GB), Internal memory (approx. 86 MB) |
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| Recording File Format | Still Image | JPEG(Exif ver.2.3)*6 |
| Multi-picture | CIPA DC-007-2009 Multi-Picture Format | |
| Movie | AVI (Open DML Motion JPEG Format compliant) | |
| Compression method | JPEG Baseline method compliant | |
| Other Major Shooting Functions | Continuous, Self-Timer (operation time: approx. 10 sec. / approx. 2 sec. / custom self-timer), Interval Timer (Shooting interval: 5 sec. - 1 hour, 5 sec. steps), Color Bracket function, Focus Bracket function, AE/AF Target Shift, Histogram, Grid Guide, Electronic Level | |
| Other Major Playback Functions | Grid View, Enlarged Display (maximum 16x), Resize, Level Compensation, White Balance Compensation, Trim, Flag, Slideshow, DPOF Setting | |
| Interface | USB 2.0 (High-Speed USB) Mini-B, Mass storage compatible*7/ AV Out 1.0Vp-p (75Ω) | |
| Video Signal Format | NTSC, PAL switchable | |
| Power Supply | Rechargeable Battery: DB-100 x1 | |
| Battery Consumption*8 | Based on CIPA Standard: Using the DB-100, approx. 330 pictures (when LCD Dim is on)*9 | |
| External Dimensions | 101.5 mm (W) x 58.6 mm (H) x 29.4 mm (D) (24.4 mm at thinnest part) | |
| Weight | Approx. 205 g (including the supplied battery and SD memory card) Approx. 184 g (body only) |
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| Operating Temperature Range | 0°C - 40°C | |
| *1 | VGA image size |
| *2 | Shutter speed upper and lower limits vary depending on Shooting Mode and Flash Mode. |
| *3 | Values measured under Ricoh measurement conditions using a Panasonic PRO HIGH SPEED 8GB SDHC memory card. The continuous shooting speed and number of pictures will vary depending on the shooting conditions, the type of recording media used, the condition of the recording media, etc. |
| *4 | The picture quality modes which can be set vary depending on the image size. |
| *5 | When shooting movies of 1280×720 size, the use of an SD/SDHC memory card with an SD speed class of Class 6 or higher is recommended. |
| *6 | Compatible with DCF and DPOF. DCF is the abbreviation of the JEITA standard "Design rule for Camera File system." (Full compatibility with other devices is not guaranteed.) |
| *7 | Mass storage driver is compatible with Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Mac OSX10.1.2-10.6.3 |
| *8 | Shooting capacity was measured using CIPA-standard parameters. This is only an estimate, and performance may vary according to usage conditions. |
| *9 | When LCD Auto Dim is off: approx. 310 pictures |
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