Ricoh-GR-blog

new blog

2011-11-21T13:24:00.001Z

My new blog is http://blog.kmem.org

Saturday

2011-10-15T19:01:00.001+01:00

Bird

2011-09-13T21:18:00.002+01:00

Epson RD1 with Zeiss 35mm f2.0

Thames festival

2011-09-13T21:02:00.002+01:00

Epson RD1 with Zeiss 35mm f2.0

Just fruit today

2009-06-14T21:38:00.003+01:00

Lunch break :)

2009-06-10T23:25:00.002+01:00

Ah just a few pics from todays lunch break. I really like the greens at the moment and it makes me want to go out and take pictures. Again with the Ricoh GR lens :)

RicohForum meetup 2.0

2009-06-07T17:26:00.006+01:00

Has been a while since my last blog update but i've decided to update it today :)

Yesterday was the second Official RicohForum meetup. Was really good to catch up with everyone that came and it was nice to meet new users. The weather was mixed but turned out not too bad in the end. I have posted some pictures to cover the event. As usual the coffee table was full of cameras :). I had the chance of trying out the very rare Ricoh GR 2.8mm f2.8 lens on my R-D1s and I have to say I really like it.

I have only so far posted my landscape format pictures because I'm fairly new to mac and even if i rotate them with ipreview it doesnt seem to rotate them on blogger...

All pics taken with the Ricoh GR lens.

Blogging

2009-03-03T10:27:00.003Z

Blogging on the go may become easier now. From the way I see it there are the following options :

1. Wi-fi
2. 3G dongles
3. Mobile phone

1. The main problem with Wi-fi is that in London it really sucks. It's crappy Britain again and their total lack of any form of free wifi. This actually be a Europe thing but as soon as you get out of the country, for example China, Hong Kong, Egypt, Doha, Korea providing free Wireless access in airports doesn't seem to be a problem. In the UK providing free wifi is really so difficult. Relying on just a wifi enabled device in London is pretty much useless to get online.

2. 3G dongles were always quite expensive and pretty ugly. Also they usually meant carrying around a cable and an ugly egg shaped item which was pretty much useless until someone decided they could double up as mass storage. I have had these 3G dongles for the last 2 years on various providers and I just want to say my opinions.

T-mobile : They are quite good actually but very expensive compared with the rest of them. They have the advantage compared with the competition of not screwing you over if you accidentally exceed your limit. In this sense it's probably the most relaxed option there is out there and there coverage works for me in most situations.

Three: Now I'm not happy with three at all for a few reasons. They never delivered the promised speed. Download was acceptable but nothing special even when reception was perfect, but the upload speed was catastrophic. You get a maximum of 56kbit/s upload even with full hsdpa and full coverage. This means that uploading an image to my blog would typically take 10 or more minutes. To make matters even worse, if you dare go over your allowance they will send a quick SMS to your 3G modem which you are unlikely to see but anyway if you do see it, it's likely you have already exceeded by 100MB by the time you call them and they will charge you around 10 quid. If you realise after 1GB then they will bill you around £100. So they may charge £15 a month for 3GB but the excess is £100 / gig. Think what you want about their business practises...

Vodafone : Now Vodafone has always made me laugh out of their shops. I remember the day I took out a blackberry contract and they told me I had unlimited data. *cough* unlimited "6MB" whatever that means. A year later they offer 3G dongles with 512MB allowances when T-mobile were offering a completely unlimited solution. Anyway I think the joke has finally ended because they finally have a decent offer on the table : Their Pay As You Go Dongle. This one would give you a 1GB allowance at £15 per top-up to use whenever you want with the first initial cost just under £40 which includes the modem + an initial top up. I took one out yesterday and evaluated the upload speed which is most important for updating my blog and I'm happy to say they do deliver acceptable speed of just under 400kbit or so under optimal circumstances and it took only 1 minute to upload a 2.5MB image.

Now for Mobile phones :

This can be a good option depending on how much you use it. With the iPhone is apparently against the terms of service to acceess the Internet from a PC through it and even if you decide to do it anyway it's a real pain.. oh and did i mention your battery will drain very fast. Bluetooth is the way to go, I have used nokia phones to do this in the past, lately with the E51 business phone and it's very easy to setup and get running. You will need to add on to your contract some data but make sure it's unlimited and really unlimited. Don't take any cr*p about unlimited 7MB. If someone says unlimited it has to be unlimited fair usage with no excess charges. Currently I only know of T-mobile who do this but I have not checked all of them lately. From memory it's around 5 quid extra on top of the usual bill to have this option and T-mobile will charge yet another 5 pounds to have the improved speed. The in effect add quite a lot to your monthly bill so depending on how much you actually use the Internet it may not be the best solution. A friend of mine I believe emphasizes on the fact they want to carry the least stuff on them and in this respect having 1 device that can do everything is very nice to have.

Now for me I find I'm either at home or in the office so the times I would require this connection would be the weekend in coffee shops updating my blogs or after work. For emailing on the go I have the iPhone and Perhaps I will only use 10-15MB in a day from a laptop, every few days so the pay as you go is the one i need to go for.

Hong Kong day 8, HK, Qatar

2009-02-23T20:46:00.002Z

Well this is only a half day in Hong Kong. Did a final walk to the Wan Chai MTR station and had breakfast. Then headed to Time square to do some final purchases.
Right now we have just landed in Doha and our plane will take off around 2 am. The internet is free which is good but very poor quality to a degree gmail wont even load. My next update will be from London.

Hong Kong day 7

2009-02-22T05:11:00.001Z

Today is our last day in Hong Kong and I am very sad to leave :(. I really like this city and London should learn from it in many ways. We decided to head to Cheung Chau island this time based on our guides recommendation. We were pleasantly surprised and had a lovely time there walking along the rocks enjoying the sea view, riding people carrier bicycles and eating by the water.

Tomorrow afternoon we leave for the airport so maybe there will be one more update from HK if wifi is available at the airport.

Hong Kong day 6

2009-02-21T01:25:00.001Z

Today we met up with fellow Ricoh blogger Nevin from http://ricoh-gx.blogspot.com/ . After taking us for some delicious breakfast we went to Mong Kok take some snaps in areas we had not discovered yet. This was a great opportunity to talk about cameras. After showing him the cool dials on the RD1 my technical problems started.
The first was a dial miscalibation : the quality dial no longer aligned up with the paint markings. Fortunately I discovered while in the MTR that Epson put a dial calibration utility into the menu system. Secondly in the evening I discover that my computer cannot read my SD card... :(. I found a nice peice of free software from lexar to get back all my jpeg files fortunately but all my ERF raw files are for now stuck on the card. Will try to recover them in London.
After Mong Kok we decided to go to Pen Chau island which was around 45 minutes away on the ferry. I was not too impressed with the place although the sea view was superb even if there was a lot of humidity in the air.

Hong Kong day 5

2009-02-20T00:54:00.002Z

Today we met up with Ricoh again :) This time at their offices in Kowloon bay. This was another opportunity to discuss cameras but also to hold the newly released Ricoh CX1. The model I held was not finished so I could not take pictures with it onto my SD card unfortunately. The build is very similar to the R10 but has a few changes. Although they removed the rubber hand grip it doesn't matter too much on this camera as they added a soft rubber piece on the LCD side that holds the thumb nicely. I was able to quickly test the HDR mode that seemed to give some nice pictures judging from the LCD screen. I did notice some MY modes on the dial but it was not possible to change the mode of a MY setting to HDR.
The LCD screen is very nice and the viewing angle is very good. It is also very fast even in low light with less ghosting and lag than i have seen on the R8. I hope to be able to check out this camera again once it reaches the stores.

In the morning, after checking wikipedia we discovered we were allowed inside the IFC2 tower, at least to the 55th floor. We went to take some pics there before heading to Kowloon Bay.

Hong Kong day 4

2009-02-19T16:52:00.013Z

Went to check out Lantau island today to escape from the city. It's a wonderful place and spent most of the day in fact in the small village of Tai O. We then went to visit the Big Buddah and the Po Lin monastery which was quite impressive. Unlike Mr Sorega from GR diary I did not feel compelled to walk up to the peak :)

Hong Kong day 3

2009-02-18T01:37:00.000Z

Hong Kong day 2

2009-02-17T01:23:00.002Z

Today we went to check out the Peak tram, walked around in Wanchai and visited statue square. After that we decided to walk back to our hotel grab some food. It does not seem possible to go up the tower IFC2 so i was quite disapointed. These massive towers should have observatories so that the general public can enjoy. Nearby there is a splendid roof garden to enjoy if the weather is good.

Guangzhou, Dongwan, Hong Kong

2009-02-16T14:29:00.002Z

Today I had the privilege to meet up with Ricoh again and talk about their cameras. I was able to see for myself how a GR Digital is born and the degree of precision and care that is carried out at each stage of the assembly line as well as the optics. I would really like to thank Ricoh a lot for this rare privilege.

Arriving at Hong Kong the weather was not that good and we had quite a lot of humidity and rain. I really hope this clears up for tomorrow.

I amended yesterdays post which became a bit buggy. Sorry for that.

Guangzhou day 1

2009-02-15T16:51:00.012Z

Walked around Guangzhou today and I really like this place. Will write more tomorrow because its quite late right now...

On the way to Guangzhou

2009-02-14T15:57:00.000Z

Did not take many pics yesterday. Spent most of the day in the plane, waiting for a coach then 2 hours in the coach. Arrived at the end of the afternoon and went for dinner.

Zhengzhou day 7

2009-02-13T06:28:00.000Z

Well this is my last day in Zhengzhou until my next holiday. Not much to say about the cameras except the RD1 does work perfectly fine for street photography even without a hello kitty sticker on the front.
Writing this the day after, waiting for the coach to Guangzhou in Shenzhen airport.
Next step will be to meet Ricoh and finish off with a weeks holiday in Hong Kong before returning home to London (cannot say i'm looking forward to that...). The weather was really nice in Zhengzhou but here it feels boiling hot and very humid compared.
Will be around HK from the 17 th onwards

Zhengzhou day 6

2009-02-12T13:30:00.005Z

Today we managed to buy a small foldable bicycle and cram it into a suit-case :) I thought I'd post some pics of nice motorbikes today for a change.

Zhengzhou day 5 : Kaifeng

2009-02-11T15:38:00.009Z

Yesterday was a great day out. It was really warm and as usual lots of people around the streets. After doing some necessary trips we had a stroll down the small streets and did a bit of sock shopping :). I really love these small streets selling food and bits and peices.

This is the kind of stall that we went to to buy socks

Zhengzhou day 4

2009-02-10T10:37:00.003Z

Today I'm going to break my tradition of always uploading images and never any text.

Anyway, today I my discovered the camera district of Zhengzhou and although most of the shops did not sell any ricoh at all but on the the usual canon and Nikon stuff, one shop did sell them. This in itself is rather boring but they did not have any old ricoh camera, they sold the blue cheesy looking GRD1 !! :) Now I must be the only one to think this camera looks not so great however it's as close as you can get to a disposable looking camera without re-doing the paint job yourself (see my other posts on pink cameras).

They are asking 3300 RMB for it so I'm still thinking if i should get it and think later or not... The pound it very low at the moment so this would be around 300 pounds.

Other than that the usual scooting around town trying to get a nice pic but today I'm not very happy with the results. May post one later.

One last thing : Google blogger spell check detects that 'nikon' is wrong and offers me 'Nikon' but 'ricoh' is detected wrong but Google offer no suggestions that match 'Ricoh'... This is very disappointing.

Zhengzhou day 3

2009-02-09T15:06:00.009Z

Today I realized how glad I was to have both RD1 and GRD with me. As much as I love the quick snappinest of the GRD and all it's advantages at night time in some situations it just doesnt work for me. It works to a degree but when I look back on the pictures, those taken with the RD1 just look like it was when I was there. However riding on the back of an electric bicycle, the GRD was just fine and gave some really grainy shaken up images at iso 1600 that at first glance I would probably delete.

The picture above was taken on 'small' chinese new year in Zhengzhou which was a great evening to attend. It was totally packed in the streets but people still managed to get through each one with their electric bike or whatever old vehicle they had.

This is a GRD1 picture taken riding behind an electric bike. Bit shaken up but i like it.

This is an RD1 picture of a wish baloon. Although most made it to the sky, one got cought in a tree and failed :)

Fireworks

The army was out too

This is where my wife like to come when she goes back home.

Zhengzhou day 2

2009-02-08T14:56:00.000Z

After Qatar, Hong Kong, Shenzhen

2009-02-06T10:41:00.000Z

Waiting for the plane to Quatar

2009-02-05T10:38:00.001Z

I am adding the ariticles as a go along but I cannot use my Q1U so it's a bit awkward to update the blog.
Anyway, off for a quick holiday in China :)

snowing

2009-02-02T00:19:00.002Z

It's finally snowing this winter and this 4 days before my plane flies off to hong kong. Hope the planes won't get delayed as this is what usually happens with me... Taken with the GRD1 @iso 1600 and not very sharp.

Pink again...

2009-01-28T21:18:00.000Z

This time i put my RD1s in pink to see what it would be like. Hmm not sure i like it as much as the GRD.

Pink camera

2009-01-27T23:07:00.003Z

After seeing the GRD in Blue with the anniversary edition, I wanted to see what it would look like in pink. I think it still looks great :)

Bowling evening

2009-01-25T00:23:00.001Z

Decided to go bowling tonight so didnt take more than a couple of pics. Need to learn to read the sign not to walk on the lane though... ouch and my back still hurts

Office party

2009-01-23T23:14:00.000Z

Took along my GRD and RD1s for a few shots last night. Really appreciate a fast lens when the lighting is poor and with iso 800 on the rd1 plus my 1.4 this works very well.

looks good

2009-01-19T00:03:00.000Z

Took this one with the grd1 at the british museum today on a colleagues recommendation. I was walking around with my treasure map and it was fun to discover these odd statues

Sunday walk

2009-01-18T23:58:00.000Z

yep my pic of the inside of st pancras has the wb wrong but i like it. went for a tapas after and came up with my idea of a mini flash cube...

photography trade show in hammersmith

2009-01-17T20:57:00.002Z

went to check out the photography trade show today in search of a good a3 printer to buy. We saw a nice epson printer but the chap seemed more interested in talking about my epson RD1 instead :) . The printers were really cool and the quality is great however the downside is it will cost just over 500 quid and 1.2 pounds a copy thereafter to run. There were also a lot of printing companies that do a similar price for a3 so i may just ditch the printer and send my pics in instead.

Just got home and i realise that in the whole day i only took a handful of pics so maybe i need to return tomorrow take more.

Ridiculous demonstration

2009-01-11T12:34:00.011Z

Yesterday I decided to give my newly repaired GRD1 a spin a situation where I beleive it to be unbeatable, certainly against the RD1 at least : to a demonstration. The weight and size of the GRD as well as the speed at which it can take shots means that those pics that need to be taken in a split of a second are not missed. One thing i should have done is get a decent pair of thin leather gloves because at -3 all day with 2 metal cameras i felt the pain.

I forgot to add I went there as a neutral observer and just wanted an oppotunity to take pictures. The anti-war protest turned to some hate speeches against Israel and pro Hamas. The whole conflict is very complicated and this demonstration was only aimed against one side. Some people were shouting silly phrases without knowing what they were saying. It's very likely that both parties are at fault in this current situation and hatred from both sides is not really going to do much good.

Anyway, I managed to get some nice pics...

Trouble

2008-12-15T14:44:00.004Z

:) Ricoh has kindly asked me to send my beloved GRD in to check out my problem. I hope it will be an easy fix.

Ouch, my dear GR-D1 is not happy. The usual 'camera crashes on the adjust button' problem.

This time I am able to replicate it each time, but unfortunatly I don't know how to fix it.

Envionment:

Ricoh GRD1 camera : Model TQ14104768

- Latest GRD1 firmware
- Factory reset
- Erased internal memory
- No SD card present

I power on the camera
I press the adjust button

The frame rate will slow down to around 15fps
All buttons on the camera will be unresponsive. If left alone it will remain in the vegetable state.
I press the power button and after around 10 seconds the screen will power off leaving the lens totally out.

I press the power button again. This time it takes 9 seconds to initizlise the camera and ready to take a shot.
I press the adjust button and here we go again, the same thing.

I think the camera has decided to die on me. Well not exactly die because all the menu functions can be accessed via the menu so the damage is only that my [ADJ] is inoperable. This is all the more saddening because the camera is only just out of warranty :(

If anyone has any ideas what I can do?

I have put a video here : http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/244826/R1049811.AVI

Ok, thought maybe my firmware was bad so rolled back to firmware : Firmware rel 1.08

Same problem .... *cry*

update : Tried master reset but alas still the same problem.

update : Based on Christian's suggestion that I should wait before pressing the [ADJ] button rather than pressing it after boot up didn't really work. Actually it's getting worse by the day. Instead of freezing now, the camera just powers off with the lens out.

update

Coffee near carnaby street

2008-12-14T11:45:00.001Z

R-D1s with Konica M-Hexanon 28mm f2.8 , probably wide open 1/45s ISO 800

My perfect camera found

2008-12-08T14:26:00.002Z

While looking for a new lens for my R-D1 I came across something I missed for years. My dream camera already exists but is not digital unfortunately. I'd invite you to look up the Contax G2. It's design, features build quality, hand grip, dials and positioning, AF/MF capabilities and rangefinder make this camera something i want to own and use.
If only it was digital :(

Black one looks really mean :)

Aww need to stop looking at it because it's driving me mad.

1st official ricoh meetup

2008-12-01T14:05:00.009Z

The first Ricoh meet up was great fun and I would like the thank all who attended. It was great to meet so many Ricoh geeks (can i say that? :) ) in one room. It was great to meet Frazer who told us lots and lots of stuff about cameras and especially Ricoh.
Here are some pictures, mainly event coverage that I managed to get with my GRD and some with the R-D1s I just happen to have found at the bottom of my Ricoh bag.

I will be adding the EXIF information a bit later on but wanted get the pictures out for now. It's a small selection but still many to put on one blog page. The rest I will add to my drop box gallery page.

I will edit this post later and put a few more details down :)

Live comparaisons between GRD1 and GRD2

2008-11-08T10:44:00.002Z

Took this pic at a mates concert last night. I really think the GRD3 needs a f1.4 lens now.

More ideas for the next GR-D

2008-10-30T10:22:00.005Z

Ok I met up with Cristian from gr-diary and tried to come up with some ideas how Ricoh could make the GRD3.

Here are a few ideas we had :

* Keep the chasis as-is, perhaps make it a little taller if required.
* Remove the flash and bundle a small hotshoe flash
* next to the ON button, please a small monochome LCD screen that would echo the same menu's as the colour LCD screen.
o This could have metering information permenantly displayed. If one pushes the adjust button, it would display the first element of the ricoh menu and the front wheel would allow you to scroll though the values. The [O] button that normally toggles the framelines would have an additional function of illuminating the top LCD.
* Below the hotshoe, add a button that simply turns on or off the colour LCD display.
* make the lens protrude slightly more and add a manual focus ring
* Create a new OVF addon which would display information and focus

I will post of picture of what this could look like tonight :)

Under attack

2008-10-30T09:27:00.002Z

Killer Squirrel : Epson RD1s / nokton classic 40mm f1.4

http://www.getdropbox.com/gallery/244826/1/squirrel?h=10c44a

341

2008-10-23T06:58:00.001+01:00

First shot

2008-10-21T19:26:00.003+01:00

GRD1 in Cannon street station

Buddies

2008-10-20T20:19:00.000+01:00

Well this is what I would like

2008-10-19T16:50:00.007+01:00

Well, I thought if we're going to have a OVF on a camera, make a bloody good one. I'm tired of cameras that have this but are so dark, awkward they become such a pain to use. I was in fact thinking of having a 1:1 view with frame lines. I quite like using this viewfinder as it doesn't require my eye to adjust to anything and I can have both eyes open. I don't think many people will like my drawing so I guess I'd be the only one buying one :)

A few things I thought of :

Putting the phase detection back on.

Putting the ol' GRD1 wheel back on

Ditching the Flash

Ditching the AF assist light

Ditching the fully automatic mode and replace it with MY3

Having a real bright OVF with focus, shutter, aperture information visible within.

A small LCD screen on top that would show basic information such as shots remaining, but could be configured to show a list of things that could be toggled with a button.

Trying to picture the next GRD

2008-10-18T23:18:00.002+01:00

Well while I did not take a single picture today, i wanted to see what a GRD would like like with my ideas. Really need to see if a GRD with RD1 controls looks sexy of not :)

Look up (at the big yellow skip)

2008-10-17T19:08:00.004+01:00

Camera : GRD2

Not many updates this week. Took only the GRD2 today as i'm a bit cross with the GRD1 recently. It's got this problem where it will constantly crash on me. If I power it on and press the adjust wheel, 5 times out of ten the screen refresh rate will drop and none of the buttons will respond. Eventually the camera will shut itself down with the lens out. Chris suggested I use a newly formatted card as it should fix it. Will try this over the weekend. Over the years of using it It's never been like this so it may have developed an electrical fault :(

What I like on a camera

2008-10-14T21:47:00.004+01:00

Outer dial : shots remaining
Left : White balance
Right : Picture quality
Bottom : Battery level

Nice use of space :)

EV compensation
Shutter speed
ISO
Cable release
Shutter button

Well I thought Id write a bit on stuff that make me want to buy a camera. My first expectation is feel and build quality. A plastic feel camera just feels bad. A nice black metal finish that looks industrial as oppose to brushed aluminium or shiny metal finish. A hand grip, preferably leather but this seems to be virtually impossible to find these days but a good soft rubber can do. Oh and the hand grip has to be proper and fat. none of these fancy so called hang rips that can be seen on a few new compact cameras recently. Physical controls that are visible on the camera even off. I think the RD1 has a fantastic layout of controls and at 1 glance i can check everything. Small and discreet and finally have interchangeable lenses. I would add pocket able but the RD1 fails miserably at this.
The GRD i feel has many of the qualities of the RD1 and many many qualities of its own. They share the same finish and build precision and both are very comfortable to use. The GRD fits in the pocket where the RD1 doesn't. The controls on the GRD are also superb because of the simplicity and the dual wheel, click wheel on the front allows you to set and view settings within seconds. I'm curious weather certain physical elements similar to the RD1 should be used with the next GR camera or not.

So many things to try

2008-10-12T16:31:00.002+01:00

Well it seems there are a few nice things to try out there. Recently I've been using ACDsee pro 2.5 on a trial. While it seems to do everything I need it to do on a basic level it won't open RAW files from my RD1s. While in Photokina, I discovered the latest bibble 5 which looks very similar to lightroom as in the colour of the interface, kind of discreet style if you are familiar with combustion. Bibble won't open RAW files from the GRD however, but does open RAW from the RD1s :). This for me doesn't quite work though as I want 1 tool to run on the Q1 ultra that will do everything.

I always found it a pain to work with images in Blogger. There is no tool I know of that will show me all the pictures I have uploaded and let me update or run basic manipulations on them. What I really need is an interface within ACDsee that works with google picasa web albums.

I recently discovered dropbox. This little tool will create a folder on your desktop that will synchronise with their remote server running on amazon ec2 :) . This is actually great because I can organise pics with ACDsee and just drop all my pics i need publishing online to a specific folder. While I have not really done anything yet, i'm eager to test this out a bit. The advantage would be that instead of uploading pics to Blogger, i could just provide a link to my dropbox pubic folder to a specific pic. This will also ensure it's up to date and not re compressed by the server.

...

Brick lane

2008-10-11T18:37:00.004+01:00

Went chilling around brick lane today and took a few pics. Stopped of at Blackheath pond beforehand say hello to the ducks and see if they like the taste of a ricoh :) Had the GRD1 and RD1 with me this time

Ricohforum meetup

2008-10-10T09:19:00.003+01:00

There will be another Ricohforum meet up in London announced in the Ricohforum. This follows our recent meet up with Ricoh employees at Photokina last month. Would be terrific to meet other enthusiasts to discuss cameras, techniques, work flows for example and then go off to take some pics! :)
Please visit this thread for more information : http://www.ricohforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1824&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

Billions

2008-10-09T23:12:00.003+01:00

Camera : GRD2

Well I didn't get up to much for lunch again and opted for a simple sandwich. As usual I walked pass the usual headlines that are worse than ever. Sometimes I wish I had more time to snap during the day instead of making sure servers are up.

Comedy night

2008-10-08T23:59:00.002+01:00

Tonight I went along to a friends comedy evening. It was very good.

http://whatwho.tv

That same morning I was wondering if I should bring along the f1.4 and took the q1 charger instead. Shot at a too low iso and most of the pics are a bit too blurry.

Man and bird

2008-10-07T17:37:00.001+01:00

Camera : Epson RD1s
Lens : Voigtlander Color Skopar 21mm f4

Working late

2008-10-06T21:58:00.004+01:00

Camera : Epson RD1s
Lens : Voigtlander Nokton classic S.C 40mm F 1.4

I decided to work a bit later today and recable some switches. Night time is where the RD1 is great or maybe all credit to the nokton 1.4 :)

Canary wharf with the GRD2

2008-10-05T12:15:00.003+01:00

Camera : Ricoh GR Digital II

It's been quite a while since I've used the GRD2 so I decided to not use the RD1 so much yesterday. I used to be in this place every day a few years ago and it felt weird coming back here again. It's an interesting place to take pictures of modern stuff. I still can't believe this tall buildings are closed to the public who would like to go to the top take some pictures. I wonder how many sky scrapers in London the tourist is actually allowed in...

Kit

2008-10-04T12:09:00.003+01:00

* Sony DSC-F505V

* Nikon D70s

* Ricoh GR Digital

* Ricoh GR Digital II

* Hello Kitty disposable camera

* Ricoh GR1s

* Epson RD1s

I thought id take a pic of my cameras. I have to say i like all except the rubbish sony camera I bought 8 years ago on the far left. The Nikon D70s is ok but really to heavy and bulky to carry around. The 2 GRD are just superb. The GR1 is the best looking camera in the world, i just wish they would make a GR1d. The RD1s although as heavy as 3 GRD has a wonderful feel and build quality and classic camera controls.

no sd card = no pics

2008-10-03T19:42:00.002+01:00

I was really looking forward to updating my blog today and took some pics i thought would be really nice. Sadly when opening up my card slot it was empty :(. so even if the dial is great on this camera i need to remember to check it more often. Ah well i will use an older pic for today.

after work sky

2008-10-02T22:36:00.002+01:00

The sky looked quite inspiring today. i did not take many pics today so i will add some more pictures to my photokina post

photokina snaps

2008-10-01T22:41:00.002+01:00

Camera : Epson RD1s
Lens : Voigtlander Nokton classic S.C 40mm F 1.4
Settings : ISO200 . 1/97s.

Camera : Epson RD1s
Lens : Voigtlander Nokton classic S.C 40mm F 1.4
Settings : ISO200 / 1/676s

Camera : Epson RD1s
Lens : Voigtlander Nokton classic S.C 40mm F 1.4
Settings : ISO200 / 1/208s

Camera : Epson RD1s
Lens : Voigtlander Nokton classic S.C 40mm F 1.4
Settings : ISO200 / 1/676s

Photokina

2008-10-01T13:05:00.005+01:00

Well, i ve just been to photokina after several months of anticipation. Finally another chance to meet up with the Ricoh staff. our last meet up was in Japan where we checked out the picture gallery from their last contest. I was also very eager to see how the new micro 4/3 system was since the recent announcement of the G1 and see if it would be a sort of modern day epson rd1 with controls similar to a ricoh that would accept interchangeable lenses, this way my voigtlander lenses could be mounted with an adaptor. next on my list was the olympus digital pen or whatever they decide to call their new ultra small interchangeable camera.

I was quite impressed with the panasonic G1 and it s EVF. on almost all cameras i have tested, the evf i find useless and uncomfortable to see with. manually focusing is also usually quite an exercise, however on the G1 its really quite usable and crisp. would have preferred an absence of any viewfinder all together and it to be sold as an accessory a bit like the Ricoh GX100.
The controls are quite OK and even if i prefer old school controls like the RD1 i could learn to like them. they added a push wheel and i am a big fan of wheels for controlling aperture and shutter. the wheel can even be pushed.the refresh rate of the screen leave the competition behind and is very very fast, maybe a bit too fast. they adopted a LCD folding feature like the rd1 that in my opinion is a bit pointless as you need the menu to make adjustments. on the RD1 it makes sense because all the controls are physical. perhaps its intended for another purpose.

At the Ricoh booth we had the chance to discuss cameras and our view of possible improvements of the GR series of cameras. I think the biggest points that came out of the meeting was the rocker switch in replacement of the GRD1 wheel and differences in jpeg quality. this subject is covered in every possible detail in the Ricoh gr diary. Ricoh staff are extremely friendly people who listen very carefully to their customer base.

The Olympus digital pen prototype looks almost too good to be true. it looks for now like a silver version of the sigma dp2 except the lens is changeable. if the interface is good, i may buy this camera or perhaps Ricoh will surprise me with the GRD3.

more to follow...

few pics from this weekend

2008-09-21T23:35:00.003+01:00

and more

2008-07-17T00:38:00.001+01:00

black and white

2008-07-15T21:11:00.004+01:00

Epson RD1s, voigtlander 40mm f1.4 nokton classic S.C.

Epson RD1s, voigtlander 21mm color skopar f4.0

Epson RD1s, voigtlander 40mm f1.4 nokton classic S.C.

First shots with the Epson RD1s

2008-07-10T14:13:00.000+01:00

red dress

2008-06-24T22:15:00.000+01:00

i took this pic a while back in brick lane but kind of forgot about it.

Trying out the LC1

2008-06-18T21:46:00.003+01:00

This week I had the chance to try out the LC1 camera. It's a somewhat odd camera because it's probably the only digital camera i've handled that feels like a film camera. The quality is remarkable, however it does take a little getting used to.
Took this oddly orange pic a few hours ago after shopping :)

2008-06-17T21:37:00.004+01:00

London beach :) It looks a lot better in this photograph than in reality trust me.

Bible and ipod touch (or iphone). I like it when stone age values and 21st century come together. This also reminded me of a chap in umpcportal who was suggesting using a bible bag for a UMPC bag :). As you can see, it would fit nice and snug.
ref : http://www.umpcportal.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=2661&forum=17&post_id=15019#forumpost15019

Not always easy to get through human walls on waterloo bridge. I thought this was worth a picture and happy with how it turned out.

oops i think i just crashed my coach

2008-06-14T13:11:00.000+01:00

Ok text finally followed. Well i'm sure you can read a lot more about this on Chris's blog but anyway, the driver really didn't want his picture taken, I found it a shame since he has a very interesting face.

2008-06-12T23:01:00.011+01:00

This is my image of the day. It's the typical thing i walk past either going or coming back from lunch. Seems work is being carried out everywhere in the Holborn viaduct area. I really love one building in particular, 'the fleet building' it has a lot of charm to it. Seems it's kind of abandoned for a while.

Still really happy with my Ricoh GB-1 bag. I'd definatly recommend it to any Ricoh addict out there who needs a nice looking bag to hold all their kit. I guess i was kind of lucky because they are fairly hard to find online and in shops.

one bag fits all

2008-06-07T19:53:00.002+01:00

Finally a bag that fits all my stuff :)
got in there : Q1 ultra, GX100, GRD, GRD2, battery, 40mm, 21mm lens, viewfinder and loads of free space for all my pret choc bars.

power cut in town

2008-05-12T23:25:00.001+01:00

united kingdom

2008-05-12T23:22:00.002+01:00

we stand

2008-05-12T23:15:00.001+01:00

lunch time in the city

2008-05-12T23:12:00.000+01:00

praying?

2008-05-12T23:01:00.001+01:00

more tests

2008-04-29T07:56:00.002+01:00

Started to take the bins out but as soon as I opened the door I saw this spectacular display. Actually it looks a lot nicer in real life, but this gives some idea.

The following shots were then taken, i think a few hours later. The sky looked great so I took several shots in the hope one may render the light as I perceived it.

Yellow

2008-04-28T21:39:00.003+01:00

Nothing special, just wanted to test something out with the camera to get the colour as bright as possible. Could possibly do better with the raw but this is the jpeg from the camera

hole in the sky

2008-04-28T21:34:00.002+01:00

Saw this on the way out from work. I think it looks quite nice :)

around the office

2008-04-19T20:09:00.001+01:00

back to london

2008-04-10T21:34:00.000+01:00

Ricoh

2008-04-10T21:27:00.000+01:00

tradition and excellence

2008-04-02T13:52:00.001+01:00

nice camera :)

next shot... hey i can see you taking my picture

2008-04-02T13:29:00.000+01:00

tokyo business woman?

2008-04-02T13:20:00.000+01:00

purple

2008-04-02T13:19:00.000+01:00

follow me

2008-04-02T13:12:00.000+01:00

smells nice

2008-04-02T13:10:00.001+01:00

i quite like this pic. i had a split second to take it. i really feel sometimes my grd2 is an extension of my fingertips. slighly cropped but everything else is natural from the camera

throwing pennies

2008-04-02T13:08:00.001+01:00

catch up

2008-04-02T12:56:00.001+01:00

taken in Kyoto yesterday. no cropping or alterations. just put in black and white from the dng.

tokyo

2008-03-27T12:08:00.000Z

first day with a gx100

2008-03-27T12:02:00.000Z

breakfast at dunkin donuts

2008-03-22T12:40:00.002Z

hercules monochrome

2008-03-22T12:14:00.001Z

this amber light reminded me i had to take a colour picture. turns out with no processing its kind of orange and black

korea

2008-03-20T06:08:00.003Z

finally found a free hotspot in seoul, at starbucks :) my blackberry phone is as useful as a paperweight here... managed to get quite a few nice street shots today. later on we,re heading to the technology district to check out cheap umpcs :) the connection is very flaky. note to bei : text me on joe,s phone

Eric Clapton

2008-03-17T19:58:00.001Z

I took this great shot with my GW-1 21mm wide angle adaptor in very good light conditions. Not quite sure what happened though :D

2 pictures today

2008-03-15T23:28:00.004Z

I thought I would put 2 pictures today because it's saturday. I quite like the picture with the car because of the textures on the road sort of match the car.

The second picture is where my favorite camera shop in London is :). We were supposed to go in today and purchase the new Ricoh R8 but they perhaps decided to close early so we had to go elsewhere. The R8 is a nice camera for someone who likes to zoom a lot, I still perfer my GRD2 though but for my girlfriend I think it's an excellent choice.

In the rain

2008-03-13T23:04:00.000Z

After work looking for fluid. In the end I had to take out the Q1 ultra and look it up on google maps. The GT-1 did get a few splashes in this pic but thats all part of the fun. I really need to get windscreen wipers on my lens.

lens distortion

2008-03-13T00:33:00.000Z

I thought this looked quite interesting.