Following on from its 1990?s GR Series of 35mm compacts, Ricoh has announced an 8MP digicam with a newly developed lens and 25mm body.
The GR Digital has a CCD with an effective resolution of 8.14MP. The newly developed f/2.4 38mm fixed-focus lens incorporates a design commonly used in wide-angle SLRs, with a convex lens towards the CCD and concave lens towards the subject. A special low-dispersion lens and two glass-moulded optic lenses rectify the effects of distortion and colour and frame aberration.
The new GR image processor is designed to reduce the effect of noise and to produce images with rich gradations. It also improves autofocus performance in macro mode and uses image-pattern analysis to ensure that whites and blacks are reproduced accurately.
Instead of being incorporated into the body, the optical viewfinder attaches onto the hotshoe of the GR for more accurate framing. Program, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority and Manual are the exposure modes and Ricoh promises a shooting interval of 1.7secs.
Other features include RAW and JPEG shooting, 1.5cm macro, selectable 3:2 aspect ratio, 9-point AF system, three metering modes and a 2.5in LCD with a field of view of 100%. An optional wideangle converter is available that can adjust the focal length to 21mm.
The Ricoh GR Digital will be available in October for £399.99. Find out more at www.ricohpmmc.com or by calling 0208 261 4031.