Ricoh Caplio R4 good or not?


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Yep that's what I tot too. Bought the R4 already. It's pretty fun and just like u said, fast focusing and low shutter lag. Where it matters most. Plus the IS seems pretty effective, at least from what the 2.5in preview screen shows. Oh yes, the zoom range is great, as well as the 1cm macro focusing distance. I think my father-in-law will enjoy his Guangzhou trip a lot. You know, he snagged quite a few of my wedding shots which my hired photog screwed up :)
 

Great :) You can share his pics here too :) It's storming in Guangzhou now though.
 

shinken said:
Bought the R4 already. It's pretty fun and just like u said, fast focusing and low shutter lag...

I like how the lens will spring out eagerly overall taking less than a second when you press on the 'power' button.

I put in transcend 150x 2gb SD. It did work... :sweatsm: though official spec & manual only mentioned the figures for up to a 1gb card... :sweat:
 

Brief hands-on review. No pics yet, sorry. I took a few, deleted most because they were pretty uninteresting.

Body:
Very nice design.
Very nice pouch.
Good focal range of 28-200. 200 is very usable with IS.
I like the fact that the battery and mem card slots in the same place.

Function:
Easy of use
Fast Shutter Response, low lag - I could take fast motion with PnS! Ok, I'm suaku with PnS, but my bro's Nikon and my sis' Ixus couldnt. I'll probably post the bicycle pic when I get home.
Fast AF (relates to point above)
Fast Startup
Good auto mode
Although no manual selection, good to have option of +/- the exposure

Output:
Sharp photos.
Good IS. I mean very good.
Good White Balance performance.
Accurate colours. Some people might prefer more saturated colours, having seen preferences of forumers here. This could be a problem under certain conditions for some cameras where skin tones adopt blue or red tinge, but the colours are pretty accurate for R4, so it's a trade off I guess.
Pretty ok macro function. Nothing to benchmark against. Previous PnS I used didn't have such short focusing distance.
Pretty ok flash. Never tried in dark ballrooms yet, but well, I'm asking too much.

Others:
No plug-and-play for USB2 when downloading photos. Disappointing.
Software for downloading is clumsy. (good to invest in a card reader)
 

shinken said:
Others:
No plug-and-play for USB2 when downloading photos. Disappointing.
Software for downloading is clumsy. (good to invest in a card reader)

I'll not use the USB cord. If you use that, after a while the area around there will sure get stratched by the plug. The camera's USB connector there is not concealed or under any cover. If your black or blue color body there get stratched, isn't that very ugly looking? I'll always use a SD card reader.
 

not using the USB connection too to download pics. will probably use it only for any firmware update.
 

No lah, my father-in-law had lots of troubles figuring how to download photos to comp. I even have to help him burn into a CD everytime we go for a trip. Will buy him a card reader as soon as I can.
 

Go to Setting -> Setup -> USB Connection and choose Mass Storage.
R4 will work as external drive (memory stick) when connected to PC.
No need for special driver (but cannot delete pictures from PC for some strange reason...)
 

A photo taken by my Ricoh R4...

Ricoh_002.jpg
 

Quick question. Does the Ricoh R4 have manual controls on Aperture, Shutter and manual focus?
Av/Tv/M mode?

Ok. i got my answer. No No No.

I guess this camera is like the Panasonic LZ 5 which has 6X + Mega OIS but no 28mm.

Thanks.
 

It has a pretty ok manual focus (even with a "snap" mode) and a "semi" shutter priority mode for setting long exposures.
 

Manual focus, yes. Can set exposure to 2sec, 4sec & 8sec. Macro mode can shift the focus point away from the centre.
 

Some images from a recent trip to share.... the range of the R4 is really useful :)
sR0011240.jpg


sR0011431.jpg
 

the new image processing engine in the R5 sounds good :)
 

But we won't know until we see some pics or review on the cam, currently can't find any as the cam will only be out mid mth.

I'm thinking of selling away my less than 2 mth old blue Caplio R4 & probably buy either this R5 or Samsung NV7 OPS. ;p
 

Anyone got pricing for Ricoh R5? and sample shots? Hand very itchy to get one hehehe :D
 

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