Two more members have received their new GR’s.
this thread has gone quite.
The suspense is killing me.
Are they happy with their purchases ?
Do their copies rattle too much ?
Are the buttons and dials working ok ?
Have their cameras caught fire exploded or fallen to bits ?
Me, I’m very happy with mine. Also delighted to say that the rear screen presents no problem at all in bright sunlight. Best screen I’ve ever used in that respect.
I've posted some thoughts over on the thread at Mu-43. Here's what I said there yesterday:
Initial thoughts: the body is noticeably smaller in the grip area, both front and back. Fingers touch the outermost part of the lens assembly, and I haven't gotten totally comfortable with where to put my thumb yet, but these are both very minor things. Definitely not ergonomically bad, just a little different. Ridiculous people elsewhere have been complaining about the IBIS clunk (it's very minor, not much different than an M4/3 body), as well as a slightly wobbly rear 4-way controller and slightly offset looking lens barrel. I can see both these things, but they don't appear as defects to me, just quirks. Overall the body feels a bit heavier and more solid than the GRII, definitely a premium product.
It's not without some annoying parts, though. For one, the only customization for the exposure controls offered is in M mode, where you can swap shutter and aperture between the front dial and rear ADJ toggle. In M, exposure comp is hardwired to the rear wheel (not the ADJ toggle which is marked with an exposure comp icon!). In Tv and Av, the front dial controls the main control (shutter or aperture), the ADJ does exposure comp (okay, that's what it's labeled for) and the rear wheel does NOTHING! Can't be set to directly control anything. You can change ISO with it with an extra press left, but only if you've left that programmable button set as ISO. On a camera that is supposed to be so customizable, I need to be able to swap dials around as I wish. There are very comprehensive customization options offered in some areas, but not others. For example, high ISO NR can be customized to every single full ISO stop, between off, low, med or high. So if you want only medium NR on ISO 1600 only, you can do that. Image control replaces effects for JPEG styles, and has a lot more options to fine-tune files, which is great. However, something like bracketing does not even have a menu item devoted to it, instead being accessed from the Drive menu, with only two settings (EV between shots, and order of EV). So bracketing only works for exposure values. It feels half-baked.
I strongly suspect that some aspects of the camera didn't get finished in time for release. Keep in mind that very little was said about the camera until just before release, and things like max ISO were TBD until just before launch. By the designers' own admission, the camera was designed first for ultimate image quality, and they admitted they took longer over this than they expected to. However, most of my quibbles can be easily fixed via firmware (we know the grain effect for image control will be added in an update) and I really suspect they will be.
Another item that has been commented on is the way the camera sometimes heats up near the top right of the LCD, under the thumb. I have noticed this a little, and whenever I did, I popped the battery out to see if that is what caused the warmth. The battery has felt a bit warm in these cases, but not warm enough to transfer enough heat to the outside of the camera body. So I don't think the battery is the culprit, but perhaps the power transfer where the battery terminals mate with the internal circuitry. I suspect the power draw is ultimately the reason for the camera warming up. It's certainly not alarmingly warm, in my case. Less warm than my smartphone often gets.
I'm surprised that people have complained abut the IBIS clunk, but I haven't seen anyone ringing the alarm bells about the IBIS sound! It's fairly loud if you put your ear near the camera, similar to the Panasonic GX85, but it somehow sounds less refined than the Panny. Kind of squeaky rather than a quiet hum. Also, it seems the stabilization effect is constantly on, rather than just during half-press and/or exposure. You can hear adjustments being made when you move it around. This is even though the LCD doesn't appear to be super stabilized. I strongly suspect the IBIS unit could have some fine-tuning applied that would save battery life.
Oh, yeah. Complaints about the AF speed. In general I've found it to be pretty fast, a definite step up from the GRII. When I've been able to defeat the AF system has been in extremely bad light. Like, light bad enough that the LCD barely shows details that can be seen while focusing (the LCD gain in low light cuts out during focus, like most cameras). In conditions like this you will not get focus 99% of the time. Picking up my GX85, I was able to of course nail focus regardless, but that is because the GX85 focus is flippin' awesome. You buy a Panasonic system if you want extremely good single AF in low light, full stop. In nearly every situation where I would actually want to take pictures, the GR III is good, in the lowest lighting it hunts, and when it hunts it racks focus once fairly fast, then moves into the extremely slow focus rack that's been shown in videos. There is a definite limit to the lighting that AF will function in, and I think I just have to learn where that cutoff is.
Image quality is screaming, bloody good. Even with the added resolution, the lens is razor sharp. I don't know how they do this with such small amounts of glass. High ISO looks great, though I haven't analyzed files in detail yet. In the end, this is a camera made for IQ above all else. In a tiny package.