Ricoh Ricoh GXR Mount A12 first pictures

Cristian Sorega

Regular
Location
London
After trying out a pre-production module from Ricoh a while ago (Cristian Sorega Photography: GXR Mount A12 Preview), I could not wait any longer and had to get one of the first modules available. I just love the module, it works great with M lenses and the Leica R lens I tried using an adapter. The image quality is great and manually focusing is very easy, especially in low light and with fast lenses.

Here are some first pictures I took with it and the Ricoh GR f2.8 28mm lens, the Voigtlander Heliar f4.0 15mm, the Zeiss Biogon f2.0 35mm and the Voigtlander Ultron f1.7 35mm.

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Very nice photos.

How easy is manual focusing and which mode did you use? How is it compared eg to the af lenses?
 
very nice Cristian!

How works the 15mm Voigtlander? This lens is nearly impossible to mount on a M8/9 without huge colorshifts at the sides of the pics. Please shoot black fabrics with any lens in order to test the magenta/IR resistance of the filterglass ontop of the sensor. Thanks!
Coming Friday i'll have my GXR in my hands, at first with the A12 28mm due to backorders for the Mount.......
It seems that Ricoh made their homework very well.....
 
How easy is manual focusing and which mode did you use? How is it compared eg to the af lenses?

I use mostly Mode 2 with the high pass filter and find it easy to use once you get the hang of it in scenes with a lot of contrast but it gets very easy in low light and especially at large apertures.
 
How works the 15mm Voigtlander? This lens is nearly impossible to mount on a M8/9 without huge colorshifts at the sides of the pics. Please shoot black fabrics with any lens in order to test the magenta/IR resistance of the filterglass ontop of the sensor.

The 15mm lens works very well, I did not see any colour shifts, only slight vignetting but setting the vignetting correction to +1 or +2 gets rid of it. It works much better on the GXR than the Epson RD1 or the GF1 I used it on before.

So far I did not notice any IR problems on the pictures, not sure but the picture here could maybe answer your question: Tom's photography blog: Free day and walk around Bloomsbury
 
Hi Cristian, from what you've shared it seems the GXR mount is looking very good indeed. The photos do look very sharp and crisp from what you've shared, especiallythe architecture photos :) I'm trying to get my hands on one to try before I decide if its really for me, but it seems like the general opinion of users is that it takes some getting used to the focusing system.

Thanks for sharing, hope to see more ;-)
 
Yesterday I picked up my GXR with a A12 28mm module. What a deep pond of settings........ughh too much for an old fart........
BUT the usability of the focus assist, especially the high pass embossed version works fine from the start. In the dim light of my living room the edges of things I pointed to changed very visible from 'soft' to hard-edged so it wasn't a problem, even wearing glasses.
For the Mount I'll have to wait.
Now I have to learn to switch off all possible menue points to get a naked Leica.......or NikonF... ;-)
 
... but it seems like the general opinion of users is that it takes some getting used to the focusing system.

It takes some time to get used to it as any focusing method other than a good AF system but it should not take longer than a few tries to decide which MF assist option works better for you and then it's just about finding out how it shows the exact focus point and the DOF after this.

For me mode 2 with the high pass filter plus the magnified square on the screen at 2x magnification work best in both good and especially in low light.
 
... What a deep pond of settings...
Now I have to learn to switch off all possible menue points to get a naked Leica.......or NikonF... ;-)

I would recommend you take the time once to set the camera up the way you want and after you'll never have to see the menu again. For the A12 50mm and 28mm modules I always have one of the Fn buttons assigned to swap between AF/Snap, one for MF, set the Adj. toggle to change ISO and set the Adjust menu for picture settings like aspect ratio, colour/b&w and maybe WB.
For the Mount I would use the Fn buttons to toggle the magnification and one I have for turning the MF assist on and off (but I hope Ricoh will allow to toggle between both modes in a upcoming firmware).
 
Here a few more pictures from it (and also to show that there are no IR problems).

Taken with the Leica Elmarit f2.8 28mm R lens and R to M adapter:

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Taken with the Ricoh GR f2.8 28mm L lens:

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Taken with the Voigtlander Heliar f4.5 15mm:

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More pictures for those interested are available on my blog: Cristian Sorega Photography: GXR Mount A12
and I also set up a Flickr Set: GXR Mount A12 - a set on Flickr

The more I use this module, the more I realize I will not need any other camera but I will probably end up with a collection of M and L lenses. The handling is as usual with Ricoh fantastic but it is actually possible to operate the GXR Mount A12 with legacy lenses using only one hand to operate all functions, including setting aperture and focusing, no other camera allows this as far as I know.
 
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