Ricoh Updated *** Street with GRD's ***

So it seems that the camera does play a large part in youse guys processes.

Yeah, sure. To an extent I let a camera guide me on how it should be used. Often different cameras will bring me to the same destination, but for some they might let me explore something different entirely. While there is certain amount of overlap between my G1X and E-M5 I operate each camera differently based on their own unique features. I think that to run multiple cameras across different brands and platforms you need a certain amount of adaptability to avoid each one driving you slightly crazy.
 
Yeah, sure. To an extent I let a camera guide me on how it should be used. Often different cameras will bring me to the same destination, but for some they might let me explore something different entirely. While there is certain amount of overlap between my G1X and E-M5 I operate each camera differently based on their own unique features. I think that to run multiple cameras across different brands and platforms you need a certain amount of adaptability to avoid each one driving you slightly crazy.

Nic, very true indeed. In fact, I see a difference in your work between the 2 cameras. It's not just the subject matter but how you respond to a similar subject with the different cameras. I posted on your Flickr site about this.
Don
 
So, Streetshooter, if you come up with 250 images, and let us say they were shot at an average shutter speed of 1/125th of a second. Then it follows that they represent about 2 seconds of life, or two seconds of life frozen in time. Now, obviously, from your point of view (and mine) they represent much more than that in time, attention, energy etc. It is, when considered this way, a strange thing we do capturing these ever so brief moments within the unceasing relentless flow of time. When I capture the ever-so-brief expression on the face of one of my daughters, the result is priceless to me, but it remains but a mere gossamer fragment of her life and mine. What joy! What wonder! But it is not all joy and wonder. I just read the other day an essay about the Magnum photographers, and found that some of them, after covering wars and other aspects of the human underbelly, gave up photography for the rest of their lives.

I know which article you're speaking of and I feel this commentary is a bit too politically biased.
 
Well, I shot with both the GRD3 and the EM5 at another of our local street fairs yesterday. I got keepers with both, but I got a higher percentage of keepers with the EM5. The good ones with the GRD3 are mostly grittier than the EM5 shots, but there are exceptions in both directions. And with the EM5 I tend to have the option of going either way in PP, depending on what the image calls for. In some cases with the GRD3, grit IS the option, which isn't a bad thing, but I like leaving the possibilities open. I sort of remember coming to a similar conclusion last year when I started shooting with the EPL3 - I can do anything with the EPL3/EM5 that I can with the GRD3, but I have a bit more latitude to both recover shadows and pull back highlights, and I have a bit more latitude to crop to, which occasionally matters. Its funny but the GRD3 FEELS somewhat more liberating and discrete than the EM5, probably because its SOOOO small and dead silent. But when I was going through the results, there are more people looking straight into the lens with the GRD3 shots than with the OMD. I wonder how much that has to do with firing with the touch screen and not having my hand anywhere near the shutter button with the EM5 - it looks more like I'm just carrying the camera down the street rather than shooting with it I guess. I was kind of assuming this technique was better for MY sense of discreetness but probably had little impact on how I'm perceived as I walk or stand with my camera. But evidently it may have more to do with how I'm seen than how I feel while I'm doing it.

-Ray
 
Ray, strange as it may seem......I had an exhibition of street shots in a local library recently. A lady was so taken she contacted me and asked me to photograph her family in similar fashion with the same camera (grd3) and same post process.

That's a great story! I assume you're going to do it??

I've never had an exhibition of anything anywhere - no desire to push that aspect of it and it doesn't just happen by itself. My daughter seems to have taken it upon herself to try to push some of my work and she's managed to sell a few copies of my blurb books, but so far that's it. Which is OK by me.

-Ray
 
Ok, it looks like this thread has taken on new life. If youse wish to post images, please feel free to do so. How about when someone post an image or more, we get some discussion going.
We should change the name of the thread to....
It's your call...not mine.
 
Dan, thanks and I will be posting more later. I'm in the early stages of finding the image with the GRiD but there is already some mojo going on. It's silver Effex I'm playing with but the camera excites me.
Ahhhh at 63 it don't take much anymore.

I need to talk to Amin about my hormones. I used to walk the street and see a pretty woman and get excited....now I just want to know what camera she's holding....
 
Ok, here's another batch. As always I assume full responsibility for the content of these images, as long as you like them. If by chance you do not, then either Ray or Dan or Duane or even that Heather Lady are responsible but certainly not me.

View attachment 54814
06-12-0008-Edit.jpg by streetshooter.us, on Flickr

View attachment 54815
06-12-0032-Edit.jpg by streetshooter.us, on Flickr

View attachment 54816
06-12-0046-Edit.jpg by streetshooter.us, on Flickr

View attachment 54817
06-12-0141-Edit.jpg by streetshooter.us, on Flickr

Sold 2xs.
View attachment 54818
06-12-0149-Edit.jpg by streetshooter.us, on Flickr

View attachment 54819
06-12-0152-Edit.jpg by streetshooter.us, on Flickr

I sometimes get away from the street. I actually got this camera by inspiration from Wouter. I just love visiting his blog. I thought that this would be my OffStreet camera but it's to versatile to label it anything but a camera. Imagine that.

For Barry
View attachment 54820
06-12-0001-Edit.jpg by streetshooter.us, on Flickr

For PDH
View attachment 54821
For PDH wherever we may find him. by streetshooter.us, on Flickr
 
Dan, thanks and I will be posting more later. I'm in the early stages of finding the image with the GRiD but there is already some mojo going on. It's silver Effex I'm playing with but the camera excites me.
Ahhhh at 63 it don't take much anymore.

I need to talk to Amin about my hormones. I used to walk the street and see a pretty woman and get excited....now I just want to know what camera she's holding....

LOL. I hear ya brother. I am turning 65 this week. Getting old is for the birds. In fact I don't even wish on them. I'm glad you are posting more photos.
 
Also with the GRD IV

R0010344.JPG
 
Nic, very true indeed. In fact, I see a difference in your work between the 2 cameras. It's not just the subject matter but how you respond to a similar subject with the different cameras. I posted on your Flickr site about this.
Don

Thanks Don, and yes I do agree with what you've said.

When you were describing the "grit" of the GRD earlier I think I may have been interpreting it more literally as it applied to the sensor output. Is that also the way you describe how the GRD allows you to operate differently than you would with the GXR?
 
Ray, you sure have a talent for catching interesting expressions on people. I noticed this in your NYC work and I see here as well. Are you able to zone focus with the GRD3, or is the camera that quick to focus and shoot?
 
Ray, you sure have a talent for catching interesting expressions on people. I noticed this in your NYC work and I see here as well. Are you able to zone focus with the GRD3, or is the camera that quick to focus and shoot?

Its almost ALL zone focus with the Ricohs (the GRD and the GXR I had for a while). That's what their "snap focus" thing is - basically just a very quick shortcut to different focus distances which you can build "zones" around with your aperture setting. But in even decent light, you can go with f4 at 1.5 meters and basically have the whole WORLD in focus. Or in fairly low light you can use the snap focus distance of 2.5 meters at f2.2 or even 1.9 and still have significant areas or "zones" in focus.

I don't usually see myself as a particularly artistic shooter like Don and Michael Penn and others, but I feel like I have a pretty good ability to get something human about the people I'm shooting and that usually means getting some sort of gesture or expression or attitude or SOMETHING to humanize them beyond just showing them walking down the street. THAT'S what I'm usually looking for as I'm scanning a group of people - who's in the middle of a particularly animated discussion or some kind of situation. And any of my cameras in zone focus allows me to trigger the shutter at JUST the moment I'm looking for without ANY delay Of course, I still miss plenty of shots this way, but I get far more than I've gotten with any other method. Auto-focus, no matter how fast, would force me to deal with focussing on the right spot in the photo and possibly recomposing and locking AF would determine when I triggered the shot. I'd rather not have to think about all of that and just let the moment dictate when I trigger the shutter. Which is why I prefer zone focus anytime there's enough light to use it. I have to say that I can just about use the "touch focus" function on the touch-screen, but I'm not always quick or accurate enough with my finger to get it right, and there is just that brief lag that can blow it, particularly when you're trying to focus in fairly low light. I'm just better when I don't have to focus on focus, but can focus on the moment...

-Ray
 
Back
Top