One Year Later

GRD II, f5, 8 sec., ISO 80, RAW

Today is a special day for my blog, it becomes one year old :D. It is exactly one year since I started the blog and a lot has happened in between.

I got the idea to start the blog when a friend mentioned starting a "food diary" and taking pictures of food. This sounded like fun and I was looking for something in order to get myself motivated to take more pictures. At that time, I was carrying the GRD I around with me every day but did not use it sometimes for a whole week. This was a wasted opportunity in my view so a photo diary sounded like a good idea. This is how the name 'Ricoh GR-Diary' and this blog came to be.

I would have never expected to keep posting one picture every day for a whole year and, aside from some friends, I did not think people would be intersted to read my blog. I kind of expected to post a few pictures and then get bored and leave it. Taking and posting a picture every day became a lot of fun and I began to see things around me that I ignored or passed by before. It was not always easy and on some days I only had some mediocre pictures or had to improvise something but it was always fun.

What I would have never expected is the response I got and the fantastic people I met through my blog. Thank you for reading my blog and it was great to meet some of you in person, hope there will be more opportunities for this!

Meeting Ricoh representatives at Photokina, having the rare opportunity to visit the Ricoh factory during my trip to Hong Kong or getting cameras to review is something that might have never happened without me starting this blog. Here let me say again a bit thank you to Ricoh for making all of this possible!

Enough talk for now. I hope you enjoyed the blog so far, be it the pictures, my writing or maybe both? Whatever is was, I hope it was never boring.

Itsy Bitsy Spider

GX200, f6.3, 180 sec., ISO 64, RAW, 72mm

Ok, it get's dark early and it is grey when it's light so it's not the best time for outdoor photography. On the other hand it is a good time to experiment a bit. I saw this spider in front of my window a few months back but did not have a tripod to help stabilizing the camera. Now with my new small and flexible tripod and a chair it was possible to use a 3 minute exposure to get this shot. The most difficult part was manually focusing in darkness where the LCD was almost completely black. Processed it to get the look I wanted, including adding noise and vignetting.

Hong Kong Bay

GX200, f5.7, 4 sec., ISO 64, RAW, 24mm

Arrived in Hong Kong and went straight for a walk. It's much hotter than expected but this is quite nice after the weather in London. Hong Kong so far is great for street photography and long exposures at night, so my choice to take the GRD I and GX200 was definitely right. Although I also have the R10 and GRD II along but these are here to help me finish the reviews.
If you're interested to see more pictures from HK have a look here, the Gallery will be updated as I go along and have time. Dropbox is a really good tool for this.

As a note, I will not always have time to reply to the comments but will reply to all the latest when I'm back.

View Through the Fence

GX200, f6.3, 15 sec., ISO 64, RAW, 72mm

While on the bus today I saw this scene and had to get off and take a picture, or a few to be honest. Sometimes I see a scene and know exactly how I want the picture to look like. This was one of these occasions and while it is yet another long exposure I really like the picture. Also reminds me to get out more after dark and take some pictures of the industry around North Greenwich.

Smoke Rising

GX200, f6, 4 sec., ISO 64, RAW, 28mm

I started to like taking long exposure shots recently. Due to it getting dark pretty early it is a good time to do this. Took the GX200 again with me but realized that I need to get myself a small and light tripod so I am not depended on ledges and other items to rest the camera on. Really like how the shot came out and think the GX200 does a very good job at this.

GX200 Walk

First day out with the GX200 and I am very impressed. It is in almost every respect better than the GRD II as long as you don't go over ISO 800.
The lens needs to be faster though, especially as you zoom in you lose too much. The JPG quality is very good though even if it does not get close to the GRD I JPGs. Even long exposure pictures can be used from the JPGs, something that is impossible with the GRD II. So far my impresions of it are very good and I would say from the current Ricoh cameras it is the best right after the GRD I. The RAW files are as good as the GRD II but with less contrast and not quite as sharp but this can be easily fixed. The only most notable differences are the distortion and the size of the camera. I was even quite impressed with the EVF. More will be posted in my review. For now have a look at some pictures

Tickets

GRD, f9, 1 sec., ISO 64, RAW, 40mm

Quick update today, after the recent news it's a bit quieter now.
Took this picture today on my way home and thought I try a long exposure and play a bit with light streaks from passing cars. It came out almost as I wanted it but it's a bit soft due to the dark frame substraction the GRD performs for long exposures, even in RAW.