Ledesma Photography

Ricoh GR: BW richer tones

I’m currently in the honeymoon period with my Ricoh GR and I continue to experiment with my bw conversions. This time again I used Silver Efex but today I brought them back to Lightroom for some added tweaks. Daido is certainly an inspiration to me but my end goal is not a very high key image with tons of contrast, but rather a gritty image with enough grain and contrast to be different but yet describe the ambient atmosphere with a unique perspective and let it be a reflection of my vision.

All images by Jorge Ledesma

Ricoh GR inspired by Daido Moriyama

The master of the compact camera, Daido Moriyama, is truly an inspirational documentary photographer. His grittiness, pouring his soul on processing, are just but a few of the many characteristics that define this living great. With that said, I delved into Silver Efex to create a custom preset for the Ricoh GR and these are the initial results. As always, presets are not the end all be all of processing but only serve as a starting point to get really intimate with the image.

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Ricoh GR Preset ― Silver Efex ― 1/250, f2.8, ISO 1600

Ricoh GR Preset ― Silver Efex ― 1/180, f3.5, ISO 320

Ricoh GR Preset ― Silver Efex ― 1/1600, f3.5, ISO 320

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Daido Moriyama and the Ricoh GR Series

Great insights into the master of the compact camera ― Daido Moriyama. A wonderful video, all 12 minutes, as he shares his insights into his world, the compact camera, and yes, the Ricoh GR Digital series of camera.

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Ricoh GR Beauty Shot

The more I shoot with the Ricoh GR the more I continue to fall in love with its output. Don’t forget to click on the images for a larger view 1600px wide view. As far as processing goes the color image is pretty much straight out of camera with a little sharpening and an added lightroom retouching brush. She really is that beautiful. Color the BW, I basically desaturated the whole image and adjusted the levels and tones. All and all, I’m very happy with the GR’s versatility as a quotidian photographic tool. Like my friend Wouter says I’m still a slave to the GR with hopes of soon or in time becoming its master.

Slight retouching ― 1/250, f2.8, ISO 200

BW conversion ― 1/250, f2.8, ISO 200

All images by Jorge Ledesma

Ricoh GR Candid BW Portraits, the film look

Processing DNG’s from the Ricoh Gr is nothing but a pleasure. These images were processed in Pixelmator (aka Mac Photoshop) and then brought back to Lightroom to add some grain from the VSCO Film tool kit and add a 3/4 burn vignette. These dng’s are very malleable and lend themselves to great black and white conversions. I want to note that I’m just scratching the surface and I’m sure we’ll be able to tweak these even more with a lot variety for everyone’s palette.

Step in Pixelmator or Photoshop

Desaturate the image
Adjusted Levels
Added a tonal curve
Sharpened

Exposure ― f/2.8, 1/500 sec, ISO 160

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Without grain, click the image to view larger

With grain, click the image to view larger. I quite love this look

Stay tuned. I documented an entire birthday party and I have to process those files tomorrow.

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Ricoh GR Off Camera Flash Strobist Tutorial

Its always good to a have an off camera flash with some sort of optical slave trigger. As soon as I got my GR I immediately told myself I have to use this camera in a strobist scenario. Can the GR swing this? Heck yeah! Let me deconstruct this image below and expand with some creative opportunities of what can be done with off camera flash and the GR.

The first thing you must do (after you feel comfortable in a strobist scenario including the parlance used) is set you Ricoh GR

Set your GR to manual flash
Powered it down to 1/64 power
Set the flash exposure compensation of the GR to -2(the lowest it will go, I’d love -3 though)
Set your aperture, shutter, and ISO accordingly
Now set your off camera flash into optical trigger mode, slave mode, or if on Nikon ― SU-4 mode

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ISO 250, f/6.3 at 1/250 in Manual, camera flash at 1/64, FEC -2, triggered off camera flash in SU-4 mode at 1/64 zoomed to 28mm

Select the right power setting on your off camera flash based on the intent of your photographic vision
Zoom the off camera flash head to 28mm, again, this is a personal choice and coupled with your power setting will determine the spread of light into your scene, so choose accordingly.
Finally, experiment with your light settings until you get the desired effect

Why 1/64 and FEC -2 on the GR? Simple, that way the light being emitted is negligible to the exposure(aperture/shutter/iso) and it lets the off camera flash be the key light of this setup in the true sense of the word.

The reason I chose to go with the on board flash acting as the “commander” was simple. The onboard flash on the GR is highly configurable plus the GR is a small compact, so why add a Pocket Wizard or another brand of optical trigger. Personally, I could’ve, but it just didn’t make sense to over saturate my rig.

Another option would be use a pair of Pocket Wizards or an off camera ttl cable. But if I chose the latter, then I’d have to find out which cable works and go through that trial and error period. In the end, I’m sure it could be done but why. For now, my rig works well, and its super light. The only caveat to my rig is that my flash is not that secure (handholding it) but I’ll hack something soon.

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Same as above but processed in Pixelmator, levels, curves, sharpening. Loving the tones the GR produces.

As this was just a quick experiment, I’ll probably end up using some type of modifier like the the Lumiquest Mini and the bigger one just to further soften the key light. I love it!

I envision this setup working great for macros, portraits, street photography walks, and more. Unleash your creativity with an off camera flash rig. The price of entry into this strobist world is not that expensive. Personally, I have an SB-800 and a Yongnuo 560 and both work very well. It would be a good idea to have a few batteries on hand, as the constant flashing will certainly take its toll on the energy requirements of the GR.

Well there you have it, a simple rig to shoot off camera flash with your new Ricoh GR. Have fun.

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Ricoh GR Review: 100 % Crop Samples

As part of my continued user based review of the Ricoh GR I just had to share a sample of what I’m viewing when I hit “z”(100% or 1:1 view) in my lightroom galleries. The amount of detail this 28mm lens resolves is truly outstanding. I really think that Pentax-Ricoh hit a home run with the GR. I took this image yesterday as I went to have dinner. The portability factor is another huge advantage of the Ricoh GR.

Make sure you click on the images to really view them large.

The image below is a 100 % crop

The image below is a full resolution jpeg exported at 300dpi

The image below is a 100 % crop of the image processed to my liking

And finally the image processed to my liking exported at 300 dpi at full resolution

My first Ricoh GR gallery

Thoughts on handling and snap focus

You know how they say that usually part two or three for that matter of any movie is usually not good, or at least not as good as the first one. Well, the Ricoh GR is a testament to that the fifth is the charm. In the weeks to come I’ll be expanding on each question of the poll but I have start somewhere. So far, the poll leading question is on handling (don’t forget to keep voting) and snap focus. So we’ll start with handling. Keep in mind this is a user based review of the Ricoh GR. I don’t do walls nor charts. If you have need to get the specs of the camera help yourself to DPReview.

As soon as you hold the GR, you know you’re holding something special, its just that simple. Its funny because perhaps some of you out there reading this post have never handled a Ricoh GR Digital before and perhaps are even questioning what’s the big deal. Well, the Ricoh GR Digital series is what they call a professional’s compact camera. Everything from its magnesium body frame to the precise position of the buttons have been carefully thought of and are not an after thought like some other manufacturers. If you’ve handled the GRD3 or the GRD4 then you know where I’m going with this. Folks, this feels 1,000,000 times better than the aforementioned GRD’s. Its hard to articulate but I’ll give it my best shot.

The body of the new Ricoh GR is a little bigger than the GRD (from now on, know that I’m referring to the GRD3 and GRD4, when I mention GRD) both horizontally and vertically, not much bigger, but slightly bigger, enough for it to feel, big word coming now, brace yourselves ― perfect. Yes, I said it, it feels just perfect. I can totally see and picture a guy like Gruber sporting one of these in Philly and doing some street photography, nah, he’s not that cool, maybe Marco though, well maybe. If you’ve ever held a GRD, well at least for me, I always felt it was a little small and this is coming from someone who has small hands folks. Envision yourself holding the GRD in horizontal mode one-handed, your there, well that’s exactly what I’m talking about. When you hold the GR in horizontal in the same way it feel awesome, its slightly bigger dimensions are just what the doctor ordered for this professional compact. You’ll remember this post when you get one in your hands.

They buttons are a new type of rubbery material that dampens the pressure when you press on them ― they feel great! The play button is positioned right below the the level that moves exposure compensation (you can program it to do other things as well) and you can see easily, one-handed, press it to review your images or as they say “chimp away”. The macro, fn1, wb, and flash buttons also have that feel to them and just a pleasure to press them, all buttons feel the same. The keys and levers have a very tactile feel to them and overall, I’ll just reiterate that its a home run by designers of GR.

Powering the camera is very snappy. When I walk around, like I did this morning, I sometimes turned off the camera and when I saw something of interest I quickly turned it on and no issues there ― the GR was up to the task every time.

Folks even before you get your Ricoh GR buy yourself an extra battery and a charger that you can plug into the wall socket. The GR comes with a little attachment type of charger that only charges via mini usb. Meaning that in order to charge the camera the battery must be inside the GR, in its regular compartment and plugged into the usb cable and the little black adapter into wall charger. I’ll be ordering mine in the days to come. If I’m not mistaken Amazon has a little kit which comes with the Wasabi DB65 and a wall charger for about $20, which I think its a great deal. I’ve had plenty of experience with Wasabi batteries and they are one of the most reliable 3rd party battery manufacturers.

Snap Focus, well I’ll save that for tomorrow as I’m still testing it out but the images but two bw images with the older gentleman and the couple were both using snap focus at 1 or 1.5 meters. I’ll say this, its no the same as the GRD3 or GRD4, I think slower. Mind you, I could be wrong but its my initial impression. When you press the shutter all the way down fast, enabling snap focus and bypassing the traditional way, this lens take a tad longer to do what it does, so its a matter of timing I think, getting in that zone. I don’t anticipate this being an issue. Talking about AF, its freaking fast during daylight conditions. My Fn1 key was set to activate the ND filter and the FN2 to 35mm crop mode, I love this setup and we’ll probably end up saving it to one of the custom menus. But like a good relationship, getting around all the features and all the combinations needs a little time. My GR came without a user manual and I already contact Pentax-Ricoh to send me one. If you’re an experienced GR or GXR user then you’ll feel at home like I did but its a good idea to brush up on the features to fully extract all the juice out of this compact. Ok, I’ll stop writing, gotta go, see y’all tomorrow or the day after.

PS. The 100% crop in Lightroom out all these images are amazing, this sensor and lens combination is resolving just the right amount of detail.

Strobist, did I say strobist, yes, David and Zack would be proud of me. I switched the GR’s flash setting to manual and powered it down to 1/64 and gave it a negative flash exposure compensation of -2 alongside manual setting for aperture and shutter and triggered an off camera flash and the results were very nice.

Click on any of the images to view them as a gallery in full screen mode. The images a mix of macro, landscape, street photography, and general snap shots.

All images by Jorge Ledesma

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Ricoh GR Macros

I just received my Ricoh GR and words can not describe the feeling of joy and pure excitement. I setup a quick poll to get an idea on some of the things potential GR buyers want to hear about. Once I figure out how to put an audio file in the blog, I’ll upload my impressions as an mp3.

Here are some quick snaps testing out the macro function of the GR. From the front of the lens fully extended you can get to about 3 inches from you macro target. I’ll have a few more shots tomorrow but check out the bokeh on the last shot, not to shabby for a compact ah. What blew me away was the 100% crop. The amount of detail is truly stunning.