I spent a week rambling around North Yorkshire with the GR IIIx tucked in my shirt pocket, in exactly the same manner that I've carried the original GR III on countless hikes and city walks all over the world. image quality with the converter attached is decent, but it's a bulky lens, and when paired with the GT-2 the GR IIIx becomes significantly bigger and noticeably front-heavy.Įxcepting these minor differences, with the GR IIIx Ricoh hasn't messed with any of the qualities which made the GR III so appealing. The GT-2 teleconverter turns the GR IIIx's 40mm equivalent lens into a 50mm equivalent, which also activates an in-camera crop to deliver a 75mm equivalent field of view. Of course, even if you could cross-mount them, there wouldn't be any point – they're designed for the specific lenses of the two respective cameras. Similarly, while the new lens looks, externally, almost exactly the same (and retracts into the barrel as before, when the camera is turned off), the GW-4 wideangle lens+adapter for the GR III won't fit the 'x', and the new GT-2 tele converter won't fit on the original GR III. The GR IIIx is fractionally thicker than the GR III, although the difference is unnoticeable. The GR III and the new GR IIIx are almost indistinguishable physically, but they're not exactly the same. I.e., what I'm actually focusing on, in a wider scene 40mm equivalent is a decent proxy for my field of attention. The extra reach provided by 40mm made the GR IIIx enormously appealing to me when it was announced, remembering all the times when the GR III's lens seemed just a little too wide. I.e., what I'm actually focusing on, within a wider scene. On the other hand, 40mm equivalent is a decent proxy for my field of attention. What I mean by that is that if I'm looking at a scene, most of what I can reasonably register at a glance is contained within the frame of a 28mm equivalent lens. So into my camera bag went the new GR IIIx, neatly replacing the GR III which I was originally planning on taking.Įveryone is different, but I would describe 28mm as being a good general proxy for my field of view. Being entirely optical, it can't provide any indication of AF placement or acquisition, either.īy happy coincidence, the GR IIIx arrived in DPReview's offices just before I left on a trip to the UK in September, to visit my family after a Covid-imposed absence of 18 months (I wrote about my last trip, among other things, in this article). The (optional) viewfinder helps with framing in bright conditions, but it's accuracy isn't great, and gets worse at close focusing distances. The GR IIIx incorporates all the characteristics which make the GR III so appealing, but features a longer lens, for those photographers who don't prefer 28mm. And, let's not forget, many photographers simply prefer 28mm to 35mm. It's arguably not as versatile as some ostensibly-competitive models (specifically the Fujifilm X100-series, with their 35mm equivalent lenses) because it lacks a built-in electronic finder or tilting rear LCD, but in my opinion it makes up for these limitations by being genuinely pocketable. Why might that be considered a good thing? Simply because the GR III, like its predecessors, is a very nicely designed camera, which does what it was designed to do extremely well. On a 3-day walk down the Yorkshire coast, I kept the GR IIIx tucked comfortably into my shirt pocket. But to all intents and purposes, the two cameras are practically indistinguishable from one another in use.Īs a hiking companion, the GR IIIx (like the original GR III) is a near perfect thanks to its pocketable form factor. I say 'pretty much' because that new lens obviously does impact upon the images you'll be able to capture with the GR IIIx, and the decreased depth of field makes focus at wide apertures slightly more critical. The GR IIIx offers exactly the same ergonomics and pretty much exactly the same performance and image quality as its forebear, but with a 40mm equivalent lens instead of a 28mm. If you're familiar with the original GR III, that might be as far into this article as you need to read, to be completely honest. The worst thing about the Ricoh GR IIIx is that it's basically just a GR III with a slightly longer lens. The best thing about the Ricoh GR IIIx is that it's basically just a GR III with a slightly longer lens.
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