quite robust
lens
small,light

lens hood-delicate
flash

This camera does not live up to the hype!The lens is good-but no better than than the MJU11(STYLUS EPIC) and definitly not worth the money!Amateur Photographer (UK PHOTO MAG)recently did comparison
between Minilux,TC1,MJU11,Minox,T5 and GR1S.The GR1S did better than the Minox,but not as good as any of the others!so much for its `legendary`lens!`Climber`(uk mag)also has similar in this months publication and the results are similar!I traded my GR1S (5 months old)in for new Contax T3-what i difference!vastly superior Carl Zeiss Sonnar lens-very very sharp!Flash that actually covers the frame area!Takes lens hood,filters,flash off,etc.Has a MUCH BETTER autofocus system.Will not switch on in your pocket by accident and fill that delicate GR lens with dust,fluff,etc.What did concern me about the GR1S also was that whining motor-would it last???
If you are in the market for a fixed lens 35mm high quality compact camera,you really only have two choices now-(Yashica T5 recently discontinued)either the Olympus MJU11 or the Contax T3!(ironically at both ends of the scale!).Otherwise save your bucks and avoid the GR1S,the quality really is not there.BTW-GR1 lens was released in a leica mount some time ago-as a sales gimmick!anybody could do that!Have you seen the second-hand market value of these lenses now,barely a third the price of the equivalent 28mm leica elmarit!!does that not tell you something??

Customer Service

NOT NEEDED

Similar Products Used:

OLYMPUS MJU11.XA.
ROLLEI 35S.
LEICA M6.
CONTAX T3.

Fantastic + fast lens

Aperture priority for hyperfocal use and f8 / f11 sharpness

28mm lens = happy handholding at <1/30th second

Small, light but well built

Controls are intuitive for an SLR user: dials not buttons

Viewfinder info. rough focusing distance, shutter speed, exp. compensation

Just compare cost of half decent Canon/Nicon body with a good 28mm lens

V/f info not always clear in bright light

As everybody knows, camera can turn on in pocket/case/bag. Use a plastic card

Can't use filters on GR 1, but can on GR 1s. I'm going to try hand-holding one, using exp. comp. dial

Have now been sold on the idea of compact cameras, paricularly for travel photography. I have since bought a Leica Minilux (fixed lens), which is of similar quality but huge and heavy. Lens quality on the GR 1 is comparable, but different focal length makes it worth the while to carry both. My SLRs now generally stay at home when I go away.

Customer Service

N/A

Similar Products Used:

Rollei 35, Leica Minilux 40mm, various SLRs

aperture priority 2.8-22
program,exposure compensation+ or _ 2
metal body, small and light
availablity of hoods and filters( gr-1s)
great,sharp lens

on/off button
program/aperture knob easily moved
only available in america through grey market

A great camera with a very sharp lens. Voted best in class between Minolta TC-1, Nikon 28TS and the gr-1 by Popular Photography Magazine (US). Takes sharp closeups from 9 inches with ability of user to select DoF via aperture selection and either flash or timer or both, or neither. Several other usefull features. Any drawbacks to design are easily circumvented.

Customer Service

not needed

Similar Products Used:

Yashica T-4 super
Olympus Infinity 2.8 (original model )
pentax 928

Size
Price
Real controls instead of buttons
Die-cast metal body

Manual

The good stuff:
This camera is a real bargain compared to the yuppie-class point&shoots that offer the same degree of manual control and quality construction.
Real dials and switches, not "Push button A nine times while holding button C."
All the controls stay set when the camera is turned off.
Fill flash works exceptionally well. Amazingly well. I always use it with flash on outdoors, unless I'm being sneaky. That may account for the short battery life.
The lens is excellent, for a wide-angle on a P&S camera. I'm not going to compare resolution charts with my 50mm Summicron.

Bad stuff:
The manual is useless. But I suppose this isn't the kind of camera that absolute beginners buy.
There is no warranty in the US, and service is an unknown quantity.
Other complaints are generic to this type of camera, not specific to the GR1: Noisy operation and expensive batteries that die suddenly.

A nitpick:
The single-focus mode is great. Autofocus on a subject, push the mode button and the focus is locked. But it's still auto exposure. In my opinion, it should lock both focus and exposure. A series of the same subject would be easier to print or scan if they were all exactly the same exposure.

Other stuff:
The camera is the perfect size for a pocket, but I worry about the effects of persperation and lint. I bought a padded nylon belt case for five bucks at KMart that fits perfectly. I've never had the on-by-accident problem that others complain about.
If you buy one, get the "silver" body, not the black painted model. It's unfinished magnesium alloy, kind of a dull gray color. Light scratches and scuffs tend to disappear as they oxidise to the same color as the body.

Customer Service

It's a worry

Similar Products Used:

Plastic point&shoots, Leica rangefinder

Size and the rasorsharp lens.
Very good in low-light situations.
The Flash GN is NOT that bad, as the manual describe. I have tested it to GN 10 meter/Iso 100. That is OK for a P/S camera.

Information inside viewfinder is difficult to see in bright light, but not a large problem.

The Best P/S camera i ever tryed. Buy it.

Customer Service

When i Bought the camera and used it for the first time in Disneyworld, Paris, it had a VERY noisy and disturbing winding. I went to the dealer with my problem and I now have a new motor in the camera, and the sound is now very soft.
OK service in Denmark.

Similar Products Used:

Yashica T4, Contax T2, Contax TIX, Olympus Mju

superb ,sharp lens with very good contrast and above average flare control.
very compact,well placed aperture priority and exposure compensation dials.Camera remembers the settings last used after it is turned off.focus confirmation,so no more surprises when you get your roll printed.parallax marks in close up mode,so you can know what will be included in the final picture.
well suited for advance/serious amateur photographers.If you just want a point and shoot without all the controls ,look for GR 10,which has the same superb lens as GR 1.

view finder a bit smallish(ofcourse they cant put a bigger viewfinder in a tiny camera!)
very difficult to read view finder information in bright light.
quite Noisy.

The Best compact camera in its price range,results are very close to a good qulaity SLR prime lens.

Customer Service

no experience

Similar Products Used:

Nikon SLR system
Yashica T4
Leica minilux

- Lens! Lens! Lens!
- Real pocketable size and weight
- All metal body and high build quality
- Aperture prioirity program mode
- Exposure compensation dial
- Availability of filters and hood

- The viewfinder info is difficult to read when too much light coming in
- AF needs some training
- On/off button needs minor redesign
- Filter attachment ring gets loose too quick

This camera is built around a high quality lens which delivers sharp and contrasty images consistently.

The metering system is very good and consistent, i.e. you can guess where it may fail such as backlit scenes and compansate as needed. I usually shoot on slides, and I had excellent results from hand held low light situations.

The AF is usually good but I had problems with it a couple if times. I found out that if you are not careful the camera may focus another subject close to the indicated AF area. I had out-of-fucus pictures from low light situations, since I made use of large apertures with relatively shallow DoF. However, it's easiliy solved by a little more attention and some experimenting.

This camera makes my Nikon F80 redundant! The results from Nikkor 28-80mm could not get close in quality. This is the best compact camera I've ever used.

Bottom Line:

If you are looking for a reasonably priced high quality pocketable camera, Ricoh GR1s is the best choice...

Customer Service

Not needed. I have mine since a year and I usually carry it with me.

Similar Products Used:

Rollei Prego series P&S's
Nikon SLR system

It is small, flat and light. The lens is very sharp- technically very good.

loud loading, loud-squeaky winding to next shot

This is a small camera with a wide 28mm lense. The metering system is a bit difficult to get used to. Visible exposure adjustment knob and flash switches are great to set and know that it will stay that way until you switch it off.
Here's the catch: Why? It doesn't feel that high quality and the autofocus is slowwwww. Sure, it has fixed "snap"mode and you can fix the focus anywhere, but those are all fixes to the slow autofocus- in the dark, it's useless. The lense is pretty good, though, but I find the whole thing a bit cumbersome and maybe overkill. I thought that I needed a 28mm adjustable pocket camera, but I already have a great Olympus XA4Macro. Changing the aperature on a 28mm lense is not effective as in longer lenses-after 10 feet, why bother-it's all within DOF. Exposure control is good, too, but that is only if you know (really know) what your meter reads. My XA4 has DX coding, but I tape over the roll and use the ASA dial to fidget with the exposure (not often, because the meter is pretty darn good). All this and it's not fragile.
Oops, back to the GR1: It's a good landscaper-still life snapper, not a good people snapper-too slow. Expensive enough to worry a little about it, but in stealth black, it looks cheap and unassuming. Maybe an R1 would be 90% of the GR1- if not for the exposure control (not much effective) and "hires" (lens quality does not equal nice pics-and what decent camera doesn't take sharp pics?)- I was a bit dissapointed and sold it- it doesn't take any 'better' pics than my XA4 and certainly isn't any faster. I got caught up in all the hoopla about what a great lense it has and such, but for my needs, it is too slow, exposure is finicky (too much to guess to correct it with the compensation knob), and it's motor squeaks like a low cost overstressed fixed focus blue light special. And what's with the CR-2 battery?-I had to go out and buy one even though I have bunches of CR123 handy.

Similar Products Used:

I've tried almost everything that is within reason.

small, light, high qual. lense-finally a controllable camera, but depends how much you need it.

looks cheap,expensive, is it any better to use?

I wonder about all the lense tests and such-what do they really measure? No doubt that this lense is sharp-ah, but that depends on how you use it,too. And also about all the controls- how much do you need? It is afterall a 28mm lense- with great depth of field anyways. I made the mistake of fidgeting with the exposure compensation early on and didn't figure outthe characteristics of the metering-don't do that. The lense is somewhat cool in colors and although the lense is sharp- I also feel that it is missing that glass fine edge- which makes photographs look 'real'-maybe it's that contrast thing-my old Rollei 35 2.8 is wonderful in that aspect. The controlls are good, but my old Nikon FE clicks better and feels more substantial- even the Rollei 35 feels more substantial. I admit that technical qualities aside, my pictures lack the liveliness that I was looking for. Maybe I should just carry my FE with small 50mm manual focus lense around-that, too is a small package and all picutres have SNAP. Maybe I can't get used to the 28mm-I will try it with enviornmental shooting. I have no problems with my Epic 2.8 with spot metering to adjust exposre- it may not be as sharp in some cases(like wider open, but then you can't control that- although at closer distances, DOF is shallower anyways), -it is much simpler to snap with even using spot metering. Let me try some more rolls then I will write another review. As of now, it is an expensive alternative to a normal good P&S (epic,t5,XA,XA4)or even to an old Rollei 35(check 'em out-they're good- and ALL manual-oh yeah!)

Similar Products Used:

all mini p&s,+oldercompacts

Excellent lens and ergonomics. Small and many user overrides

None.

Excellent camera, though difficult to buy in the USA since Ricoh pulled out of the 35mm market.

Customer Service

N/A

Similar Products Used:

Yashica T4, Leica Z2X, Nikon One Touch, etc.