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| Spring Flowers, Toad Mountain, April 22, 2015 |
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| Rhododendrons |
| About one third of the rhododendrons are blooming and the rest are still in the bud. The cream colored rhododendrons are particularly wonderful this year. |
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| Cream Colored Rhododendrons (Nikon D800E, 100mm Zeiss ZF Makro-Planar) |
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| Pink Rhododendron (Nikon D800E, 100mm Zeiss ZF Makro-Planar) |
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| Cream Colored Rhodies and Blue Sky (Nikon D800E, 100mm Zeiss ZF Makro-Planar) |
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| New Pocket Camera, April 8, 2015 |
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| Ricoh Gr, With 28mm Fixed Length Lens |
I've been reading great things about this camera for years. My standard pocket camera for the past few years has been the Leica D-Lux 4, which has been a very pleasing little camera that produced high quality files. But is has always been a little difficult to handle due to it's small size and shape, and as good as its RAW files are, I could not print them at larger sizes without suffering some compromise of quality. In all fairness it can't be compared to the Nikon D800E or the Leica M9 I typically use for landscape work but my dissatisfaction finally reached the point where I started looking for something a little better, and after perusing Sean Ried's review of the Ricoh GR for the umpteenth time I finally decided to buy one. B&H Camera in New York was offering a particularly good sale on the GR, which included a 32 GB card and the Ricoh optical viewfinder thrown in for free.
I haven't been sorry. For a very small camera it sits very securely in one hand and the buttons and wheels for major settings are easy to manipulate with one hand as well--a great improvement over the Leica D-Lux 4. But the quality of the files really took me aback. All of my printing in-house is done with the Epson Stylus Pro 3800 on Epson Velvet Fine Art paper. The largest paper the 3800 will take is 17 x 22 inches, and my photo prints are generally 14 x 21. Prints from the Ricoh GR are often virtually indistinguishable in quality from the Nikon D800E prints at this size. What is particularly pleasing to me is that the GR prints have a certain "signature" that is immediately apparent and clearly distinguises them from prints made from the Nikon and the Leica. I'll be looking for ways to best exploit this signature as I use the camera more and more.
Here are couple of shots from a recent trip to California. Naturally the web images can't replicate the look of a large print, but hopefully you'll get an idea of the very pleasing quality this fine camera is capable of.
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| Lone Valley Oak (Ricoh Gr, 28mm Fixed-length Lens) |
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| Del Valle Oaks (Ricoh Gr, 28mm Fixed-length Lens) |
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| A l l P h o t o G a l l e r i e s |
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Photo of the month |
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New Additions |
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Alaska |
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Alaska (aerial) |
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British Columbia, Bella Coola |
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California, Alabama Hills |
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California, central coast |
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California, central valley |
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California, Death Valley |
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California, Livermore Valley |
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California, Sierra north |
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California, Sierra south |
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California, White Mountains |
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California, Yosemite |
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California, southern coast |
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Europe, Russia |
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Europe, Spain |
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Europe, Italy |
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Mexico, Michoacan |
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Mexico, Monte Alban |
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Midwestern US, Chicago |
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Northwest, Cascades |
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Northwest, Oregon Coast |
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Northwest, Puget Sound |
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Northwest, Toad Mountain |
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Southwest, New Mexico |
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Southeast Asia, Vietnam |
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Close ups, flowers |
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