Brian Q. Webb

Pondering Digital: Ricoh GRX vs. Olympus EP-1 Pen

Brian — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 09:39:47 +0000

First let me be clear: I love film and have no plans to cease using film until the last frame of the last roll on Earth has been exposed. I enjoy the 100% hands-on nature of it, the texture of it, and the fact that the portraiture clients I have value it (which, of course, pays for me to buy more film). However, there are situations in which it is obvious that digital would serve me better. A good example is this blog. I would really love to be able to post more timely Taiwan-related travel, culture, and event articles and that would be much more practical shooting in digital. So I guess the first thing to do is firgure out the camera that best suits my shooting preferences and subjects.

General Requirements
I’m primarily a street-shooter.Yes I shoot portraits for cash, but that’s primarily done on 120 and 4×5″ B&W film, which is an integral part of the “package” I sell the client, so there’s no need to include that in considering a first digital system. Basically, these are my general requirements:

A body compact enough to fit in my normal messenger bag or a coat pocket
Fast lens availability
Interchangeable lenses.
Minimum of 10MP
Decent High ISO/Low light performance

The first requirement pretty much eliminates any and all dSLRs and while there are point & shoot cameras with fast lenses, they are eliminated by requirement #3. Leica M8 or M9, you say? Yes, they fit but they are far too expensive for someone like me. At first glance, the Epson R-1x also seems to be a good fit, especially since most of my film kit consists of rangefinders, but unfortunately they are limited to a 6MP sensor. I am aware that great A4 prints can be made from 6MP but there is an industry standard of 10MP. Want to submit some images to Getty or Corbis? They generally impose a 10MP minimum resolution requirement. Of course, microstock sites such as Shutterstock have less strict requirements, but the rewards are equally diminished.

From what I can see, there are essentially two choices for me:

…and…

Both are small packages, with the Olynpus EP-1 utilizing the micro 4/3 mount standard and the Ricoh GRX utilizing a very ingenious system in which the sensor is integrated into the lens and not the camera, allowing for a very small body. Both are also 10+MP, with the Olympus Pen having the same proven 12.3MP as in its E-620 dSLR and the Ricoh GRX being either 10 or 12MP depending on which of the 2 currently available lenses was mounted. According to reviews, both have excellent performance up to EI1600, too. Both also come in a kit with either a slow zoom or moderately fast (f/2.8) fixed focal length lens. Neither have a viewfinder and must be composed via the LCD, however the Olympus + 17/2.8 kit comes with a hotshoe viewfinder (VF-1) for faster framing. The GRX has a small integrated flash while the EP-1 does without.

And both Olympus and Ricoh only manufacture 2 lenses for these systems. But here’s where the Olympus EP-1 takes a big leap in front of the Ricoh GRX and even a big step in front of many dSLR bodies. Quoted from page 2 of the dpreview Olympus EP-1 review:

The ultra short flange back and small lens mount actually makes Micro Four Thirds, theoretically, the most ‘lens compatible’ system on the market – you could in principle produce physical adapters for just about any lens designed for 35mm (or larger), specifically manual focus lenses from older film SLRs. Olympus has already launched an adapter for its own legacy OM (manual focus SLR) lenses, Panasonic is promising one for Leica M and R lenses, and third parties are looking at a range of other options. It’s not surprising camera geeks are excited by the possibilities offered by the new format.

I did a quick search on eBay and found m4//3 adapters to every camera system I could think of, SLR and rangefinder alike. Because of the way the GRX is designed, with the sensor integrated into the lens and not the body, you are limited to only the lenses Ricoh produces specifically for that system. Because the EP-1 uses a mounting that is standard across a number of manufacturers, you have a wider selection of native lenses and a selection that will grow broader with time with companies like Leica, Panasonic, and Olympus all behind it. Not only that, but the adaptability of the Olympus Pen to other lenses would allow me to utilize the mix of Voigtlander M-mount and Nikkor F-mount lenses I already have.

So the Oly wins? I’d appreciate some thoughts on this.

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Shark Fin Soup and Dead Sharks

Brian — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 10:51:38 +0000

First of all, I have to say that today was a pretty good day. Craig Ferguson organized another photowalk, which I will cover once I’ve processed the rolls of Tri-X. As usual, I met a couple new people and caught up with a few familiar faces, had some good conversations, and got (I’m hoping) some decent photos. But there was one downer to the experience, and it wasn’t the 5 minutes of rain in the evening. Rain and Tri-X go well together.

It was this:

Perhaps it is because I grew up on the Western side of the Pacific, not far from the Channel Islands where Californian Great White sharks prowl for sea lions, that this upsets me so much. Perhaps it is because over the past decade I have lived in Taipei I have seen small bits of progress in removing shark fin soup from the cultural palette. In fact, a restaurant around the corner from my apartment in Sung Shan and featured in an “expose” on the Discovery channel recently removed shark fin soup from it’s menu, although I found it odd that the expose producers felt the need to use hidden cameras. It’s not an illegal practice here nor is it shunned in any way. I guess it’s just for the visual effect. My friends and I spent a few minutes wandering around this shop freely taking photos and were greeted with nothing but smiles. That’s actually more worrisome then if I would have felt the need for a hidden camera.

How much does shark fin go for? Well, the above photo seems to have one shrink-wrapped packet on sale for NT$15,800. That’s about US$500, or the price of a decent HD TV. This of course begs the question, is this a practice that is more monetarily or culturally-driven? Obviously, on the consumer side, the answer is cultural…but there is a lot of money pushing the “cultural train”. This shop is located on the historic Din Hua street, a street famous for it’s apothecarys and traditional medicines, and it’s not the only one dealing in dead sharks.

Okay, my rant is over and I’ll get started on mixing chems so that tomorrow I can develop my film…but before I go I just want to leave you with this one thought: Every fin you see in the photo below represents a dead shark.

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Streets Saturday: Ocean Park

Brian — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 05:07:28 +0000

A couple weekend ago we made what has become a biannual trip to Ocean Park in Hualien, central Taiwan. It happens when you have kids.

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Streets Saturday: Civil Service

Brian — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 10:27:08 +0000

This weeks streets Saturday feature is dedicated to those who work at the ground level to keep the city working.

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Canon Canonet Review

Brian — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:04:50 +0000

Remember last May when the shutter on my Bessa R2A failed during the Dragon Boat Festival Races? A few weeks later, after I was finally able to put together the cash to have it repaired, I discovered a very clean 1961 Canon Canonet in the front display case of the repair shop. While I didn’t get it at the time (had to pay for that R2A to get fixed first, after all), a mental image of that Canonet was etched into my consciousness and refused to leave until a couple weeks ago.

When I went back to the repair shop with NT$3500 (~US$100) in-hand and bought it.

First Impressions
Like everything else from the 60s not made from Bakelite, the Canonet is heavy and has a “rock solid” heft to it. Probably the most surprising visual characteristic of the rangefinder is the clean top plate. There’s only a nameplate and a coldshoe. How is that possible? Easy. Just move everything to the bottom, which is what Canon did. Although having something like the rewind crank on the bottom might seem odd, it’s not all that unique. Take the Zeiss Ikon, for example. What was actually odd for me was the film advance lever being down there. It’s really not well-placed for a “shoot, wind, shoot, wind” rhythm… until you fold down the small tab at the end of the lever. As someone who uses a trigger winder on my Bessa R2A, operation of the bottom advance lever became instantly intuative.

Contiuing on a similar point, if I hadn’t had prior experience working with more then just SLRs, getting adjusted to the exposure controls layout of the Canonet would have taken a lot of getting used to. For those of you who have used systems with leaf shutter lenses, like anything large format, most things medium format, or the occasional fixed-lens 35mm RF like the Yashica Lynx 14e, the placement of the controls should come as no surprise since the Canon Canonet is a leaf shutter camera.

For those of you that have existed entirely in the world of 35mm/digital SLRs, here’s something that will take getting used to: all the exposure controls are on the lens. Not only does the lens accommodate the aperture ring, but also houses a separate ring for shutter speed selection, a timer pin, and an ISO setting pin. Oh, and a focusing knob, of course.

In Use
One of the coolest things about this camera is that it has both metering and an AE mode (shutter priority), both while remaining fully battery-free. It’s not “mechanical with a battery required for metering”, but true battery-less metering and AE. The metering consists of dozens of selenium sensors surrounding the lens. Selenium is a photo-voltaic material, with each sensor producing a small amount of voltage proportional to the amount of light striking it. The more light striking a sensor, the more voltage it produces. The sum voltage can then be used to both determine the proper exposure and power anything needed for the metering & AE processes.

Ta-Da! No batteries.

But there is a caveat. Selenium meters are not known for their accuracy and their sensitivity diminishes over time… and 48 years is a long time. Take a look at this photo for example. It’s one of the first on the test roll:

Take a closer look:

See all that grain…err…”noise”…err…”fuzzy stuff”? That’s a classic symptom of an underexposed image “fixed” during printing at the lab. It took me a few shots to catch on to it, but eventually I realized that the meter was off. Fortunately, the amount that it was off seemed to be consistent at a stop under, so I simply changed the camera’s ISO setting from 400 to 200 and that fixed the whole issue.

The other big thing that is cool to me about the Canon Canonet is the fact that it has a leaf shutter. As previously mentioned, this does mean an odd exposure control layout if you’re not used to it, but that’s not the cool bit. The cool bit is the silence. Not just an audible silence, but a tactile one, too. Yes, the quietness of the shutter is overrated, but it is nice to have.

Two final positive points: Focusing, performed via a knob on the lens base, is smooth and consistent. The RF patch is contrasty enough…less then my Bessa R2A but better then my Yashica Lynx 14e.

In Conclusion
For a hundred bucks, probably less if you’re an eBay elite, one would be hard-pressed to find anything negative to say about this camera. It’s built like a tank, has fully battery-free operation that includes metering and an AE mode, and it has a moderately fast lens. This is a piece of kit that’s worth picking up if you’re lucky enough to come across one in working condition.

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