Gadgetoid

gadg-et-oid [gaj-it-oid]

-adjective

1. having the characteristics or form of a gadget;
resembling a mechanical contrivance or device.

Ricoh R8 First Impressions

I was reasonably impressed by the Caplio R6 in late 2007 however the successor to its successor the Ricoh Caplio R8 is truly in a whole different class of compact camera to its grandfather.

I’ve had a few days now to play with a Ricoh R8 and both myself, my family, friends and colleagues have been suitably impressed by its image quality. Particularly when it comes to taking artsy Macro shots.

Observe the macro shot above cropped from a 10mp shot from the Caplio R8 and reduced to 60%, it’s not a rock on pebbles, it’s a pebble on sand

The Ricoh Caplio R8 doesn’t have a refined, extremely professional appearance for nothing, it delivers on its old-school professional aesthetic with performance to match and, for a compact camera, the lens is truly stunning offering both macro photography this impressive and a 7.1x optical zoom.

At a full 10mp the Caplio R8 produces excessively large image which, when inspected at 100%, have all the hallmarks of a low-end compact CCD. However; reduce your finished 10mp image to about 60% and the pixel defects melt away leaving you with a clean, sharp and still pretty high definition image that will still look stunning.

More to come in the full review of the Ricoh Caplio R8 which, if you have any interest in macro photography on a low budget, you should probably be looking into picking up now.

Monday, May 12th, 2008, Digital Photography.