The Ricoh GR III is coming | News and reviews

The Ricoh GR III arrives, but not in 2018.

The continuation of the GR II, one of our favorite pocket digital cameras of all time, will be marketed early 2019. Prices are not yet available.

The GR III does not change much of the GR II, photo above. It still sports a 18.3mm (full-size equivalent 28mm) lens with f / 2.8 aperture supported by an APS-C sensor. But the lens is a new design, probably enhanced to meet the resolution requirements of the 24MP APS-C image sensor, which is more demanding than the 16MP chip used in earlier models.

The biggest area of ​​potential improvement is one you will never see unless you decide to separate your genetic resources. The sensor now has a physical stabilization of the image, a first for the GR. This is a 3-axis system, less advanced than the 5-axis stabilization of the latest Ricoh Pentax SLR, but should allow you to get clear pictures in a difficult environment. It should also be an advantage for using the GR III for video – although there is no 4K here, the video still exceeds the 1080p resolution, either between 24, 30 or 60 frames per second.

The new GR III looks a lot like the GR II front – we have not seen the camera from the back yet to see if there are any changes in the layout of the controls. But we do not expect much because the one-hand physical control interface is what draws many photographers to the GR series to begin with.

The rear LCD screen is of fixed design – the addition of a tilting screen would be difficult given the slim and user-friendly format of the GR III. It is 3 inches in size, sports a resolution of 1,037 k points and supports touch input. This is another update, although we do not know how Ricoh will implement touch in the interface. At a minimum, we hope to be able to press to define a focal point.

The other features, including Raw Development in the camera, Snap Focus, a neutral density filter for the purpose and Wi-Fi file transfer, continue in the GR III.

We will have more information, including prices and a clearer sales date, when it becomes available.