The small boy, on the big streets
The Ricoh GRII, a camera that has become second nature to me, let me start by saying that I’ve never bonded with a camera this fast, it feels like I’ve been shooting with the Ricoh GRII for years instead of it begin just 6 weeks. I love the freedom it gives me, not only in it’s weight but the fact that I don’t have to carry anything apart from a few spare batteries. This has been making my life so much easier, I’m not as tired at the end of a long day shooting on the streets. I know my Fujifilm X-T2 doesn’t weigh that much, however add the 56mm lens and it’s heavy and sometimes I struggle with it and believe me when I say that I end up feeling it at the end of the day. Shooting with the Ricoh I’m able to spend longer on the streets and I can now do more days in a row. The Ricoh GR is a camera that most people don’t even notice as its so small and if they do notice it they don’t tend to give it a second look, the camera looks like a cheap point and shoot and I feel this is helping me to get up close.
I’ve been using the 28mm focal length on the GR2 to help me capture more of the street scene, which the Fujifilm 56mm doesn’t allow me to do. I have to say that I’m not used to shooting street photography this wide, but I seem to have adapted to the 28mm with ease. I feel that using this focal length is allowing me to keep my street photography fresh, I mostly shoot at F8 as I want to keep more of the scene in focus and the snap focus feature that GR has is making so easy to shoot fast on the streets. I’ll never give up my Fujifilm as I love using the camera in low light and the GRII isn’t that good in low light. Plus I still enjoy shooting at F1.2 and the GRII lens is only an F2.8, I see me using the Fujifilm on dark missable days and at night.
One of things I love about shooting with any of Fujifilm X cameras is the out of camera JPG’s, the fact that I don’t have to do much editing and I’m pleased to find out that the Ricoh is every bit as good as the Fujifilm. Most of the time I just use the jpg, this especially true when shooting with the flash. When shooting flash I shoot using monochrome, so the only time I’ll use the RAW files is if I want the photo in colour.
The Ricoh is a camera that will always be with me, I’m taking it everywhere.
I’ll be posting updates on me using the Ricoh GRII via the blog, subscribe now to be updated
