00:00 The best way to think about Ricoh cameras is to remember what the company is actually best known for.
00:04 It's copiers and it's printers.
00:06 Because for better or for worse,
00:08 Ricoh is a company that has never been afraid to simply make a copy.
00:13 I'm Becca, welcome back to Full Frame.
00:15 Woo!
00:18 This is the new $1,067 Ricoh GR III HDF.
00:23 It's a pocket-sized point-and-shoot camera with a 24.2 megapixel APS-C sensor
00:28 and a fixed, super sharp 28mm f/2.8 lens.
00:33 It is almost an exact copy of the GR III that came out in March of 2019.
00:38 But what makes it worth talking about today is that new HDF part of its name.
00:42 It stands for Highlight Diffusion Filter.
00:44 Where previous GR III cameras had built-in ND filters,
00:48 which you can think of as like sunglasses for your camera,
00:51 they minimize the amount of light that's hitting the sensor,
00:54 the new GR III HDF has a diffusion filter.
00:58 And this is a Tiffen Black Pro Mist half, which is pretty high,
01:01 but I want to show you what it does.
01:03 When you put this in front of your sensor,
01:05 it makes for a softer image and it also spreads out the highlights.
01:09 You see that? It's pretty cool.
01:11 Here's what Ricoh's own diffusion filter looks like in the GR III HDF.
01:15 At night, bright lights like headlights or these stadium lights appear larger and softer.
01:21 During the day, a backlight on someone's head might cause a halo effect.
01:24 And in side-by-side photos with the filter on on the left and the filter off on the right,
01:29 it can be obvious that this filter makes photos more dreamy by spreading out those highlights.
01:34 But if you don't have ample highlights, like in this photo,
01:37 it can be difficult to see any diffusion or softening happening at all.
01:42 This is a highlight diffusion filter that needs a highlight in order to be seen.
01:46 But then when there are highlights, I don't always love the effect.
01:50 Like this photo of Viren. I mean, it looks like he's coming from the heavens.
01:53 But then there are other times, like in this high-contrast black and white scene,
01:57 where the filter added a really elegant sort of glow to the whites.
02:01 I love this.
02:02 So much like GR camera systems as a whole, you're going to have to get to know this filter.
02:07 It can be really unpredictable in what highlights it makes pop.
02:11 But I think that Ricoh's decision to swap the ND filter for something else is really smart
02:15 because in my use of Ricoh GR III cameras, I rarely put the ND filter on
02:19 because I rarely had a need to stop the shutter speed down,
02:22 which is usually what you're trying to do when you put an ND on.
02:25 So having a filter that I use some of the time is much more beneficial
02:29 than having a filter that I was using none of the time.
02:32 The problem is, outside of the filter, this brand new HDF version of this camera
02:38 is the same camera that came out in 2019.
02:41 And it brings the total number of GR III cameras to seven.
02:46 There are seven versions of this camera,
02:48 which means that Ricoh's been making a lot of recopies.
02:51 Per Ricoh's website, when the company launched its very first copier, the ReCopy 101,
02:55 the product's popularity sparked a term.
02:58 Supposedly, folks would say, "Make a recopy" instead of "Make a copy."
03:01 And with the GR III lineup, they've made a lot of recopies.
03:04 Let me show you.
03:05 First, there was the GR III in 2019, which set the core hardware and internal specs for everything to come.
03:10 Then in 2020, Ricoh launched the GR III Street Edition,
03:13 which had the same internals of GR III, but with a gray body and orange lens ring.
03:17 In 2021 came the GR III X.
03:20 That had a slightly tighter 40mm lens, but otherwise, the same internals as the GR III.
03:25 It was followed up with the GR III X Urban Edition in 2020.
03:28 Same camera as the GR III X, but gray body and blue lens ring.
03:32 Then in 2023, Ricoh released the GR III Diary Edition.
03:35 Same camera as the III, but with a light gray finish and a silver lens ring.
03:39 And now we have the GR III and 3X HDF, with the diffusion filter instead of the ND.
03:45 For a company whose camera department is on the smaller side,
03:48 this is a great way to keep folks talking about your camera and to keep selling cameras.
03:52 You know, you can make small changes to the lens, now the filter, and the colors,
03:57 without having to overhaul the entire system.
03:59 But as a consumer, it starts to feel like one of those games where you're looking at two photos
04:04 and trying to find the smallest differences between them.
04:07 It's great for passing time, but it's really annoying when you're trying to drop $1,000 on a camera.
04:12 The other problem with this approach is that hardware starts to feel really dated.
04:16 The back screen of this camera makes your photos look relatively low-res,
04:21 and you really can't see how great of a photo this camera can take by just looking at it.
04:26 You have to transfer it to a phone or to a computer first.
04:30 This obviously isn't an issue for photographers who are going to transfer their images anyway,
04:35 but I worry for a lot of folks who are picking up a point-and-shoot camera just to use for fun
04:39 or to get better at photography with.
04:42 They're going to look down, not see the results they want,
04:44 and then they're not going to pick up the camera again, or they're going to return it.
04:47 And they should hold on to it.
04:49 I mean, it's really such a great camera, but increasingly it needs convincing
04:55 for someone else to believe that.
04:57 So that's the Ricoh GR III HDF.
05:01 It is, in many ways, a recopy, but that doesn't make it any less of a great camera.
05:07 That being said, if you're looking to save a couple bucks,
05:10 see if you can't get a Ricoh GR III used and then just buy a diffusion filter to put on the front.
05:15 Or just wait till the Ricoh GR IV, which, oh man, I'm so damn excited for that camera.
05:23 And I know a lot of other folks are too.
05:26 I'm Becca. Thank you so much for joining me.
05:28 I wanted to make this video because Ricoh is a fascinating company.
05:33 They make printers and copiers, as you now know.
05:37 But they also have the Ricoh Theta, which was one of the very first consumer 360-degree cameras.
05:44 I had one. It was awesome.
05:47 They have a stadium somewhere, I think in England.
05:50 They're just this huge company that has a lot of small teams working on products.
05:55 They also own Pentax, which, oh my god, the rumors on that film camera that they might be having come out
06:01 are getting me stoked.
06:04 So I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you learned something.
06:06 I appreciate you so much. We'll see you on the next one. Thanks, bud.
06:10 [wind howling]
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