Ricoh GR1s
16 December 2009, mid-morning
Ever since getting my Ricoh GRD II I have been looking for a Ricoh GR1 for some time now. The GR1 series of cameras are what the Ricoh GR Digital line is based on. They share a very similar form factor, a fixed 28mm lens, and similar shooting modes. GR1 cameras are reasonably rare nowadays, and they don’t seem to show up for sale all to often (or end up costing far too much). So it was strange to find one selling in Toronto on the cheap.
I ended up getting a GR1s. It’s in reasonably good shape, save for the fact the LCD no longer works properly. It only displays when the camera is in snap mode or not. Thankfully, you can figure out what other modes you are in by keeping track of how many times you’ve hit the mode button. The in-focus indicator box thing in the viewfinder is also really dim. I’m not sure if these are common GR1 problems or not. I’ll need to look into that.
I’ve ran one roll through the camera thus far, and am happy with the results. I think I need to sell some cameras to balance things out.
congrats on the GR1! You really were lucky to find someone selling it locally. I guess since I’ve had three, that sort of makes me an expert, I returned the first because it’s AF was hard to read – normally it’s kinda hard to read in bright light (but you get used to it), but in dark it should be easy.
And the 2nd I returned because it had that same LCD problem which I’ve since been told is very very common so I wouldn’t worry about it, the rest of the camera is bulletproof.
The GR1v I have now and love, has a working LCD and everything, but I sort of broke the power button and now there’s a weird trick I invented to power it on. Ah well, guess you can’t have it all :)
enjoy the camera!
by pketh on December 17 2009, 9:53 am #
The AF marks on my camera are so faint I didn’t realize they were there at all. It was only after I looked through the manual and it kept on mentioning them that I tried to see if I could find them. The AF on the camera seems to be working fine though. I’ll probably need to take more photos to confirm, anyway. (The distance scale pictures show up, which I think is a good sign.) The broken LCD is kind of a annoying, but doesn’t seem like the end of the world. If it was easy something I could fix locally, I’d be tempted to maybe get the camera cleaned up.
by ramanan on December 17 2009, 10:54 am #