Ordered R4

Just ordered an R4 today
cost me Rm1200 for the cam which would be about USD330

it will arrive on tuesday.


I would like to thank everyone here who contributed to the discussion on the R3 and Pana FX9. Been trying to decide between the pana fx9, R3, R4, Olympus SP-500, and Canon S2 IS. Ended up with the R4 coz its cheaper and worth the price.

schizophrenic said:

Just ordered an R4 today
cost me Rm1200 for the cam which would be about USD330

Click to expand...

Where from?
Do they ship to USA?
many thanks.

Malaysia.

errrr they are not the distributor. Just a local camera seller.

my R4 came today!
but....i don't really know how to use the functions.......



most of my pics seem blur even with anti shake......

its my 1st digicam

anyone mind giving me advice?

Can you post a few?
--
Rui

one is with image stabilizer and the other one without.
can't rmb exactly which.

Is there anyway for me to test the image stabilizer to see if its doing its job?



my attempt to point and shoot....didnt turn out well..


please advise me

sorry about the image
i wanted to paste a link

1.jpg is shot at 1/2 a second. At this speed, it is almost impossible to get a sharp handheld shot, regardless of image stabilizer.

2.jpg and 3.jpg were shot at 1/9 and 1/11 respectively. It is possible to get a reasonably useful shot at those speeds (at least when shooting at a short focal length), but you have to be very steady and preferably to lean on something. Leaning your elbows on a table or some other stationary object is a good start. It is also recommended to hold your breath while shooting and to squeeze the shutter release very gently. From those blurry results, I have a feeling that you didn't use those guidelines. It’s best that you try again, but this time try to be as steady as possible.

To link to an image without embedding it, add a semicolon ( to the end of the url.

Prog.

It seems there’s no more to analyse in your photos, and Prog. gave you the right guidelines to follow. Use them in good light conditions too. If you still find problems in the images try again with a tripod and the self-timer too isolate any kind of problem.
Good luck.

--
Rui

schizophrenic said:

my R4 came today!
but....i don't really know how to use the functions.......
most of my pics seem blur even with anti shake......
its my 1st digicam

Click to expand...

Those examples have very long shutter speeds, no anti-shake in the world would fix that situation. It's tripod time in that case.

The one I downloaded named 1.jpg had 1/2 sec at ISO 64, so even if you changed it to ISO 800 the shutter speed would still be only about 1/16 and still liable for camera shake. In light that low it's flash time or tripod time.

To test any camera, go outside in daylight and take a few shots to get a better idea of how it behaves, indoors in low light is definitely a worst case scenario. Like testing a camera in a camera shop, usually a very bad idea.

Anyway, cycle though the available LCD displays by pressing the DISP button a few times. One of the screens will show aperture and shutter speed when you half press the shutter, and try and keep shutter speeds faster than maybe 1/20 sec for wide angle and and faster than maybe 1/100 second for max tele, assuming anti-shake is turned on of course.

For best image quality keep ISO as low as possible consistent with proper shutter speeds.

Try pressing the ADJ button a few times, it should cycle through 3 available adjustments, Compensation, White Balance (leave on auto) and ISO. Keep at 64 as much as possible but maybe use up to 200 ISO for most shots. But reserve 400 and 800 when desperate to get shots in low light as noise builds up in the image at the higher ISO settings. You could experiment with leaving the camera on Auto ISO where it will wander up to maybe 200 when it feels it is necessary.

From the menus there is a method of adding other items to the ADJ button. In scene modes the ADJ button behaves differently, but don't know about that as I never use scene modes.

Never leave the camera on 400 or 800 ISO outdoors as the aperture range of the camera at wider angles is restricted and you will most likely get over-exposed shots.

Spend some quiet time reading the manual and pressing the buttons to see what happens. It takes a while to get used to the features.

And of course I am talking from experience with the very similar earlier R3 model. I think the only differences to R4 are a better CCD sensor in the R4 and less image noise (hopefully) and I think the R4 added some sort of "my mode" where you can store favourite settings for quick access.

Have fun, it's a great little camera!

Regards............... Guy

Very nice answer, Guy!

2 points.

a. the 3rd default for the adj button on my R4 was the sound option. I changed this to ISO. It is also possible to add a 4th option to the adj button, I added metering on the advice of one of the reviews of the R4

2. there are apparently 2 my favorite settings options for the R4, which I still do not know what to use. I have to work on this, because when I change the EV, the R4 goes back to the default when turned on again. Too bad my manual is in Japanese.

As for scenes, the R4 works a litte differently than most cameras. Everything is a scene! The scene selector is on the 4-way button, and the default is normal. I too have only used normal, but will be trying out the others soon.

Rube

rube39 said:

Very nice answer, Guy!

2 points.

a. the 3rd default for the adj button on my R4 was the sound
option. I changed this to ISO. It is also possible to add a 4th
option to the adj button, I added metering on the advice of one of
the reviews of the R4

Click to expand...

I haven't got the R4 or the manual so am guessing as to what it may have somewhat, plus can't quite remember how the R3 came out of the box.

rube39 said:

2. there are apparently 2 my favorite settings options for the R4,
which I still do not know what to use. I have to work on this,
because when I change the EV, the R4 goes back to the default when
turned on again. Too bad my manual is in Japanese.

Click to expand...

Ricoh seem to be slow this time getting a manual online, hurry up, guys!

rube39 said:

As for scenes, the R4 works a litte differently than most cameras.
Everything is a scene! The scene selector is on the 4-way button,
and the default is normal. I too have only used normal, but will be
trying out the others soon.

Click to expand...

Yes, on the R3 the Normal is actually a scene in the strict sense, but when you wander off onto the other scene modes, things like focus points change, compensation, saturation, colour emphasis etc may change but when back to Normal scene it is still as you left it. The Landscape one looks promising as it seems to do a nice boost of greens to make the average shot look less flat. Use with caution, as overdone greens do look un-natural. The eye can pick more shades of green than any other colour.

I've downloaded your R4 cherry blossom samples at ISO 64/100/200 and need to get into serious printing at 8"x10" size to see how they compare and if noise matters at 200, first impression is that 200 is quite OK. Thanks for all your efforts in putting those full sized samples on Flickr.

Regards.............. Guy

thanx for everyone advice.......

1)as for the slow shutter limit, should i leave it at default (1/8) or set to off?

2)Based on what everyone says, does it mean that I could only point and shoot under good light condition? meaning that I just take out my camera and just snap.

3)How do I take moving objects without the object being blur?

The R4 comes with a pdf manual on the cd. Couldn't find it on the site. They are indeed slow in uploading.

schizophrenic said:

1)as for the slow shutter limit, should i leave it at default (1/8)
or set to off?

Click to expand...

I think it's best to disable it and learn how to improve your technical decisions:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1013&thread=17855128#m17879264

schizophrenic said:

2)Based on what everyone says, does it mean that I could only point
and shoot under good light condition? meaning that I just take out
my camera and just snap.

Click to expand...

In dim light you're going to have to use the flash (which unfortunately means ugly lighting), and/or to use a higher ISO.

schizophrenic said:

3)How do I take moving objects without the object being blur?

Click to expand...

In dim light you can use the flash, but you might need to use a higher ISO in order to extend its range.

schizophrenic said:

The R4 comes with a pdf manual on the cd. Couldn't find it on the
site. They are indeed slow in uploading.

Click to expand...

Any chance you could upload it to some FTP?

Prog.

Sorry but it seems that the manual is for ricoh's software.
not the camera itself.


I just opened it to confirm.

I finished reading the paper manual.
its almost exactly the same as an R3


"if you use "SLOW SHUTTER LMT" on, the camera sets a shutter limit from 1/8 sek at wide to 1/30 sek at tele. if it's off the slowest shutter limit is at 1 sek for iso

Doesnt this mean that leaving the Slow shutter lmt to 1/8 is better if I am not using a tripod?

schizophrenic said:

Doesnt this mean that leaving the Slow shutter lmt to 1/8 is better
if I am not using a tripod?

Click to expand...

No, because you can usually lay the camera on a stationary object (e.g. a table) even if you don't have a tripod at hand.

If you see that the shutter speed is 1/2", you don't want the camera to underexpose, what you do want to is to take note of the low shutter speed and do one of the following:

1. Switch to a higher ISO.
-or-

2. Turn on the flash, and consider setting a somewhat higher ISO to get a longer range.
-or-
3. Use a tripod or some other stationary object to steady the camera.

Prog.

I see. because normally i take pics by holding the camera without support of a stationary object or a tripod.

I'll try what you said. Thx

What (film) camera did you use before? Or is this the very first camera you have owned?

There's no magic with digital cameras, they are limited in exactly the same sense as are film cameras. For low light you need to use higher ISO film or higher ISO digital camera setting and learn to deal with the noise/grain that results.

This class of camera is designed for easy to use happy snapping where the assumption is you are in decent light, or if using the flash you are within about 2 metres of the subject.

To do better in low light with any camera it may need a way larger maximum aperture lens which runs the cost, complexity and weight up considerably..... or again use a higher ISO which has its own problems with noise.

At some point in dim conditions you just won't be able to get a satisfactory result no matter what camera you use, except by using a sturdy tripod and very long exposures and noise cleanups to get rid of the noise caused by the CCD heating up in that long exposure.

When the light gets very low my wife's R3 gets a crummy result and so does my Olympus E-300 DSLR. And in the past with film cameras I never even bothered to use the camera hand held if the light was bad, at least with digital it's free to take many photos and experiment to find what works for you.

And the anti-shake in the camera is no magic device either, it will allow you to get a shake free picture at maybe a shutter speed or two slower than you could normally hand hold, but of course with any slow shutter speed the subject movement will still cause blur.

Regards................ Guy

I used to own an olympus film cam.....didnt touch it for.....years...at least 6 years. This is my 1st digital camera that I own.



I seem to have taken quite a number of blur shots. Probably because I was trying to shoot a monkey.....tends to move a lot. haha

I'm uploading the pics now so will post the links later...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/97686677@N00/

Here are some of the pics I took