More R5 low light and flash problems

Hi,

I'm new to this site, and relatively new to digital cameras. I just purchased an R5 but I am very dissapointed with a couple of things to the level where I am thinking of returning it. I know that some of the issues had been discussed here before but wondered if some conclusions had been drawn. The problems are

The low light focusing ability, in indoor light and high zoom my R5 almost never auto focuses.

Overexposed with flash, my subjects always look as if they are bathed in a 2000 watt building site light. There seems to be no way to adjust the flash intensity, eg soft flash.

Are there easy workarounds or do I need to return an otherwise excellent camera.

One of you gurus mentioned a warranty calibration - what is that please? Is it a software upgrade, how do I do that please?

rgds

Les

les99 said:

The low light focusing ability, in indoor light and high zoom my R5
almost never auto focuses.

Click to expand...

Its a big problem for the R5. Only thing you can do is just press the shutterbutton and a preflash wil happen. Its very short before the "real" flash. Than the R5 wil focus. It seems to work

It looks like focus problems are bigger when you zoom to the max or when you don't zoom at all. So try to the middle... ( i am not sure about this yet)

les99 said:

Overexposed with flash, my subjects always look as if they are
bathed in a 2000 watt building site light. There seems to be no way
to adjust the flash intensity, eg soft flash.

Click to expand...

Some say just leave everything at Auto. I do not. I think the ISO is to fast to 400. I do not like that for short distance flash foto's

For short Range i use:
ISO: 64
Focus: Spot
Photometry: Spot
Sharpness: Sharp
Color Depth: Normal
Exposure comp: -0.3 (but i do try higher and lower)
White Balance: Cloudy

saved this on setting 2

If distance get farther ISO can be higher and exposure comp. can also higher. It looks like White Balance on Cloudy is also a very big help to overcome the cold colors with flash.

les99 said:

Are there easy workarounds or do I need to return an otherwise
excellent camera.

Click to expand...

Its your call.

les99 said:

One of you gurus mentioned a warranty calibration - what is that
please? Is it a software upgrade, how do I do that please?

Click to expand...

You have to sent it to Ricoh than...

Greating

Auke

Try to focus on subject that's washed out and re-compose your picture, it works for me from time to time.

Also I find the AUTO Flash works better than ON Flash from time to time, I've been trying to use a flash meter to measure the results, but w. 2 kids it's not easy to keep them away.

I can only speak for the R4 where the flash is the weakest attribute. I don't think the flash adjusts for distance and I've never had good results with Auto ISO. The best results I've had are by varying the ISO according to distance.

However this may improve as the R4 is with Ricoh UK for Image Stabilisation and flash issues and I'll report back if there's an improvement when it returns.
--
Nick Spurrier

les99 said:

The problems are

The low light focusing ability, in indoor light and high zoom my R5
almost never auto focuses.

Click to expand...

My R5 seems to work OK at max tele in dim light using the default IR auto focus. If I switch to macro (gives better focus in most conditions, but slower) in dim light at max tele it gets it wrong 100% of the time. That's dim and in the area of 1/2 sec exposures if the flash was off and using Auto ISO.

If completely black, the 'focus-by-flash' system seems to work OK 100% of the time.

les99 said:

Overexposed with flash, my subjects always look as if they are
bathed in a 2000 watt building site light. There seems to be no way
to adjust the flash intensity, eg soft flash.

Click to expand...

Use Auto ISO and Auto flash and I seem to get good results. At one stage I was getting random overflashed results now and then, but mostly good results. The last few times the flash has worked OK every time.

I also tried Exposure compensation of 1 stop under-expose and the flash stayed the same intensity with the R5, more tests to be done there later.

les99 said:

Are there easy workarounds or do I need to return an otherwise
excellent camera.

One of you gurus mentioned a warranty calibration - what is that
please? Is it a software upgrade, how do I do that please?

Click to expand...

No guru, just me. My R3 was a pain with bad flash and it went for warranty repair. It came back "recalibrated" and now works OK. The flash is the same unit for R3/4/5 and has the same range as stated in the manual.

To test it.... Set to Auto WB, Auto ISO and Flash ON, set to wide (28mm equivalent), get lens front about 200mm (8") away from a familiar subject like a bowl of fruit or vase of flowers, shoot. Next set lens to max tele (200mm equivalent) and set to Macro (use the 'down' button, not the scene mode) move lens to 140mm (5.5") away from fruit/flowers etc, shoot. Both shots should be exposed OK.

Next at wide setting shoot indoor subject from 2.4m (about 8 feet) another shot, and then max tele and move in to 1.8m (about 6 feet) for shot. These should be exposed OK as well.

In normal situations when you think you need flash, switch to Auto Flash as some say it does meter things a bit better than Flash ON. Never tested that yet or seen evidence of it with my camera.

Everyone seems to have flash trouble when they set the ISO manually, and also get out of range of the small flash. Also be very aware of having fingers clear of the flash front.

Overall I am better pleased with the R5 flash performance compared to the R3.

The main secret seems to be to use the R3/4/5 as automatic settings, guessing manual settings seems to cause most problems, especially with flash.

Here's at 200mm distance with wide.....



Here's at 140mm distance with tele.....



Both were taken at 0.3 EV under-exposure as I generally leave it like that for outdoor use. Doesn't seem to affect flash use.

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

Ooops, missed the last bit, your question about updates. The R5 firmware is now at V1.55 and details of how to update are at http://www.ricoh.com/r_dc/download/firmware/r5/procedure.html

Nothing is said about flash but it doesn't hurt to always update to the latest version. I use the method of copying the two vital files to the SD card and then doing the update off-line.

Also my rambles about updating, same info basically as on Ricoh page...
http://homepages.ihug.com.au/~parsog/photo/r3-01.html#firmware

This last update evidently fixes some USB communication problems, but I always use a card reader anyway, so never saw any problems.

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

I was told by local distributor's who is also a repair engineer, that you can set it fixed at ISO 100, AUTO FLASH or ON FLASH should be OK. This is easier for camera to determine the exposure time, appeture n flash power with fixed ISO 100.

In this case you can get a lower noise level by lower ISO value and seldom get over exposed. Do make sure don't get object too close.

kk86 said:

I was told by local distributor's who is also a repair engineer,
that you can set it fixed at ISO 100, AUTO FLASH or ON FLASH should
be OK. This is easier for camera to determine the exposure time,
appeture n flash power with fixed ISO 100.

In this case you can get a lower noise level by lower ISO value and
seldom get over exposed. Do make sure don't get object too close.

Click to expand...

That setting guarantees failures. The Auto everything is the only way to go for more reliable results.

Any extra noise due to higher ISO can be cleaned up with Noiseware.

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

Guy Parsons said:

kk86 said:

I was told by local distributor's who is also a repair engineer,
that you can set it fixed at ISO 100, AUTO FLASH or ON FLASH should
be OK. This is easier for camera to determine the exposure time,
appeture n flash power with fixed ISO 100.

In this case you can get a lower noise level by lower ISO value and
seldom get over exposed. Do make sure don't get object too close.

Click to expand...

That setting guarantees failures. The Auto everything is the only
way to go for more reliable results.

Any extra noise due to higher ISO can be cleaned up with Noiseware.

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

Click to expand...

I do not agree with you Guy. Auto everything get far more washouts than fix ISO 64 or 100. But flash have a very short range with low ISO

Auke said:

I do not agree with you Guy. Auto everything get far more washouts
than fix ISO 64 or 100. But flash have a very short range with low
ISO

Click to expand...

All I can say is that auto everything works for me with the R3 and R5, from 200mm to 2.4m with max wide and from 140mm to 1.8m at max tele. And of course in-between ranges for in-between zoom settings. Outside those distances things start to go wrong.

When I tried to out-guess the flash and manually set the ISO, that is when the flash failure rate goes really high.

If your camera always washes out every shot within the range stated in the manual while running on auto everything then it is time to send it to be fixed.

At one stage I seemed to get a few random R5 washouts but that has gone away in the last few sets of flash shots. Over the next few days I will be using the camera quite a lot with flash so may have more to report when I get back on Monday.

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

Guy Parsons said:

At one stage I seemed to get a few random R5 washouts but that has
gone away in the last few sets of flash shots. Over the next few
days I will be using the camera quite a lot with flash so may have
more to report when I get back on Monday.

Click to expand...

Now it's Monday and back home. My wife and I took many R3 and R5 flash shots over the weekend and not one was over-flashed. All worked OK but of course trying to chase active grandchildren meant the out of range limits were often met and grainy under-exposed ISO 400 shots were the result. Camera was on Auto ISO and either Flash On or Flash Auto.

The small flash is definitely the handicap with the R3/4/5. To get good room filling flash of course I used my Olympus DSLR with the big flash added, there is really no alternative if you have to do 'serious' flash work - pocket cameras just can't hack it.

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

Guy Parsons said:

I used my Olympus DSLR with the big flash added, there is really no alternative
if you have to do 'serious' flash work - pocket cameras just can't hack it.

Click to expand...

Well, the GR-D and GX/GX8 certainly can hack it, but they obviously look and feel quite awkward with a large flash mounted on.

Prog.

Prognathous said:

Guy Parsons said:

I used my Olympus DSLR with the big flash added, there is really no alternative
if you have to do 'serious' flash work - pocket cameras just can't hack it.

Click to expand...

Well, the GR-D and GX/GX8 certainly can hack it, but they obviously
look and feel quite awkward with a large flash mounted on.

Click to expand...

Yes, but more to the point I meant the pocket camera on its own can't hack it, the flash is just not big enough. I could add a Wein digital trigger to my big Olympus flash to fire from the R3/5, but using the bigger sensor of the DSLR guarantees better results than any smaller sensor in the pocket sized cameras, so I use that for the room filling results.

As I said ages ago, the R3/4/5 flash is OK for across the table shots but not along the table shots. And for general room shots it's so easy to slip out of the range limit of that small flash. This trip I did not use the Sunpak Remotelite slave flash as I wanted to see what percentage of the family gathering shots were usable/unusable and to look for the legendary over-flashed shots (none found).

The summary is that the only way to use the R3/4/5 flash is in Auto ISO mode, that was made very clear. Any attempt to guess the set ISO to get better results guaranteed failure.

When looking back through the weekend's mixture of shots from R3, R5 and Olympus DSLR the summary is that for flash there is no alternative for me than to use the DSLR. For well lit daylight shots the R3/5 is quite stunning, but in lower light as it slips up the ISO range it gets quite nasty with noise, but that should be able to be cleaned up to some extent with Noiseware etc. The R3/4/5 are excellent daylight cameras but don't expect too much in low light.

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

I find that the only way to take a large darkened room is Synch flash, where the foreground is lit by the flash and the background by time exposure. Of course you cannot have much movement in such situations, and also works best if your main subject is in the foreground.

It would work well taking photos in tombs I think.

Brian

brianj said:

I find that the only way to take a large darkened room is Synch
flash, where the foreground is lit by the flash and the background
by time exposure. Of course you cannot have much movement in such
situations, and also works best if your main subject is in the
foreground.

It would work well taking photos in tombs I think.

Click to expand...

Yes, 64 ISO, tripod and nobody moving is fine. But chasing active grandchildren over the weekend.....

I've now got about two weeks rest to recover before the relative calm (in regards to the grandchildren) of Vietnam and bombs in Bangkok.

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

Hi All,

I wanted to thank everyone for the detailed replies and suggestions. I tried and tried with my R5 flash and lowlight autofocus but it just doesnt work satisfactorily for me. I wasnt too happy with the general blandness of the recorded colours either. I did contact Ricoh support, but wasnt very impressed with their enthusiasm.

It may possibly be a fault with mine, but after a couple of un impressive calls with Ricoh Support I decided to take advantage of a 15 day money back if not satisfied deal and sent the ricoh back to the dealer.

I've now put up some extra cash and bought a Canon G7, bigger I know, but I'm very happy with the results.

thanks again for all the help and good luck with the Ricoh's.

rgds

Les