Not the best analogy there, because when you switch to crop mode it does let you frame and compose at the desired focal length. It also let's you save a cropped raw file. So indeed one can use it as intended not as an afterthought. Look, if you are purist in that sense, anything less than a full frame is an expensive suit cut with scissors. After all, the gr is equipped with a19 mm lens, almost same focal length as a "dedicated" micro four thirds camera with 20 mm lens attached to it. Is an Olympus with a 20 mm more "real" 40 mm than a GR with 19 mm cropped to 35 or 40? Of course, we still have the megapixel issue. In a "dedicated" modern camera you will get higher resolution, this is very true, but everyone was more than happy with a 10 mp sensor until few years ago.
More on scissors: can't remember, was is the pana lx line which came with a larger sensor in order to accommodate different image ratios? They were also cutting and throwing a portion of the image each time you pressed the shutter to give you a final image. Actually, as you well know, an image is created in circle, so photography is cutting with scissors to begin with.
of course, I would prefer a "true" apsc to a cropped one, but everything is relative. Gr cropped to 35 will give you a larger sensor (negative) than what you would get in an Olympus, or Panasonic with their "real" 35 or 40 . It is important to keep that in mind especially if you don't mind to live with a 10 mp image.
Again, cropping is an afterthought. It is always left for later and 'software can sort that out'. Can we beg future camera manufacturers they supply their cameras with a 20mm lens, and a 400 MP sensor, as the any crop can pulled out with a satisfactorily high number of pixels? Is THAT the future of imaging — serving all suits and all shirts and coats with scissors?
What really matters in a camera is a design and intent behind a
specific sensor size and lens design.
Digression: However, I am not advocating inserting a 35mm sensor in a GR. The camera will increase in size. But is another lens possible? Of course.
If 28mm lens is preferred for some doctrinal Ricoh's values, there is a lot to be gained by introducing a 35mm, and 43mm lens designs in a separate GR design.
And now the pragmatic issue: can a 35mm camera do a 28mm shot? Of course — digital photography allows it through simple and seamless panning, if needed. If a puny iPhone can do that, why not the almighty GR? Panning was impossible in film — and that impediment of film the GR concept faithfully replicates — to the last problem — in the digital form.
Panning adds more pixels to the image, yet cropping removes them. Which is better?
So I see the GR design today as a faithful resurrection of all the problems film imaging had, and which Ricoh never really rethought in the digital form. The GR is practically a film camera. Aways was, always is. And I think it needs to be rethought.
28mm GR had some practical sense in the film era, for the Japanese market, but nowadays for the world market, I don't think so.
If the GR is compliant to the 28 mm lens, then I must suppose it is for the sake of tradition and not so much to address any practical issue in the digital photography when it addresses none — it only complicates the issue by cropping of the scene to more desirable simulated focal lengths and losing precious lens information.
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Madamina, il catalogo è questo; Delle belle che amò il padron mio; un catalogo egli è che ho fatt'io; Osservate, leggete con me.
