Ricoh CCD and noise

[LionelA]

Im a novice taking pictures, In approx 1 year have used canon, nikon, Fuji and sony. Ive noticed that newer cameras of most brands have strong noiser reduction that takes away detail especially on landscape pictures, you can sometimes lower this noise reduction but it usually works on high iso and even on raw NR is used. I used an old canon SD990 (2009 model digic 4)vs canon S200 (2013 model digic 5) and SD990 has more noise but considerable better detail on low ISO also compared Using low iso a nikon D3300 vs a P/S sony with a much smaller sensor and noiser pictures the sony had more noise but more detail, Nikon clouds had that kind of watercolor effect. However the sony camera is a small P/S that doesnt have manual settings. Im looking at Ricoh cameras since they are known for their noise in pictures,also CCD is better for low iso DR and color then CMOS......should I buy a Ricoh GR or GRD?

 

[Sal Baker]

Im a novice taking pictures, In approx 1 year have used canon, nikon, Fuji and sony. Ive noticed that newer cameras of most brands have strong noiser reduction that takes away detail especially on landscape pictures, you can sometimes lower this noise reduction but it usually works on high iso and even on raw NR is used. I used an old canon SD990 (2009 model digic 4)vs canon S200 (2013 model digic 5) and SD990 has more noise but considerable better detail on low ISO also compared Using low iso a nikon D3300 vs a P/S sony with a much smaller sensor and noiser pictures the sony had more noise but more detail, Nikon clouds had that kind of watercolor effect. However the sony camera is a small P/S that doesnt have manual settings. Im looking at Ricoh cameras since they are known for their noise in pictures,also CCD is better for low iso DR and color then CMOS......should I buy a Ricoh GR or GRD?

The GR has a CMOS sensor. It's a bit noisier at hi-ISO than my Fuji X-E2, but I like the GR noise/grain better. PhotoNinja and Capture One can control GR nicely and lightly or NR can be turned off in both converters.

The best "film look" if you're shooting handheld with nothing moving in the frame can be gained by shooting a burst of 4 RAW shots, convert using the same settings for each image with little or no NR, stacking them in a program like PTGui Pro to align and register the images, and sending the 4 aligned layers to PS. Start with the base (background) image and add each layer in the stack with 50% transparency. The final effect is a very nice tight grain pattern with no smoothing from NR.

Sal

 

[LionelA]

Thanks for the replys!

 

[Tom Caldwell]

Im a novice taking pictures, In approx 1 year have used canon, nikon, Fuji and sony. Ive noticed that newer cameras of most brands have strong noiser reduction that takes away detail especially on landscape pictures, you can sometimes lower this noise reduction but it usually works on high iso and even on raw NR is used. I used an old canon SD990 (2009 model digic 4)vs canon S200 (2013 model digic 5) and SD990 has more noise but considerable better detail on low ISO also compared Using low iso a nikon D3300 vs a P/S sony with a much smaller sensor and noiser pictures the sony had more noise but more detail, Nikon clouds had that kind of watercolor effect. However the sony camera is a small P/S that doesnt have manual settings. Im looking at Ricoh cameras since they are known for their noise in pictures,also CCD is better for low iso DR and color then CMOS......should I buy a Ricoh GR or GRD?

Lionel,

The GRD is now an old camera. The fact that Mike Penn can take great images with it is more a tribute to how good the camera was when it was first released and Mike's personal skills and knowedge of his chosen tool. It is more renowned for it B&W images than its colour ones although colour is not bad it does struggle more at high ISO levels.

Surprisingly the Ricoh R4 - the GRD contemporary was also a significant camera that belied its point'n'shoot looks and build with a very poweful heart which also used the same window style phase detect focus technology - something that was lost to later Ricoh cameras but brought back in the GRDIV. High ISO B&W images from the R4 are also very acceptable long after their colour equivalents have turned psychadelic.

I don't know whether Ricoh simply ignored the sensor noise to get sharper images or they used a wash-over noise speckle to hide the ugly noise as a substitute for noise suppression. A sort of "if you can't beat 'em ..." approach. Certainly Ricoh did try the pasty-look noise suppression in the GRDII probably because of the bad press about noise at the time. Later cameras allowed noise supression to be switched off "completely" but even all-off was not enough for many users. I suspect that the residual noise suppression was more a factor inbuilt into the sensor being used than anything later applied at Ricoh-werk.

On the Sony NEX6, which I still have and use occasionally, I once had to use its "lottery number" high ISO to capture a small lizard in forest light cnditions - the result was super-yuk, although it was passable on the lcd-sized screen. Give me more honest grain (or noise if it has to be called that) and I can figure out a way to live at a lower ISO level.