My Special Limited Kit arrived today. The package did not contain any surprises because I have watched Samuel Lintaro Hopf’s and Kaiman Wong’s unboxing videos in Youtube. For those of you who do not know, the kit includes the following accessories in Europe: a customized GV-2 viewfinder, an extra DB-110 battery, a customized GS-2 strap, and an extra ring cap. The kit costs 1199 euros in Europe. I think it is a fairly good deal because if you buy all those (uncustomized) accessories separately, the price would be well over 1200 euros (at least where I live).
I used to own a Ricoh GR III earlier but I sold it and regretted it. When I saw the news about the special model, I instantly decided to preorder it. My intention is to use the camera regularly, not just keep it on the shelf on display. I am very aware of the various issues related to the GR III. To prevent the dust problem, I originally planned to use the camera with a GA-1 adapter and a protective filter all the time. Now, however, I have decided to live dangerously and use the adapter only in places where there is a lot of dust. The special model is so nice looking and compact so it is a shame to cripple it. The camera has a two-year warranty so I can always send it to be cleaned.
The GR III feels surprisingly warm in my hand even after a short time of use. Because the camera is apparently designed to use at shoulder or waist level, I hope the GR IV will include a tilting LCD screen. It would also be nice if the next version could produce TIFF images since I like to process my RAW pictures in the camera before I transfer them to Lightroom Mobile for minor fine tuning. All in all, except for some small technical issues, I am quite happy to the GR III in general and the features it is already including. The special model does not really change anything but makes the camera a bit nicer to look at.
