Description :

This is the first of two reviews of the GXR; as each module is effectively a completely different camera we've decided to treat them as such and produce separate reviews. This review covers the GXR with the A12 50mm f2.5 equiv (12MP APS-C sensor) module , the next will cover the GXR/S10 24-70mm equiv (10Mp 1/1.7" sensor) combo. The first half of both reviews is the same, covering the GXR camera body and system.

In the short, frenetic history of the digital camera it has often been the smaller, less high profile manufacturers who have taken all the risks and experimented with more unconventional designs and solutions. For despite all the technological advances in the last decade the majority of digital cameras have designs that follow the same basic blueprint as their analog predecessors: they're essentially the same cameras with a sensor in the place of film.

This is especially true in the interchangeable lens camera sector, where the big players (coincidentally those who led the market in the days of film), hampered by the need (desire) to retain compatibility with their legacy analog systems, produce digital SLRs that would feel reassuringly familiar to any photographer from the late '80s or early '90s who by choice or circumstance had missed out on the digital revolution.

Last year saw the first serious challenges to the dominance of the single lens reflex (a design that can trace it roots back over 100 years, and that hasn't changed fundamentally since the 1950s) in the interchangeable lens camera market - thanks to the introduction of Micro Four Thirds by Olympus and Panasonic. Since then Samsung has also introduced a very similar system ('NX') which is based on a larger APS-C sensor.

So when we first heard from Ricoh that they wanted to come and show us a new system camera we presumed it too was going to be variation on the 'mirrorless' design. Then we started to get hints that it was actually a totally new idea (or, as mentioned at the bottom of this page, a very old idea resurrected).

The interchangeable lens unit camera
Where Micro Four Thirds and similar systems aim to cut bulk by removing the mirror box, which slims down the camera body and somewhat reduces the size of the lenses (though by how much depends on the sensor size used), they still end up pretty big once you add zoom lenses (and if we're talking about long zooms or telephotos the advantage is all but lost - large sensors require large lenses). Thus the idea that these 'hybrid' cameras can offer SLR quality and versatility combined with compact camera size is simply not possible.