Last Updated on 11/25/2024 by Chris Gampat
No, this isn’t a review of the Ricoh GR III or its iterations. That camera boasts an APS-C sensor and a cult following that I’m sure could fill football fields across America in their own echo chamber. In 2011, photographer Eric Kim reviewed the Ricoh GRD III for the Phoblographer. At the time, all the publications didn’t realize how great it was for street photography just because it had a small sensor. But we knew better. “Without spoiling anything, it is truly the best compact camera for street photography, and everybody who is serious about shooting in the streets should have one,” we stated in our review. Now, in 2024, it’s technically a vintage digicam. And it can easily strut around the room to shoot images that other Ricoh cameras could only dream of.
The Ricoh GRD III is pretty affordable for what it is. Boasting a 10MP sensor, it’s one of those cameras that joins the Canon S95 in saying, “Who cares about megapixels?” What it lacks in usable autofocus capabilities, it makes up for in zone focusing abilities with deeper depth of field despite having an f1.9 maximum aperture lens. Combine that with a smaller sensor, and a lot of your scene will be in focus. At the same time, the maximum ISO tops out at 1600 — so you’re bound to get images that embrace the idea of the dream, blur, and vibes you could really only wish for.
Quite honestly, the Ricoh GRD III is a liberating experience in this day and age. It’s one of those cameras that you purchase, embrace what it gives you simply because you understand how limiting it is, and then either take it or leave it.
“Who cares about megapixels?”
Today’s cameras emphasize the creator — which is a manufacturer term that looks to devalue the photographer for who they are. But the Ricoh GRD III puts the authentic photographer first.
If I wanted to shoot video, I’d grab a camcorder. But I want to shoot stills.
Is it Worth It?
Asking if the Ricoh GRD III is worth it is akin to battling the imposter syndrome that we eventually speak kindly to before taking a big step into something else. Yes, it’s worth it each and every time. Just like with therapy, we know that we’re going to change to become new people. But we have to want to become new people enough. The Ricoh GRD III will make you embrace a side of your photography that you had within you, but had long been dormant. Truly, it’s going to be like playing with a camera as a kid again.
That’s the experience you’ll have no matter what your age is.
The Joy of the Feeling
First off, the Ricoh GRD III is a pretty small camera. It surely isn’t weather resistant as it’s from a time before we were all really thinking about things like that. But when you’ve got a little wrist strap around it, it feels like a thin bar of soap in your hand. I tended to walk around with the screen turned off and held it in such a way that my thumb did all the shutter pressing.
Truly, the feeling I got was effortless street photography. If I got the shot, I wasn’t fussed — but instead pleasantly surprised. If I didn’t get the shot, I wasn’t fussed either. This makes the Ricoh GRD III a less in true meditation. One of my longest yoga teachers passed some knowledge onto me: If you’re flexible, so what? If you’re not flexible, so what?
…you’re bound to get images that embrace the idea of the dream, blur, and vibes you could really only wish for.
Photographers tend to blame cameras for not getting the shot. But what old tech like this teaches us is that sometimes we just need to take what we get and make the most of it. And overall that’s a valuable lesson — how many times have you decided to stay in and cook with the ingredients you have instead of going out to buy dinner? In the end, they both feel like self-love, but only one is bound to remind you of the authentic love you might’ve been shown in your younger years. For some of us, that looks like a home cooked meal. And for others, that might be the comfort of some beautiful ramen that you escaped to when you got into a fight with your parents. All the answers are correct in this case — which is a far less divisive answer than the current question of the Ricoh GR series or the Fujifilm X100Vi.
It’s Not My Phone
My iPhone is amazingly capable of shooting great images and video. But at the same time, everything looks so incredibly, highly, processed. Where the Ricoh GRD III is a modest chopped cheese made by my local deli, the iPhone is the Big Mac of the imaging world. Most people will go for the big mac. But I appreciate the genuine difference of the chopped cheese that is my Ricoh GRD III. With every snap, I discover a unique flavor that’s both intriguing and mentally stimulating. I’m often saying, “Whoa, that’s cool.”
Right now, I’m in the middle of recovering from eye surgery to correct legal blindness and prepare me for some life-changing contact lenses. And the Ricoh GRD III has me looking at the photos and realizing the deep beauty that are the moments I see every single day.
In the end, they both feel like self-love, but only one is bound to remind you of the authentic love you might’ve been shown in your younger years.
To Be Sharp? Or Not to Be Sharp?
With such a meager amount of megapixels and a lens that’s over 10 years old, the Ricoh GRD III isn’t going to have the sharpest image quality. And that’s something that we embrace. Combine this with an ISO of only 1600 at max, and you’re going to get photos at very slow shutter speeds. This is something that you should embrace.
No, you can’t just do that with your modern-day camera. You can’t just lock the ISO up to 1600 and shoot a smaller megapixel file. You’ll instead lose all the character that the beautiful lens of this camera gives you.
The images are bound to sometimes look like chaos and make you believe that you’re photographing ghosts. But isn’t that all that photography really is?
Will it Last?
No, you can’t just do that with your modern-day camera.
I’m borrowing the Ricoh GRD III from my good friend Brent Eylser; who perhaps abuses his cameras harder than I do. DPReview reviewed this camera in I believe 2009 — and so it’s almost 20 years old at this point.
Put it this way, do you expect your Sony a7r IV to last that long?
Image Samples
