When talking about photography and digital cameras, there’s no question that the center of the photography world rests in Japan. In fact, we can narrow things down to Tokyo, the city where the top camera manufacturers have their headquarters: Sony, Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Mamyia, Olympus, and even Panasonic.
Not so long ago, however, another electronics manufacturer entered the digital world, enlarging the Tokyo family of camera manufacturers. Its name is Ricoh. To most people, Ricoh is known as a manufacturer of peripheral devices as well as compact storage devices while a few know Ricoh as a compact camera provider.
This year, Ricoh is planning to start a revolution in the DSLR world by changing the concept of lens interchangeability with the Ricoh GXR system.
Let’s see then what’s different about the Ricoh GXR system. Well, we all know how a DSLR works, right? We have a camera body, which contains the sensor (the thing usually described in megapixels), processing software, all the buttons, battery, the optical system of the viewfinder and the preview screen. In order to be able to take pictures, we must add a lens as appropriate for the type of photo we need to take (macro, landscape, portrait, telephoto, etc).
With the Ricoh system, the sensor and the processing software is moved on the lens. That’s right, now the whole photographical process can be found on the lens and one could definitely say that we won’t be buying a lens anymore but a camera on its own.
The advantages of the system are quite clear:
each lens could use a different sensor technology (CCD or CMOS or perhaps even Sigma)
lenses would be more specialized (one could buy lenses dedicated for video, for example)
overall upgrades would remain focused on buying new lenses, the body wouldn’t need switching.
the lack of a mirror chamber makes the body very compact.
On the other hand, the disadvantages are also important:
the lack of a mirror chamber nullifies the main advantage of the DSLR: having an optic view of the scene to be shot, instead of an imprecise electronic view filtered through the sensor.
basically you’re buying a very specialized camera whenever you buy a lens. Given how expensive the system is and the fact that you’re missing an optical viewfinder anyway, it might be better to simply buy a compact camera each time.
the people with the money to invest in photographic systems: professionals and advanced amateurs will not be interested in giving up the bright optical viewfinder.
the system doesn’t have many lenses at the moment on the market, it will be interesting to see whether Ricoh will manage to push the system until they will have enough lenses to compete with the likes of Canon or Nikon.
A system based on the old film photography would’ve made more sense – split in three parts: body, changeable sensor and changeable lens
After Olympus brought the micro four-thirds system in a bid to counteract the bulk of the DSLR cameras on the market, it is no doubt refreshing to see another innovation being pushed forward. After all, it is clear that innovation usually comes from small companies which have nothing to lose by experimentation. Although it’s unlikely these systems will win the hearts of advanced photographers, it will be interesting to see where they are headed.
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