A few shots with the Ricoh GX100 (1 Viewer)

I had tried using my Canon G9 with my Vortex Skyline 20-60x80ED scope but was getting a lot of vignetting. As it turns out, a friend has purchased my G9 and I have gotten me a Ricoh GX100 for street shooting. However, I decided to give the Ricoh a shot today, while out in my patch.

Be warned that this is my first serious attempt at digiscoping, and as I was checking for vignetting primarily, I handheld the camera against the scope: not exactly a recipe for high quality shots. Lastly, the camera was at 400 ISO in JPEG mode - and for all its virtues, the GX100 is an absolute dog at high ISOs in JPEG mode.

Shot #1, taken with the scope at 20x and the Ricoh at max zoom (72mm in 35mm equivalent):


Shot is straight out of camera, just re-sized. Flat, lacking contrast and sharp.

Crop of Shot #1:


15 seconds of PP - curves, level, saturation and sharpening - and this 3MP crop of the original image is starting to look fairly decent. Shot in RAW and processed with Noise Ninja, it would give a nice, clean background. And mounting the camera, instead of handholding it, would improve sharpness some more.

Shot #2: 20x on scope, 72mm on the Ricoh:


The image is lacking a bit in terms of fine detail and resolution, but a lot better than what it would look if taken with a 400mm lens on a DSLR and cropped.

I am quite kicked with these results - tomorrow, I attach the adapter and start taking shots for real.

I thought folks might be interested in this, as the Ricoh is one of the few cameras that DOES offer a RAW mode.

Vandit

Vandit,
You be able to get some nice digiscoped images from this camera but it is noisy over iso 100.
There is a thread here on it
http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=91401

To reduce vignetting it would be better to not to use the Ricoh adapter but I haven't been able to find a third party 52 mm adapter for it (it takes a 43 mm thread ) but a universal type adapter would get the best out of the very sharp lens.
Neil.

Hi Neil -

Yep, it is noisy as sin in camera-default JPEG. I plan to try it out using RAW and Noise Ninja - from my experiences with the Panasonic LX1 (another very good but noisy camera), it should yield a significant reduction in noise. Have you given it a shot? Some of the images you posted in that thread look stunning (DSLR quality) and show a lot less noise... low ISO or RAW?

Re. adapters - I have the Vortex adapter, which is what I plan to use. If I start getting consistently good results, I'll find a way to block out external light from the gap between the EP and the camera lens.

I'll also try the Canon S70, which has, IMO, one of the best all-around sensors for digicams to date.

Vandit