I TEST THE RICOH GXR A12 LENS MOUNT

I TEST THE RICOH GXR A12 LENS MOUNT

elliot stern

In the last couple of news letters I have written about a nitch camera company named Ricoh. They have been around for a very long time and have made some veryexceptional products and have primarily marketed in Asia and Europe and have remained pretty quite in the United States but that has begun to change.

Their unique blend of technologies which you can read about here have now provided with market with what can truly be called "the poor persons Leica." Leica of course has been around for years and has it's very loyal following. They make the Leica M9 Full frame digital rangefinder camera. SUPERB. They make 2000.00 to 10,000.00 lenses. SUPERB. Obviously the majority of folks out there are not goi

Ricoh 28mm GXR A12 lens module

ng to drop 7000.00 on a body, and somewhere around 10,000.00 to 20,000.00 bucks on lenses.

Other digital cameras have come out that can adapt Leica M mount lenses with an adapter and they work great.

Ricoh GXR with M module. 75mm 2.5 Voigtlander, 1600 iso, 1/7 of a second at 2.5

I said Leica M MOUNT LENSES. I also said that they are way expensive. So if you are a fan of manual focus, use of mechanical adjusted F stops, and superb resolution what can you do?

You can buy a Ricoh GXR camera body. That body excepts both Autofocus Modules as well as the new M mount lens module which uses a 12.3 megapixel Aps-c sensor and like the Leica it does not use a correction filter in front of the sensor which means you are going to get sharper images. Never mind the "why" right now, it just is that way.

The Ricoh camera body is separate from its sensor and lens. The sensor is built into a lens module that slides on to the camera.

In the case of the Leica M module, the module itself takes M mount lenses.and the sensor technology is designed to work with the perfectly. Other manufacturers allow the use of adapters as well but they do not have a sensor

Ricoh GXR A12 M mount module with Voigtlander 15mm 4.0 lens

specifically designed to work at peak performance.

Like most of us, affording Leica equipment is part of a dream but not a reality. But if you want Leica performance then a GXR and Voigtlander lenses with M mounts are a great way to go and I have tested Voigtlanders 15mm, 21mm, 28mm, 75mm, 90mm, and 50mm 1.1. They are all exceptional

This is not a point and shoot camera. This camera while highly technical in what it can do is basic in its controls. You are in control in a fast working, super image producing camera body and module. This system is very small in physical size but fully made from magnesium.

I have also tested their A12 - 28mm and 50mm macro