Ricoh announces Ricoh GR IV high-end compact
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RICOH IMAGING COMPANY, LTD. announced the RICOH GR IV, a high-end GR-series of compact camera. This new member of the GR series is equipped with a complete range of newly developed main components, including lens, image sensor and imaging engine. It features a newly developed APS-C-size image sensor and a newly designed lens to improve image quality while reducing overall body depth, the company says.
The GR IV incorporates a newly designed GR LENS 18.3mm F2.8, retaining the 28mm angle of view (equivalent in the 35mm format) and the large F2.8 maximum aperture of its predecessor. Consisting of seven optical elements in five groups, the latest optics incorporate glass-molded aspherical lens elements — including a large-diameter element used as a final lens — and high-refraction, low-dispersion glass elements to deliver high-contrast, high-resolution images with edge-to-edge sharpness, while minimizing distortion and chromatic aberration.
To enhance image resolving power, reproduce rich gradation and upgrade sensitivity, the GR IV has a new designed, back-illuminated APS-C-size CMOS image sensor for higher sensitivity and reduced noise with an upgraded GR ENGINE 7 imaging engine. The camera also features the RICOH-original accelerator unit, designed to optimize the high signal-to-noise ratio image data captured by the image sensor and deliver it to the imaging engine, making it possible to assure top sensitivity of ISO 204800 for super-high-sensitivity photography.
Thanks to an originally developed Shake Reduction (SR) mechanism built into the camera body, the GR IV effectively compensates for camera shake at the time of shutter release. This five-axis mechanism minimizes adverse effects caused by pitch, yaw, and roll during normal shooting, as well as shift shake during macro photography, by as much as six shutter steps.
=The GR- IV’s newly designed barrel lens and optimized start-up sequence reduce the start-up time to approximately 0.6 seconds — the shortest in GR-series history. This combination also reduces the time required for switching to the Macro shooting mode and during lens storage action. The camera’s high-speed lens driving mechanism and the image sensor’s high-speed data readout also assure high-speed focusing operation and improve autofocus precision. The autofocus speed in low-illumination ranges and the precision and coverage area of the image-plane phase-matching AF system have also been optimized to greatly improve the GR IV’s overall AF performance, the company says.