GRDII and GT-1 (40mm)

[Paul Chow]

I've just tested my GT-1 today, Wow the result is rather terrible and it's just deeply disapointed me. I know the glaring problem from other forums before I bought it, but the situation is just unacceptable to me. 12 out of 18 shots have red glare at two bottom angle or center bottom (1 photo for this case). The area of some glare is so big that I don't think even 1:1 shot can eliminate the problem. The black and white shots seem to be fine, but colour shots under sunlight is just.......! Is it a lack of ample R & D from Ricoh before the launch of GT-1? Or is it an unavoidable problem in terms of optic if an external teleconvertor is to be attached on a small dc? By the way, I found that the three metal legs of the GH-1 is not perfectly aligned with the three metal points on the ring of the body. Is it an usual case or my GH-1 was not appropriately attached onto the body, but I've actually heard the click sound and no wobble was found.

[Martin de Boer]

I realize that I am now "cursing in the church", but how would it compare to using
a digital zoom of 1.4, which brings the 28 mm to a 40 mm focal length?
The arguments against it is - of course - that this produces a 5 MP picture instead
of a 10 MP, and also that you could also have done the "digital zooming" afterwards in
your favourite photo editor.
However, an important point which is sometimes overlooked is that cropping on the camera is
done on the RAW image, which is then again enlarged to 10 MP, and only THEN converted
to JPG (I think at read this somewhere). This would give a different quality compared
to "afterwards" cropping your 10 MP JPG to a 5 MP JPG. However, the question is: is it
noticeable, and would the result be acceptable? Note that after all, a few years ago we
were all very content with a 5 MP picture!
Another point against doing the cropping "afterwards" is that it is difficult to guess how a
40 mm view would turn out, having only the 28 m view; in the LEICA rangefinders you had a frame in
the viewfinder doing exactly this! (Actually, this was ideal for composing - when the viewfinder
also shows also the bits outside the frame: you can directly see if you want something more on the
right or the left, or want to step back a bit.

Finally, there may be something to say for using a mild, digital zoom (say 1.1), since
you then just cut away the outer perimeter of the picture, where the lens normally
performs at its weakest (with respect to distortion, sharpness,etc.); the price you have
to pay is that you go from 10 MP to 8 MP.

I am a great fan of fixed focal lengths - using my legs instead of the zoom button, but I have
always prefered to 35-40 mm range (I used the Rollei 35 S, Leica M6, Minolta CLE, and the
Yashica T4 (which actually produced the sharpest pictures I have ever seen)). I am contemplating
on buying the GRD-II, in the hope to get the feel of "creating" a picture again, instead of
just snapping away, as I do now with my cheap Canon 720.

[YKK]

The above member, Paul Chow, is absolutely right.
GT-1 is a shit - red glare at two bottom angle.
10 out of 10 got such problem under the sunny environment.
GT-1 Victim should claim back our money from RICOH.
I really hope the Ricoh management can give an investigation and let us know what happened

[YKK]

WAKE UP, the one who developed GT-1, explain how come you give us a shit

[odklizec]

I'm afraid, I strongly disagree that the GT-1 is so bad and so useless. Yes, the lens suffers from bad orange flaring. But on the other hand, it's extremely sharp and vignette/distortion free lens. Another very uncommon thing for conversion lens is, that it still allows to use the lowest aperture number! Using tele/wide converters usually means lowering the range of usable aperture numbers, which is not the case of GT-1! So considering it's "just" conversion lens for 28mm, it would be quite surprising if there would be no catch

GRDII + GT-1 is my main configuration and it allowed me to take a lot of fantastic images, which would be impossible to take with 28mm or another camera (even DSLR). When I started with GT-1, I also thought that the orange cast is so bad that makes the lens useless. But during the time, I managed to avoid this problem. There are some faint traces of orange cast in very small number of my photos. But it's usually visible only in corners, so it can either be cropped out or masked by vignette effect. In any case, there is no trace of flaring in 80-90% of my photos taken with GT-1. And this is majority of my photos taken during the last year or so.

So yes, the orange flaring is bad, but it can be avoided by using different angle of view or composition. The GT-1 is solid piece of metal and glass, with extremely good results for teleconversion lens. Many compact cameras with built-in zoom (and I wouldn't be surprised if some DSLR kit lens too) will not give you better or even equally good results.

[oxideblu]

I have to agree -- the GT-1 is a great little piece of optics, and I don't leave home without it (and my GRDii). It is by far the most abused optics I have owned because the crappy lens cap and the adapter cap (I leave the GT-1 screwed to the adapter) fall off. Never bothered looking for alt lens caps.

The GT-1 lens flare is unacceptable, so I learned to avoid it. But it is a must have lens for taking pix of people! When using the pop up flash it vignettes the light, causing a reverse lens flare effect -- an arc of darkened area. Gotta use the hot shoe and a 3rd party flash with the GT-1 when flash is needed.

A note about using the GT-1 in macro mode -- any dust on the back lens element gets magnified beautifully and can show up in your pix.

The absents of a 40mm lens for the GRDiii caused me to pause before taking the leap. Yeah, I took the GRDiii leap anyways, just in case.