GRDIII specimen set up matrix for boxes

[Tom Caldwell]

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Rough capture - sorry

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The further I got into the question of box settings the more room I saw for creating monsters and also for simple errors.

The closer I looked the more I found and I know that there are a lot of question marks here but I have added a coloured legend roughly showing:

1) the defaults that I have left alone;
2) Changed setting that I have decided to keep;
3) Changed settings that I have decided to trial; and
4) Settings upon which I have formed no opinion as yet.

I also found that the order of menu item in the shooting menu is not the same order as the listing in the Box editing menu. I have shown listing orders in columns consecutively numbered.
For this purpose the Shooting menu items are listed in the order they appear in the Box Editing menu. Note that there are additional entries in the BEM that are not in the Shooting menu.
Note that when you set 'Switch Shooting Mode' to PASM you get one or more additional entries in context which represent settable start entries in these modes when you exit to PASM from a My mode - ie: Aperture and Shutter Speed or both - quite neat and very useful.

Furthermore you also get a chance to set the start manual focal distance at item 11 of BEM. This is the first focal length when switching to manual focus after exiting to PASM. It seems configurable from within BEM using the up/down arrows but there may be a more direct way of doing this that I have not found. Certainly as you zoom in and out the lcd screen shows focus set so I imagine this might be good enough - there is a noticable change when the camera kicks through to macro-length settings.

I have linked together those settings that are directly dependent upon one another using rectangular symbols.
I have also shown page cross references from the printed manual. Some things are not really explained and I have used my sixth sense.

[odklizec]

Incredible work Tom! Now this is a very good example why should Ricoh consider adding an option to save/load My/Box settigns to/from file. I personally miss this option a lot.

Do you think you would be willing to share the source matrix document (in editable form) so people could record their own settings and possibly share with other GRDIII users? I think this could be a nice little push for Ricoh that we really need save/load to/from file

[Grus74]

I'd love to show this to someone and with a smile say "look, a ricoh is so simple to handle, just follow this simple instructions"

Tom, great (insane?) work though and I'm glad that you shared it!

[odklizec]

Maybe it's just (strange) me, but I think this whole thing looks more complicated than it actually is? Fortunately, the Ricoh menu is very logical and simple to follow. The "only" complication is that some settings are global and cannot be saved to My/Box settings. All we can do is to nudge Ricoh about allowing us to save all options to My/Box settings.

What I personally dislike on My/Box settings is that assigning Box position to My position actually overwrites the target My settings. I would prefer if the My and Box settings would swap their positions. In this way, the number of possibly saved (and persisting) positions would increase from 6 to 9 (6 in Box and 3 in My settings). And none of them would be lost after reloading a position from Box!

[Tom Caldwell]

Further thoughts:

The matrix is not nearly as complicated as it first seems.

The box mode is a great gift to the GRD user who might delve into it.

Right from the start I was saying that it was probably the greatest innovation introduced for the camera. At the same time I cautioned that it might be written off as making the camera 'too complex' by those that did not hve the patience to wrestle with its complexities. This would be a pity because the box modes are a very powerful tool.

I have tried to make it a bit easier to understand by reducing the inter-action to a matrix on a spreadsheet.

What it shows:

1) I have not fully come to grips with what its optimum settings are (this is why I have made a couple of cries for help from others for 'recipes')

2) The menu within the box settings is not in the same order as the Shooting Menu - this adds to the confusion.

3) Some linked functions are scattered about a bit in the menu - I have tried to show these links diagramatically.

4) Some items are applicable universally - if you change things in the setup menu then they apply to all settings used by the camera. eg: if you want the camera to be completely 'quiet' you need to shut down the power-on button, the AF Aux light emitter, the lcd confirmation and the lcd screen itself (not in the menu - this is done by repeatedly pressing the 'disp' button. When finished the camera can be switched on but there is no sign of life other than the extended lens and the little focus light comes on when the camera has made good focus. Perhaps these separate individual functions could be reduced to one menu item 'quiet camera' that could be accessed by each individual box setting and not something that was a universal setting. Currently a user either has to switch off everything else but the screen for all settings to get the effect. Otherwise a user has to make four seperate changes every time he switches on the camera when using it 'quietly' - and they are 'all over the place' in the menu structure.

5) When using quiet mode the user has the option of switching the 'information display mode' off or on - this also applies universally. It goes hand in hand with the quiet camera modes but if Ricoh ever updates the quiet camera function as I have suggested then this function should be a separate one but also Box-specific and not universal.

6) All items in Key Custom Settings and the Setup Menu apply accross all setup situations and are not Box-specific excepting for the curious cases of function key settings and white balance compensation. Both of these functions can be optionally switched off and on to be saved in Boxes. Why this is necessary is a bit strange. Surely even if permanently on then they can be ignored and left as standard? I think that this might be a firmware programming glitch. They were meant to be always on but left out on a limb somwhere and this is the way that they might be brought back into contention. They were included in the non-box-specific Key Custom Settings menu set and should have been in the Shooting menu set - this is just a way to incorporate them. To add a similar setting for 'quiet camera' would turn a maze into a labarynth.

7) I have only just got my mind around the Manual Focus Distance setting and I think I understand it. It is one of the effectively 'undocumented features' in the Box Editing menu and is apparently the first focal distance used when entering manual mode. If you have a fixed distance that you commonly shoot at or even if you wish to use a specific fixed distance of whatever length for a session then this is very useful. Note that you can set say 'Ski Jump Launch Distance' in a Box menu, then copy it to (say) My3 - use it then if you temporarily find the distance incorrect edit it in the My3 mode only. You can then switch your camera off and on and My3 will remember the new distance. But by copying the 'SJLD' from its box back into My3 you will reset the original focus point set.

Neat - this camera wil make us all stars if we put some effort into it.

8) The white balance compensation mentioned in 7) above is not the usual white balance compensation for variable known light sources or even a manual white balance set. This is something way deeper. You can manually fine tweak the actual colours to get the colour balance you wish and optionally chose to save these tweaked colour balances with any or all of your box setups. Deep - too deep for me at present but something I can fiddle with if ever I get bored ..

I could go on ... but I would like some feedback - perhaps I am wasting my time and GRDIII users are really closet point'n'shooters? This camera is destined to be an even greater classic I hope that those that extract the very best from it do not get the reputation as being witch doctors who rattle a few bones and mutter secret words at the camera before they go on and produce something exquisite.

For those that see these strange menus as being just too hard I am hoping that they will persevere and that my chart might be some sort of guide to setting the camera up.

For those more experienced than I am I would like some advice as to where my proposed settings are gong astray. Well I know all about RAW - so you don't need to tell me to use RAW exclusively (smile).

As an old GRDI owner I have switched off all noise reduction and am using Auto High and on noise reduction to 1600 ISO - perhaps I am being unduly heavy-handed there and in better light some noise post processing might not be as bad as tradition would tell us?

[Tom Caldwell]

Pavel

A couple of things:

1) I am very happy to share my spreadsheet with the Ricoh community. I would really appreciate it if other could add their special working setttings to mine or modify and improve them as is necessary. We are all here to enjoy our cameras together. My only request is that they add their name and date to the document as I have done - sequentially to track modifications and where they came from - just common sense otherwise we might have quite a lot of versions floating about of varying merit. I am sure that I have not hit all the bells necessary to make a tune out of it.

I had not posted up the spreadsheet in its raw file form to your site as I was not sure how it would be handled - some instructions please (smile). Furthermore you might like it to be a downloadable feature somewhere on your site. It is currently in Open Office spreadsheet format but it has no tricks in it that could not preclude its export in Excel format as well.

2) Your idea of hot swapping My and Box modes is probably good but might even take a little more to get one's head around. My alternative - and currently do-able is to make the Box modes your 'hard' settings and to make minor store-able changes on the fly directly into the My mode setting so that they can be stored and re-used. Once a fine-tuned version is up it can be stored to the Box version or if desired the Box version can provide a return to 'default' setting for the My mode. In this way a really committed porfessional level user could have up to ten settings on the go!

Six Box settings, three modified Box settings in My mode and the PASM settings as well ...

3) The whole 'mess' of the order of the menus and the twiddly details that are rough seem to smack of a final hurried rush to market - perhaps the hardware was ready before the back-room firmware boffins had finished tidying detail? In any case once the problems have been fully identified there should be no reason why an interim firmware uodate culd not fix them - there is nothing wrong with the camera physically as such.

[Tom Caldwell]

Changing My Mode settings on the fly almost needs an indicator on the name (such as '*") so that the user can easily see and remember that the My setting is no longer the same as the Box setting of the same name.

[Tom Caldwell]

Mark my words - the GRDIII will be used by many who will never really plumb the depths of the My and Box modes. Others will see the complication and shy away from it. A pity.

Others will see this as the greatest ever tool for any camera and use this tool rigorously. They will become the GRD gurus and I can see people wistfully in their cups in years to come remembering some 'great' who could really make the GRD sing so sweetly.

What the GRDIII might lack in sheer sensor size can be at least partly compensated by the lens and the fine tuning of use available. I have found to my cost that I just cannot re-set my camera quickly enough when shooting conditions change unexpectedly. There is no reason why anyone could not pre-program their GRDIII via box settings for a specialised occasion by anticipating those particular variations. Popularly we might just set up some broad categories.

An example might be my circus antics. I have been using my dslr gear. However the lighting required 14 changes of light balance during the shoot. There might have been as little as six light variations used but they were mixed and matched. There is every possibility that a careful run through of the lighting beforehand might allow six appropriate colour set ups in Boxes for a specific occasion such as this.

A bit of an extreme example - but you can see where I am coming from.

[Tom Caldwell]

I have a bit of a curiosity about auto mode.

It seems to work very similarly to P mode left alone.

It does change settings to mimic the rest of PASM so it is not a fixed automatic mode and will follow PASM into way-out configurations. Further it does not seem to be restricted to low-ISO or prevent noise reduction manipulations.

So it is not easy-auto for those that like a camera that is simple. I guess if you never changed any of your settings then it would effectively be easy-auto. But if you are way out on a 1600 ISO limb with no noise reduction and you hand your camera to a bystander then merely switching to auto is not going to help the bystander with their technique in changed light and shooting conditions if this is the reason for its existence.

Seems all it does is P mode without the 'P'rogram-ability. Tell me if I am wrong as I am curious.

[Tom Caldwell]

.... and Ricoh really need to fill up their Boxes with some specimen settings designed by camera experts for others to fiddle with and for those not inclined to do so to accept as a lot less effort.

It takes a lot of fun away for those to whom fiddling with settings a chore. Could be accused by some of relapsing to cute scene modes but they would hardly use fairy-floss icons and the settings are editable.

I feel that this would make the camera more vendable to many people. The current situation of stunned silence from both reviewers and early adopters of the camera is prescient to the hurdle that a blank sheet of paper causes.

It is fun to a very few but a potential headache for most.