GRDIII specimen set up matrix for boxes

[Tom Caldwell]

yay! it works - thanks Pavel - hope that all those little GRDIII beavers now get to work (smile)

[BillBingham2]

Tom,

Thanks for the uploading sheet. I'm going to try for the same thing with my GX100.

B2 (;->

[thelps]

Thanks Tom, I've grabbed a copy and having a look.

Further to Pavel's thoughts, I also would like to see Ricoh add a feature to be able to save users custom setup for the whole camera to a file on the SD card. Then if you lost or damaged your Ricoh you could move settings from camera to camera without reprogramming - you could backup these files on your Mac/PC. Further again, is some kind of inbuilt camera mini web server accessible via the USB to use a web browser to be able to set these parameters - this could make the layout clearer. This web interface idea is overkill and I would not like it introduced at the expense of something else, but it would be unique for Ricoh to do such a thing.

[Tom Caldwell]

Ah ha! an aussie - that is why you are up - sort of get used to talking to myself when addressing the rest of the world.

High winds up here yesterday and now we have a dust storm (again) today. Looking forward to a great summer ...

I agree that saving the Box-recipes is a good idea but also think that Ricoh might fill up at least three of the slots with some sort of bog-standard settings for those that do not wish to completely roll their own settings.

My little foray into this matter is directed at using the entire Ricoh GRDIII community to assist in getting some good-working (to coin a phrase) recipes in place. I have made the spreadsheet comprehensive but the recipes can actually be brief and I am appreciative of any comment as to what might make up the bare-bones recipe contents - most of the items in the spreadsheet show defaults left alone or other items which are more personal preference that fundamental camera-altering settings. These can be left out of bare-bones recipe design.

[BillBingham2]

What would be great is if they would provide a way to save and import the file(s) to the card and published the file format so that we could build a utility (series of macros) in Excel that could do an import/export to the camera. While I agree that with the ease of embedded Linux it would not be hard to put on a HTML server, I think simple is better. If the open up the file format we could create the same sort of import/edit/export utility in Open Office as well. Perhaps even a iTouch/iPhone app!

B2 (;->

[Tom Caldwell]

Bill you make my eyes water - and me just up to a pretty spreadsheet. ... (smile)

I was hoping that my little effort would set GRDIII users on fire but I am grateful for small encouragements. A similar set of posting on the Ricoh forum of dpreview has just about scrolled out of sight. Seems that it is a bit of a yawn over there. Real GRD users just create their own in a couple of minutes us slower witted ones need to 'do' a spreadsheet and get all cerebral about it (and plod along).

In reality many will just look and not comment (I am not looking for sycophantic praise - just an indication that I have not been wasting my time) Present company is excepted of course.

On the other hand it is a bit early and many GRDIII users might not have deeply delved into the Box settings as of yet - maybe they think that they are for pansy's ... and real GRDIII users just show a gritted jaw and twist the dials at the very moment they need to change settings with a dextrous snap of the fingers and a devil may care look in their eye ...

I am sorry that I have not reached the GRDIII doctorate of nirvana just yet - I need all the help I can get to fumble around my camera just hoping that I can get it right - well, next time perhaps.

One would have thought that all those experts moaning and groaning abut noise and lack of IQ in small sensors would be trying to get every help from the GRDIII's impeccable level of control and its great fast lens - ah but they would not own a GRDIII would they? So where are those GRDIII people that want to wring that extra gram of performance?

Oh but it is early days of yet - the word has not got around, surely there will be more movement at the station when Clancy gets his show? (Secret code known only to Australians - grin).

I am really not complaining it is only my perverse sense of humour ....

[Driller]

Tom,

had a quick look at your settings, have been watching this forum for a while and got my GRD III about a 2 weeks ago. Here's my settings, i only have 5 that i have set up so far. I also modified colour settings to mimimise pp work. Setting 1 for image is; Vividness +2, contrast +1 and sharpness +2, i use this for all colour. For B&W TE i use sepia with vividness -1, contrast +two and sharpness +2. I still have plenty to go with this understanding this camera but i really enjoy being able to have so much control. I am yet to work out the flash and i think that i probably will change some of the colour settings so a little less will need to be done in lightroom. Looking forward to seeing what others have decided upon, with so many different options it will take a long time to master this camera!

Will

[Tom Caldwell]

Will

Perhaps this one is for Pavel?

It wold be good to get a consistent test subject and to have this subject shot with the various proposed settings that have been suggested by users then labelled with the setting used and placed in a file repository for inspection. In this manner the various settings can be compared in an objective sort of way. It would be a labour of love and not one that could easily be wished upon anyone though.

I can see the difficulty as everyone will have their own idea on how their images should look - hence my comment that no two GRDIII's will end up with identical set up configuration - it is impossible.

On a similar but earlier issue:

I did my own test shoot with every combination of sharpness and contrast for the GRDI

http://www.flickr.com/photos/49387980@N ... 295493690/

This is the lead picture in a series - they are not in a separate folder.

Tom

[Tom Caldwell]

Easy set up for Boxes and My modes:

Set up whatever you like normally and then "Register my Settings" to either a My mode or a Box mode - whether under the same name or chose 'another'.

If you find that you have set up a My mode first then simply stay in that My mode and "Register my Settings" to a Box mode as well. If the setting slot is not already named and you leave that name unchanged then the default name will be applied which is date/time.

You can easily edit to the name of your choice later.

This allows you to:

1) Copy a Box mode to a My mode (over-write)

2) Save a current My mode in its temporary changed form for current use only (over-write it with the Box version later)

3) Save the current modified My mode as the Box mode version and also save it to the My mode. But you can leave the My mode as it was previously to modification and merely change the stored Box version.

If this is making your head spin then just re-read it slowly a few times - it is not that hard and is in truth a very useful and powerful feature. But it might be beyond those that just want a camera to take pictures in non-demanding situations.

Note that there are other items that can be stored in My or Box modes that only show in the Box Edit Mode therefore setting up via normal menu access does not give you 100%. See my spreadsheet for the items that are unique to BEM.

What comes to my mind is that the Box modes be limited to broad sweep general settings and that on the fly modifications in the field be stored to the current My mode being used.

If you decide that the new changes are not working then you can return to the current My mode easily enough.

If you like them and wish to keep them for the entire current session but do not wish to make this permanent then save the set up to the current My mode you are using - you can turn the camera on and off at will and the set will be restored.

You can recall the saved Box mode to the My mode when finished for the day and you are back where you started. However if you decide that this new version is exactly what you want then you can save it to the Box mode as the best yet setting for these circumstances.

Therefore the Box/My mode feature can be fine tuned over a period of time in a fairly painless manner with just a little thoughtfulness.

You don't have to go out on a limb and try and pre-program your camera like I might seem to have been suggesting. Perish the thought.

On the other hand it does lend weight to my suggestion that Ricoh might set up (say) four or five (leaving spares) bog-standard Boxes already filled up. Then the user would have something to start with having a Ricoh-standard introduced naming phraseology that they could happily ever after modify to their personal preferences - even over-write the supplied name and make the setting do something completely different if they so wished.

[tommy]

Tom, I like your idea about two levels of temporary changes to the My-modes: the latest stable version in the box, the current tryout version in the my-mode, and usual adaption to the situation for the "session". This is a mental model that makes it much easier to understand the my-modes. But I think Pavel's idea with swapping modes (which is not the way it currently works) is even easier on the mind; you have nine different modes, of which you at any time can use three from the mode dial. With Pavel's model it would be easy to copy a stable mode (switch to it and register in a new position), rename it to foo*, and do the tryout there, and when satisfied, discard the old mode.

About the flash compensation vs the EV compensation, I think the biggest problem with having both set by EVC is that you'd typically always lower the EV a lot for flash usage. Also, GRDs have ttl flash, while CXs doesn't, so I'd expect them to behave differently whatever the possible settings are.