As some of you probably noticed (in GRD), that if the camera is set to Continuous mode, it uses the Auto ISO? According the manual (both GRD and GRDII), the Auto ISO should be used only in M-Cont and S-Cont mode! Maybe it's just a mistake in both manuals? Let's say we can live with forced Auto ISO even in Continuous mode. The much worse problem is, that if the GRDII is set to Continuous mode (to any of them) it also enables the NR, regardless of the actual NR setting. And this is unfortunately a major problem!
Before I show you some comparison crops, I would like to tell you about my reasons of using Continuous mode. It's not only good for shooting fast moving subjects, but it can be useful also in case of low/bad light as a workaround for missing stabilization. If you take multiple pics in a row, there is always a good chance that some of them will be sharp. I'm successfully using this technique with my DSLR and I don't see any reason why it shouldn't work with GRD? Unfortunately, the continuous mode is definitely unusable if the NR is ON. I really hope, the Ricoh engineers finds it as a bug and fix it in a nearest FW upgrade.
OK, here is the ugly sample. First row is GRDII, second row GRD. Both cameras set to continuous mode and Auto ISO selected ISO322. As you can see, the details are completely destroyed in the GRDII crops...
One more example, this time all crops from GRDII. Even at this low ISO (125) you can see how brutal the NR is (if set to ON). Camera NR is set to OFF in all four shots. However, the Continuous mode seems switch the NR to ON regardless the actual setting.
I really hope this will get fixed, because this issue makes one of the most important GRD/GRDII features useless..at least in case of GRDII.
i truly can't imagine this won't be fixed. Ricoh is so good at listening to its users. the question, as always, is when... again, very good catch! you are being so thorough. would that all reviews and tests be as dedicated as you are.