Ricoh Claims New GR III is the Ultimate Street Photography Camera

A new cutting-edge digital compact camera from Ricoh is being dubbed the “ultimate street photography” camera by the company in a bid to carve out a bigger slice of the lucrative digital compact market.

Image via Ricoh.

But these claims may not be a bunch of hot air if specs and initial promises from Ricoh are to be believed as it looks like the GR III is shaping up to be quite a contender indeed.

Lightweight and with a battery capable of staying out in the field for quite a while, the GR III also has a 24.24-megapixel APS-C sensor with a minimum ISO at 100 and no maximum value specified by the maker as of press. This is all behind a 18.3mm f/2.8 (28mm in 35mm terms) lens with 6 elements in four groups. PetaPixel reports the camera will capture 14-bit RAW (DNG) and video at 1080p. Audio can be captured using the built-in microphone and the GR III should be able to record 25 minutes of video in total.

There is 2GB of internal storage as well as storage via an optional SD card. Deploying a hybrid autofocusing system (image plane matching and contrast detection capabilities), the GR III also has “self-timer, 35mm/50mm crop, highlight/shadow correction, slow shutter speed and high ISO noise reduction, in-camera RAW development features, a 3-inch 1.037-million-dot LCD touchscreen, Wi-Fi, a hotshoe, and a rechargeable battery” according to PetaPixel.

For its part, Ricoh said of the new GR III, “For more than 20 years, the RICOH GR series has kept to its core concept of optimizing the essential values of a camera — high image quality, snapshot capability and portability — while at the same time making the refinements needed to meet emerging and evolving needs…Because of this, GR-series models have been preferred by a great many photographers, particularly professionals and highly experienced amateurs.”