With the launch of its new GR IV Monochrome camera, Ricoh has repositioned one of its most popular compact point-and-shoots as a serious contender in a market with few rivals: the realm of unadulterated digital black-and-white photography.
Very little separates this new model from its older sibling, the original GR IV, apart from its lack of a colour filter and the use of an exclusively monochrome-dedicated image sensor.
But, needless to say, that’s a really big difference.
By eliminating the filter used to capture colour information, along with the interpolation process that’s needed to generate colour images, this sensor can deliver superbly refined rendering and rich tonal gradation otherwise unavailable and unattainable by simply switching to a camera’s familiar but imperfect monochrome mode.
Unlike monochrome images produced using a general colour image sensor, each pixel on this monochrome-dedicated sensor renders a subject’s brightness, and nothing else. This in turn can help emphasize the image’s grain effects, among other things, which appear more similar to that of black-and-white film and less like digital noise.
View Ricoh GR IV Monochrome Pricing and Availability at Vistek
To date, there are currently only four other exclusively monochrome cameras on the market – the much pricier full-frame mirrorless Leica Q2 Monochrom, Q3 Monochrom and M11 Monochrom, and the considerably heftier Pentax K-3 III Monochrome APSC-format DSLR.
To its already extensive feature set, the monochrome version of the GR IV also adds a built-in red filter that allows for a more distinctive style of monochrome photography, along with two newly developed image-control options that provide for deeper and more diverse monochrome expressions.
Except for the presence or absence of an optional ND filter, other camera specifications for the monochrome version are the same as those of the original Ricoh GR IV.
Features
- 25.74MP AA-filterless APS-C CMOS image sensor
- Monochrome-dedicated image-control options, including Solid for a crisp, clean look, and Grainy
- Built-in red filter in the lens unit that can be turned on or off
- Electronic shutter enabling high-speed shooting up to 1/16000 second
- 5-axis sensor-shift shake reduction
- 18.3mm (approx. 28mm in 35mm equivalent focal length) lens
- f/2.8-f/16 aperture range
- 7 elements in 5 groups