Ricoh GR Digital II review

The GR Digital II's noise isn't very pretty either. Even at its lowest sensitivity setting, the GR Digital II has some minor noise, though you probably won't notice it in prints. It doesn't become very noticeable until ISO 200, though that's still not stellar performance in today's compact camera market.

However, there isn't much sharpness or shadow detail lost to noise at ISO 200. By ISO 400, noise detracts noticeably from the images, a large amount of sharpness is lost and shadow detail begins its precipitous demise. At ISO 800 noise is quite heavy and most of the sharpness and shadow detail is gone. Conditions only get worse at the camera's top sensitivity of ISO 1,600. We suggest staying below ISO 400 if possible on this camera and wouldn't suggest using ISO 800 or ISO 1,600 at all.

Conclusion
Sony's top T-series models and Canon's most expensive compact models tend to deliver sharper images and don't nearly cost as much as this Ricoh. Of course, they don't have manual exposure controls, and the ones on the GR Digital II are quite handy. They also don't have hot shoes, though we can't imagine how unwieldy the Ricoh would be with a hot-shoe flash on top of it.

Given its price, we'd have to point someone toward the Fujifilm FinePix F50fd before telling them to buy this Ricoh. The Fuji is just as small and pocketable, has similarly high-level manual exposure controls, sensor-shift image stabilisation, a 3x optical zoom lens, and costs up to £150 less than the GR Digital II.

Additional editing by Nick Hide