Shooting with GXR S10 plus TC-1 and DW-6

Last week, we stopped at some technicalities about the S10.  Let's start this week with a post on what I feel about it in real shooting circumstances.

Wandering with the GXR S10 into an old area with buildings primarily of over half a century old, I was amazed by the the scene heaving into sight: a flyover sticking out from the narrow space between two rows of old residential buildings; and more so when a bus whizzed past a coach followed.

Before the heavy vehicles appeared, I had stood at the scene with the TC-1 mounted on the S10 waiting for the shots.  If you don't know, Ricoh's telephoto converter TC-1 has a magnification of 1.88x to boost the GX100, 200 and S10's farthest focal length to 135mm.

To accentuate the apocalyptic feel for this scene, the shots were intended to be underexposed.  As often the case with my GX200, I also slightly zoomed the lens out a bit to show some vignetting on the corners to echo the feel.  The image setting was turned to Normal on the S10.  Although the colours in S10's images are more saturated than the GX200's, the colour in Normal setting still carries the unmistakeable pastel-shade character of Ricoh cameras' images.  I like this image character.  To me, the less contrasty feel more loyally represents the real scenes.

Then I attached a B&W circular polariser to the TC-1 and turned the image setting to Vivid to photograph the fruit shop across the street, ending with the photo above and the one below.  The colours are very saturated due to the effects of the Vivid setting, which is also enriched by the polariser.

Whether the Normal or Vivid image setting is more likeable is a matter of personal taste.  But you will definitely like this: the approximately 920,000 dots high-resolution VF-2 is the best as compared with the Ricoh's VF-1 and the Pany GF-1's.  Once again, I recommend any serious-compact user uses a viewfinder on the camera to compose a scene.   For one thing, it saves me the bother of avoiding the nosy passers-by who keep checking out what I am shooting, making me totally focused on the shots.  More importantly, the users can get a more accurate sense of how to tweak the best exposure combo, especially under the open sky in the daytime.

 
^The street plate is of a British colonial style which is not to be found easily in a lot of places.

Then I mounted the DW-6 on the S10, which is Ricoh's wide conversion lens.  With the DW-6, the S10 was able to take some penetrating 19mm-equivalent images.  So I made my way further down the street towards the flyover.  Now the flyover loomed over where I was standing and blocked a large piece of the sky.

While the better grip of the GXR allowed me to grip the camera steadier for the benefit of the telephoto shots with the TC-1, the same benefit was not obvious for the 19mm shots, if at all necessary.  There wasn't much difference between using the GXR S10 and my GX200.  The customisable Fn buttons and the quick menus are very familiar and equally useful on both machines.

But for the scenes I photographed in black and white at ISO 200, the final images are visibly cleaner and smoother than the GX200's.  The details are more faithfully preserved.

I really enjoyed the atmosphere of the old neighbourhood at this market.  The aged faces of the shoppers gives a clue to how old this place could be.  Some of them were curious about me, especially because I was using a "weird" camera. 

Even two policemen coming along stole a peek at the GXR.  They even dogged me for some distance.  Or was I acting suspiciously for having checked in my bag repeatedly?

Honestly, the cost factor aside, I enjoyed the GXR much better than the GF-1.  I took with me also the A12 module.  Again, the benefit for the photographer to be carefree in changing the modules whenever and wherever is something not to be underestimated.  In urgent cases, I shove the modules in the camera bag which I would not do to regular lenses.

The understatement?  If you consider buying the GXR, and you don't have the GX200, get both the A12 and S10 modules to take full advantages of the design.  Cost is an issue, yes.  Taken together, the GXR, A12 and S10 cost as much as Sony's affordable full-frame A850.  But we can't have the cake and eat it too.  The A850 is a hefty big boy and the investment is made in a different way, which some may say more wisely.  I will say differently.  The joy is very different if you ask me.

The GXR field report series will continue.