r/ricohGR

I wanted to share my opinion on the GR3x, which I bought in 2022, a couple of months after its release, and which was my favorite camera for four years.
First of all, I think GR cameras are irreplaceable, and all attempts to build GR killers out of small mirrorless cameras and Chinese lenses are pointless, they just won't have the same functionality and ease of use that the GR gives you, not to mention the most convenient snap focus mode. And if you do manage to build a "GR killer", it's only because a real GR person simply wouldn't be able to get the most out of it given their skills and needs.
The camera turned out to be truly irreplaceable for me, but at the same time it was the most fragile and problematic camera I've ever owned.
I'll start with the bad:

Dust gets on the sensor after about six months of shooting in normal conditions and carrying it in a camera bag without a case, a JJC sticky filter helps reduce the amount of it significantly. Sensor cleaning is expensive, ridiculously expensive, so by my second year of owning it I had already learned to do it myself in about 20 minutes.
The rear dial on my GR3x would periodically stick and was replaced under warranty. The replacement dial also started sticking and phantom-clicking, but less often, so I would just blow it out with a blower from time to time.
After 3 months of use I started getting some weird glitches, they fixed it under warranty by resetting the firmware. But I was without the camera for a month and a half.
The original decorative ring was very easy to lose, and all the third-party ones are metal on the inside instead of plastic like the original, so once the paint wears off from putting them on, they start shorting the contacts for the Tele/Wide converters and the camera randomly switches into those modes. I couldn't figure this problem out for a whole year, and all I needed to do was replace the decorative ring :)
Third-party decorative rings don't have a spring and wear down the pin, so the metal shavings get inside the pin and at some point the filter just stopped coming off. I managed to carefully cut it apart.
The contacts inside the battery compartment deform over time under the pressure of the battery and the camera starts shutting off when shaken. It can be fixed by slightly bending the contacts back, but you have to be careful not to overdo it. Third-party batteries are slightly shorter than the original ones and the contact is even worse with them, but if the original battery works properly and the Chinese one loses contact, I wouldn't recommend modifying anything inside the camera.
Weak battery life, but that's forgivable considering the size and the fact that you can carry spare batteries.
After 3 years of use, the shutter button started misclicking and sometimes required more pressure. I found a replacement on AliExpress and asked a friend to solder it in, since the official service center turned out to be capable only of doing paid diagnostics, finding nothing, and then offering to replace the entire board.
Another six months later, the power button also started triggering randomly on its own. I couldn't find the exact same button, but I measured the original one and found an excellent equivalent at a radio components store.
Weak autofocus, but this wasn't a big problem for me, since I saw it as a nice addition to the snap focus mode.
Towards the end of the fourth year, a whistling sound started coming from inside the focusing module.
The stabilizer started making weird knocking sounds when I was simply walking around with the camera turned on in my hand.
I got a "Lens Error", the official service center once again charged me for diagnostics and simply suggested replacing the entire optical block. In the end, a private repairman brought the camera back to life, it turned out to be a partially broken flex cable inside the lens assembly.

I fixed the camera and sold it after 50 thousand shots, replacing it with a Fuji XE5, which I happily sold a couple of months later and got a classic GR3 instead :)

Now for the good stuff:

The lens, sensor, ND filter, stabilizer, macro mode, all of it works really well and allows you to get seriously good images out of such a tiny camera.
The way it works. It was very convenient for me to save 3 presets to the User modes so I could quickly jump from a fast shutter speed to a slow one (or any other similar cases), instead of manually changing every setting each time and sometimes risking missing a shot. This is also where I'd mention the ability to remap the buttons and generally customize the camera's controls to your liking. It is made for photographers.
The SN mode was a revelation for me. I already knew about hyperfocal distance, but this camera taught me to love it so much that now I look at the autofocus on my Sony a7c2 and wonder why it's even needed there. The depth of field scale, the ability to quickly change the focusing distance, or even set it before turning the camera on if it's saved in User1 User2 User3, all of this lets you shoot instantly instead of having to set up the camera beforehand.
The size. Strangers don't take this camera seriously, which also opens a lot of doors, and I literally carry it with me everywhere, even if I'm just going to take the trash out for a couple of minutes. You always have the opportunity to take a shot. You can always operate the camera with one hand, changing any of the available settings.

For me, this camera was a real revelation, and after shooting with another system for a couple of months trying to find an alternative to a compact notebook, I ran back to Ricoh, but this time, as I said, the GR3.

I've wanted to share my experience for a long time, hope this post was useful.
The limit for photos in a post is 20, so I uploaded more of them to this Flickr album:
https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjCZaiL
Thank you!

GR IIIx vs GR IV for travel

Some Japan on the GR II

1 month with RICOH GRIV

Price Confusion GR IV vs GR III

Small update before the big one

Golden Hour Pontiac

Tradizioni italiane 🥫📍

Four years with RicohGr3x.

Shots from Mexico

Some Street Shots from Today

Yesterday’s quick errand downtown turned into an interesting photo walk

International District, Seattle Set

Some straight out of camera high contrast work on the monochrome and GR3

Ricoh GR III in Ireland

Picked up the Ricoh GRiiix urban edition to match my car

Ricoh GR 3x vs. Camp Snap pro

How do you quick try out new camera recipes?

shows with no stages are the best

first day with my ricoh gr iv

First Ricoh GRIV photos (Japan)