RICOH GR IIIx Camera Review

The RICOH GR IIIx is incredibly portable. Aside from its lens, which extends out a fraction further, it has the exact same dimensions as the RICOH GR III. You can see the camera with its lens fully extended here. The camera's small enough to fit into pockets or purses, making it exceptionally easy to take on the go.

The camera feels well-built overall. It has a magnesium alloy body that feels sturdy and lightweight. For the most part, the buttons and dials feel solid, though the rear command wheel feels flimsy. A locking hinged door covers the battery and SD card compartment, but the USB-C port is only covered by a rubber flap. Unfortunately, the camera isn't weather-sealed. Dust can get inside the lens and through to the sensor; while this is true of any camera, the GR IIIx's compact design and tendency to be stored in pockets makes it a bit more susceptible to lint and dust. Additionally, the ring cap is detachable and feels like it could be lost or broken somewhat easily.

The camera's minimalist design means there aren't too many buttons to work with, but even so, you still have three command "dials" to work with, so to speak. There's the front dial near the shutter, which is cleverly designed in a vertical orientation to keep the camera's profile down. Then there's the rear wheel, which you also use to navigate the menu, and finally, the multi-function compensation lever on the back, which can be pressed as a button or toggled back and forth to adjust exposure settings. All of these are customizable.

• USB-A to USB-C cable
• 1x RICOH DB-110 battery
• Power adapter with detachable plug
• Hot shoe cover
• Wrist strap
• User manual and documentation

The camera has decent ergonomics, considering its compact size. It has a small hand grip, and though it can feel cramped for those with larger hands, the camera is designed to be comfortably used with one hand. The textured rubber around the side of the body provides sufficient grip, and there's a small protrusion on the back of the camera on which to rest your thumb. Despite its small size, the buttons are well-placed and easy to reach without accidentally making an unintended input. There are enough dials to control all of your exposure settings in manual mode, which is great. The camera also has a quick menu, accessed by pressing the ADJ button, that lets you adjust up to five settings, as you can see here. Most of the buttons and dials are customizable, too, including the video mode button on the side of the camera, and there are three custom user modes on the mode dial, so you can set custom settings for different shooting scenarios and easily switch between them. That said, there's no viewfinder, and the screen is fixed, making it harder to shoot at different angles. The lens also lacks a focus ring, so those who prefer to adjust focus manually have to use the notched rear dial, which doesn't allow for the smoothest focus adjustments.

This camera doesn't have a viewfinder.

The RICOH GR IIIx has a fixed screen with full touch capability. It gets bright enough to overcome glare and has a decently high resolution, though it isn't the most accurate for reviewing your images. There's also an 'Outdoor View Setting' that lets you adjust the brightness up to 2 steps beyond its normal setting for better visibility in sunny conditions.

The menu system is great. Though it's very extensive, with a lot of options and pages to navigate, the interface is simple, and the clear language makes it easy to find what you're looking for. You can navigate it using the touchscreen or the rear control wheel. The quick menu only has five settings, but you can customize them from 17 different options to quickly access your most frequently used settings. Unfortunately, there's no guide or help function to explain what the settings do for novice users. On that note, beginners in search of a full auto mode will have to look elsewhere. While there's no auto mode, you can still automate most of the shooting process by using Program mode. In any case, the camera is aimed more at enthusiasts and advanced photographers, and its interface reflects that.

The RICOH GR IIIx has a built-in lens with a fixed 40mm full-frame equivalent field of view; in contrast, the original RICOH GR III has a wider 28mm full-frame equivalent lens. There's also a crop mode that lets you set the equivalent field of view to 50mm or 71mm at the expense of some megapixels. The lens has a fairly wide max f/2.8 aperture. While that's slower than the lens on the Fujifilm X100V, it's still faster than most compact cameras, giving you a bit of leeway in low-light situations. The camera also has a built-in neutral density (ND) filter, rated at 2EV, that you can toggle on/off when shooting at the max aperture in bright conditions. Finally, there's a simulated anti-aliasing filter option that uses the camera's stabilization system to move the sensor around in small increments to reduce moiré and false colors. However, it works at the expense of resolution. You can set it to either 'High' or 'Low,' and it only works at shutter speeds slower than 1/1000s.

The RICOH GR IIIx uses a 24 MP APS-C sensor and GR ENGINE 6 processor. The camera also has what RICOH calls an 'Accelerator Unit' for its processor, which processes the sensor's signal output to reduce noise across the camera's ISO range and allows the camera to shoot up to an extended ISO of 102400.

Unfortunately, the camera has poor battery performance. It's CIPA-rated for only 200 shots on a full charge. However, CIPA ratings tend to be on the conservative side, and your real-world mileage will vary greatly depending on your settings and how you use your camera. Still, it's not a bad idea to pick up a spare battery for longer days on the go, especially since the camera can't be externally powered while shooting. Likewise, its video battery life is very poor. Even with its recording limitations and max 1080p resolution, it only lasts for a little over half an hour of continuous recording time.

The RICOH GR IIIx doesn't have the fastest shooting speed. Its max burst rate is quite slow, though you can still use burst mode to capture fleeting moments with the right timing. That said, the burst rate slows down even more when AF-C is enabled. The camera doesn't have an electronic shutter, so there's no silent shooting option. When shooting RAW files, the buffer fills up fairly quickly, though it's also pretty quick to empty once full. In JPEG, on the other hand, you can shoot indefinitely without it slowing down.

The RICOH GR IIIx uses a hybrid autofocus system and supports face/eye detection, but it does a poor job of tracking moving subjects. Combined with its slow burst shooting, that makes it a poor fit for action and sports photography. On top of that, shooting in burst mode causes the screen to blackout, so you can't see the subject you're tracking.

Having said that, the camera does have a unique 'Snap Focus' feature that lets you select a preset focus distance, to which it will quickly 'snap,' effectively bypassing any kind of autofocus delay. With 'Full Press Snap' enabled, the camera will snap to the preset distance when you press the shutter all the way, as opposed to half-pressing to engage the autofocus. You can also use 'Full Press Snap' by tapping the touchscreen. Snap focus is useful for those who prefer to zone focus and can take quick, discreet snapshots in situations where they can accurately gauge their distance to the subject. In other words, it can come in very handy for street photography. Additionally, there's a 'Macro Mode' that changes the focus distance to between 12 and 24 cm (4.7 to 9.4 inches) in front of the lens for close-up photography.

If you use a center focus point rather than relying on tracking, you'll likely get a better hit rate, but it's still disappointing overall. Screen blackout in burst mode makes it difficult to stay with your subject, and the camera is pretty slow to keep up.

The RICOH GR IIIx has built-in sensor stabilization, called 'Shake Reduction' by RICOH. It helps stabilize the sensor across three axes and is CIPA-rated for up to 4 stops of compensation. While it's naturally a more limited stabilization system than the ones found on larger cameras, the fact that it even has a sensor stabilization system and still maintains its compact form factor is impressive. The stabilization, in combination with the camera's size and short lens, makes it possible to get clear handheld images at remarkably slow shutter speeds.

The camera has excellent dynamic range, especially for an APS-C sensor. It can capture a wide array of highlight and shadow detail.

Note: At f/4, the camera's max shutter speed is 1/2500s. To measure the camera's dynamic range at a 1/4000s exposure time (with an ISO of 8000), we had to deviate from our usual methodology and use an aperture setting of f/5.6.

The RICOH GR IIIx uses a relatively high-resolution sensor, capturing images with plenty of fine detail. While cameras with higher-resolution sensors will give you even more leeway to crop your images, you can still punch in or use the camera's crop mode without losing too much visible sharpness and detail.

Our RAW noise measurements for the RICOH GR IIIx are significantly higher than expected. However, even after confirming that our methodology was correct and retesting the camera on different versions of Imatest, we kept getting similar results. While we can't confirm why the measurements are skewed, we suspect it has something to do with the 'Accelerator Unit' processing that the camera applies to RAW files to reduce noise. We also cross-referenced our results with the read noise results of the RICOH GR III, as measured by Photons to Photos, which you can consult here, and their data chart seems to confirm that the camera applies noise reduction in the ISO range beginning at ISO 200.

The camera can record videos in Full HD, but otherwise, its video features are quite bare-bones. Note that you can only use Program mode when recording video, meaning you won't be able to lock in your shutter speed relative to your frame rate, which can result in stuttered or blurry motion.

The RICOH GR IIIx can capture 1080p footage at up to 60 fps, so it's suitable for different video styles, including more cinematic footage or clear motion. However, it lacks a high frame rate mode for slow-motion recording.

The camera's internal recording capabilities are fairly limited, which isn't surprising considering this is a photography-first camera. You won't get very high-quality, high-bitrate video files, but it's fine for more casual use. The recording time is limited to 25 minutes or whenever your file reaches a 4GB file size.

The RICOH GR IIIx supports continuous autofocus in video, but there's no tracking capability. If you want it to focus on a specific subject, you'll have to use touch focus and manually adjust the focus while recording. Generally, the camera is very slow to adjust focus, so it's mostly suitable for situations where subjects aren't moving.

The camera's video quality is disappointing. The image lacks detail and clarity, and the camera performs poorly in low light, with noisy, muddy-looking footage.

The camera doesn't exhibit too much rolling shutter distortion, so slanting vertical lines aren't too distracting, except when panning the camera quickly to the side.

The RICOH GR IIIx has a single SD card slot, rated for slower UHS-I cards. It also includes 2GB of internal memory, which is nice if you run out of space on your SD card and don't have a backup memory card.

Keeping with its minimalist design, the RICOH GR IIIx has a USB-C port for charging and file transfer and no other inputs. Unfortunately, that means you'll need an adapter to view your photos on an external display with HDMI, though it does support DisplayPort over USB-C. There's also no microphone input or headphone jack.