Ricoh GR and GR II

The Ricoh GR is a digital large sensor compact camera announced by Ricoh on April 17, 2013, one of a number of Ricoh GR digital cameras. It was succeeded by the Ricoh GR II in 2015.

Ricoh GR II

DPReview said that over the Ricoh GR, the GR II is "a fairly minor update ... the camera isn't a dramatic update ... the core of the camera remains the same".

New features over the GR

Ricoh

The Ricoh Company, Ltd. (株式会社リコー, Kabushiki-gaisha Rikō) is a Japanese multinational imaging and electronics company. It was founded by the RIKEN zaibatsu on 6 February 1936 as Riken Sensitized Paper (理研感光紙, Riken Kankōshi). Ricoh's headquarters are located in Ricoh Building in Chūō, Tokyo.

Ricoh produces electronic products, primarily cameras and office equipment such as printers, photocopiers, fax machines, offers Software as a Service (SaaS) document management solutions such as DocumentMall, RicohDocs, document solutions such as GlobalScan, Print&Share and also offers Projectors. In the late 1990s through early 2000s, the company grew to become the largest copier manufacturer in the world. During this time, Ricoh acquired Savin, Gestetner, Lanier, Rex-Rotary, Monroe, Nashuatec, IKON and most recently IBM Printing Systems Division / Infoprint Solutions Company. Although the Monroe brand was discontinued, products continue to be marketed worldwide under the remaining brand names. In 2006, Ricoh acquired the European operations of Danka for $210 million. These operations continue as a stand-alone business unit, under the Infotec brand.

Ricoh 500

The Ricoh 500 was one of the early relatively inexpensive 35 mm rangefinder cameras to enter the U.S. market in 1957. It had an unusually large (for that time) f/2.8 lens, and shutter speeds from 1 second to 1/500 second. Film was advanced by a rapid-throw "trigger" mechanism on the bottom, and focus was controlled by two buttons, at the 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock positions that permitted very rapid shifts of focus when needed for basketball and other such sporting events. Flash could be fired from a "hot shoe" on the top and from a regular socket connection.

The photograph above shows the external flash connection socket in the upper right corner. The red lever selects among M, F, and X flash synchronizations. The shutter button is barely visible over the letter "h" of "Ricoh." The two large knobs are designed to let the user's two index fingers rapidly focus the camera while following basketball players or other rapidly moving subjects. The wired mount for an external flash unit is shown in the center of the top view of the camera. The rapid film advance lever shown in the bottom view pivots on its right end and is pulled by the extension (shown folded out of the way) near the lens barrel. The bottom view also shows a reminder ring for noting the speed of the film currently in use.