CANON G9

It’s a good little camera, and you can tailor it very effectively, but beware of the noise, I’m trying to figure out some software to reduce it.

By the way Laurent, that Domke you sold me is really working well, it’s a very comfy bag even with plenty of weight. I’m glad I bought it off you!

Anyone had the opportunity to compare this camera with the Ricoh GRII? The Canon is cheaper, but I dont need the zoom. Like all small point and shoots, noise is a “problem” with both but which of these produces the better file and which is overall the better option for the discrete street shooter?

Good question Jon, I jumped in there straight and bought the G9 without considering the GRD II, I must say the G9 will not replace my Mju II loaded with 1600 neg film unless that digital noise reduction software works miracles. I’ve yet to test it.

@Andrew and Laurent,
you can borrow a GRDII for 48 hrs at pose-T in Paris free of charge until Jan 11th:
http://poset.canalblog.com/archives/test_gratuit_ricoh_gr_d/index.html
I had one on loan for the week-end, and there is no doubt that I’ll be buying some flavor of the GRxxx. Not sure which one at this point…

I had a thorough look a the G9 yesterday.Its nice.but I decided not to get it in the end because I wasn’t happy with the shutter delay.

Curiously, B&H in New York and Calumet do not even carry Ricoh cameras and sales representatives at each said that they didn’t have much faith in the company any more—one saying that he had thought it was out of business.

i bought the G9 after being unhappy of the long delays on the Panasonic DMC LX2, a really slow little thing even when shooting jpgs. i only shoot jpgs on the G9, actually on the B&W mode and i kind of like it. its noisy like every other point and shoot but at 400 it still holds ok. the display is really nice. ill try to get an external view finder once in ny to mount on the hot shoe. i bought the canon made lens adapter that protects the cheap made retractable lens. i find that it gives me a better grip and allows me to mount a( yellow or orange ) filter and a 58mm lens cap for storage.

Adorama has plenty Ricoh. Tell them stupid sent you, they love me.

You can turn off the sound of the shutter or lower its volume if you want it to be silent

Popflash also carries Ricoh:
http://www.popflash.com

But which camera has a cleaner RAW file? Any difference with noise?

G9 probably has cleaner files above 400 ISO (for my money, that is). Its 800 and 1600 settings are (more or less) useable in colour which (for me again) isn’t the case with the Ricoh. At least not consistently. If you shoot black and white this may not matter. If you use Raw Developer carefully you may be able to attenuate the differences. A G9 plus a GRD2 is a pretty good combination… The “snap” mode on the GRD2 is useful too…

I have shoot my winter trip my new G9 in par with my usual D2x for the last two weeks. My initial feedback is that the camera is usable but not even comparable with the clean results delivered by my D2x. At 80 and 100ISO images are ‘quite’ clean but still need some sort of noise removal.
I have get some good results with the latest custom profiles of Noise Ninjia that clean nicely the images.
Most of the images with snow are clearily showing off ghosting and halo, specially in the border aresa snow/sky. I think this is quite normal for a small sensor crammed with 12Mp.
Shooting speed is affected by SD access speed. After initial slow start with Standard SD I have been moved to use a Class 6 Panasonic SDHC with great improvement in usability.
Overall comment is positive.

Antonio D’Albore

Antonio, did you create the NN custom profiles or download them somewhere? The NN website doesn’t seem to have profiles for the G9, just the G7.

Thanks,
jack