Ricoh Caplio R5

Opinion: Image quality is the best of the R series and IMO better than the CX pair also , imagine GX100 quality scaled down to a small sensor and you`re there - the R5 bugbear is that its Poorly made AND designed with lens Jams, crashes, frequent AF misses and sporadic blurred RH edge problems - add the worst designed zoom lever possible and you`ve got a right mixed bag on your hands - whether its treasure or trash depends on how good you are at keeping it running and how good the lens on your sample is but IMO its worth it for the image quality..

It`s the last Ricoh R series to use the GRD/GX battery (basically the Panasonic LX/FX Batt with ricoh written on it) and the last to do the famous R series telemacro .

Opinion: Bought just a refurb R5 (fw.162). Fine little cam! Yes, the zoomlever is a little bit fiddly, but the R5 is mostly well constructed, nice to handle and the IQ is quiet impressive for such a flexible lens in a small package. I love the great macro capability and the bw mode, which is not coupled with a scene mode as in newer R-models.
Im very glad that i found a as new R5, cause i would'nt buy one of the successors.

Opinion: Had two R3s, both of which had blurry lower left corners.
After reading lots of negative as well as some very positive reviews about the R5 (and after getting a good deal) I decided to go for it and give it a try myself.

I lucked out as my copy has very good edge to edge sharpness, so far no AF problems and a smoothly functioning zoom lever.

Picture quality is very good. In fact i like it better than the IQ from the R3s (blurry corners aside). To me there is more clarity in the R5 pictures and after comparing them, I have to say that they do remind me alot of the pictures I am getting from my GRD. Probablty a similar amount of Noise Reduction in the GRD and the R5.

Pictures are very sharp and colorful. Like with the GRD, the pictures have a certain "feel". My Panasonic TZ5 may (at times) produce better pictures, but this little camera can create the trademark Rioch "larger than life" feel.

Opinion: Had two R3s, both of which had blurry lower left corners.
After reading lots of negative as well as some very positive reviews about the R5 (and after getting a good deal) I decided to go for it and give it a try myself.

I lucked out as my copy has very good edge to edge sharpness, so far no AF problems and a smoothly functioning zoom lever.

Picture quality is very good. In fact i like it better than the IQ from the R3s (blurry corners aside). To me there is more clarity in the R5 pictures and after comparing them, I have to say that they do remind me alot of the pictures I am getting from my GRD. Probablty a similar amount of Noise Reduction in the GRD and the R5.

Pictures are very sharp and colorful. Like with the GRD, the pictures have a certain "feel". My Panasonic TZ5 may (at times) produce better pictures, but this little camera can create the trademark Rioch "larger than life" feel.

Opinion: Had two R3s, both of which had blurry lower left corners.
After reading lots of negative as well as some very positive reviews about the R5 (and after getting a good deal) I decided to go for it and give it a try myself.

I lucked out as my copy has very good edge to edge sharpness, so far no AF problems and a smoothly functioning zoom lever.

Picture quality is very good. In fact i like it better than the IQ from the R3s (blurry corners aside). To me there is more clarity in the R5 pictures and after comparing them, I have to say that they do remind me alot of the pictures I am getting from my GRD. Probablty a similar amount of Noise Reduction in the GRD and the R5.

Pictures are very sharp and colorful. Like with the GRD, the pictures have a certain "feel". My Panasonic TZ5 may (at times) produce better pictures, but this little camera can create the trademark Rioch "larger than life" feel.

Opinion: I purchased the R5 to replace my defunct Praktica Luxmedia (relatively obscure make, but very nice photos).

The good things are the nice zoom range, some manual controls and the dedicated button to show the last picture taken.

The menus are very easy to follow and quite clear. No problems there.

The macro ability is very good, with a nice control to change the focus point manually - something I hadn't seen on any other camera before.

Opinion: I brought this camera thinking it was going to be great, but unfortunately i was really dissapointed and im sending it back

Opinion: Seems like Ricoh took a small step back with this one. I loved the R4 and
expected the R5 to be better. However, the zoom rocker is definitely not as
easy to use as the R4 and I can't see any improvement on the image quality
either.

It's still a great little cam, with the wide angle and zoom that makes the R
series such a great little travel companion. But I'd still have the R4 over this
version.

Opinion: HANDLING: a bit ackward at the beginning but I got familiar to this rather quickly.
MACRO: fantastic macro capabilities!
BATTERY: the camera’s low consumption profile helps in taking many shots before the battery runs out, however I ‘d recommend a second battery.
Camera shake correction: effective but not as much as I’d like it to be.
ZOOM: fantastic 7x optical zoom. Can be extended to an incredible 34x through the Digital Zoom IMG process by cutting the outer pixels of the sensor. There is a decrease in quality of course but not the one you have through the normal digital zoom (3,6x here).
NOISE: any digi-compact without noise? Well, up to ISO 160 the images are practically noise free. They are nice with accurate colours. From then on the noise becomes more and more apparent. At printed photos however it’s hard to notice the noise even at ISO 400, (size 13x18 cm) unless the shot is taken with the use of digital zoom.
OTHER ASPECTS: nice colours, wide angle strats from 28 to 200, fast response, small size.