Ricoh Caplio R6

Opinion: I use this camera for two years and I'm rather Happy
with it.

It's quite perfect for wandering outdoor for landscape
and nature pictures because of it's great
pocketability, perfect ergonomy and long life battery.

But it is a bit too fragile to carry it with when practising
more sportive activities like cross sountry skiing or
mountain Bike or exposing it in dusty or windy
conditions

Otherwise, it is a little below average camera in it's
class as concern pictures of rapid subjects like animals
or childrens and shoots in low light condition or using
the built in flash

Opinion: I've shot 4,000+ photos on the R6 and find the camera to have a good mix of features, especially the lens. But the image quality in low light is simply awful, and it's gotten worse with age. The camera is pretty much worthless except in daylight scenes.

I just replaced it with a Canon S90 and couldn't be happier!

Opinion: I can't recommend Ricoh Caplio R6.
The features were great on paper, but the camera has white balance, exposure and flash issues.

It is impossible to use as point-and-shoot unless in a perfectly lit outdoor setting, in which it does excellent pictures.

With artificial light, the white balance is quirky and even the "auto" setting often does not find the correct balance.

In darker settings (inside an apartment or at night), the flash produces pictures in which people's faces are totally overexposed at a 1m range.
There are no options to adjust this to my satisfaction.

The autofocus does not always work properly, and the flash does not always fire when it should.

Before buying the Caplio R6 I did a lot of research on forums and even on this site.
I now read about the same problems on a lot of forums and I wonder what the "professional" reviewers are reviewing?
Do they even shoot flash pictures of people at close range and low light? Wouldn't that be one of the most frequent uses for a compact camera?

After the camera fell on the ground, I could also admire the internal construction. No wonder much people complain about the lens getting stuck and other problems. They use glue paper to keep things in place, and many tiny cables are very lightly soldered, it takes a nothing to detach them.

So... no new Caplio for me.

Opinion: The camera is very easy to get to grips with. The controls and menus are very streightforward. I like the spot metering option. Image quality is quite good, although on the widest setting the corners can be blurred.

The pictures are fiarly low in contrast and saturation, giving a greyish quality.

If you want to take flash photos of people, then forget it. After trying all the auto options, spot metering, exporesure compensation, etc, I never got a correctly exposed picture. Every one was washed out, overexposed. I also like to take fill in flash photos. Unfortunately the R6 doesn't seam to grasp the concept, and exposes for the background, leaving the subject under-exposed.

I bought the camera at a reasonable price (£130), and it was good for landscapes on holiday, but I had to use my old Pentax Optio S if I wanted to take any flash photos. I have since sold my R6 on ebay.

Opinion: Great camera. Was concerned about image-noise, but so far hasn't been an issue, even in indoor settings. Night photography is another matter. Facebook photos (i.e. pub/club photography) are likely to be blurred regardless of your steady hold of the camera. Some of these can be doctored in post-processing (re-size, sharpening etc.). A program such as a Noiseware is recommended for real image enthusiasts. Can reduce noticable noise w/o too much detail loss in mose cases.

Opinion: Takes stunning pictures for such a little camera. Good colour reproduction and good auto metering. Not so hot in low light - understandable given the small sensor.

Wide angle shots get a little fuzzy towards the corners, and this is more pronounced to the right hand side. But not noticeable in moderately large prints, only on screen at full resolution. The in camera post processing is also a little aggressive.

It takes excellent sharp macro-shots.

Battery life is superb.

Opinion: I had this for a week and its going back. Compared to my old Sony DSC-L1, the pics are overexposed (especially indoor flash pics). even outdoor pics dont look very natural. Its feature packed, cheap, looks nice and has the best zoom ever .... but the pic quality wasn't too my liking!!

Opinion: I've used Nikon, Canon, Olympus. Ricoh not perfect camera but good choice.
Easy to use, great...great macro mode, metal body, good lens.
Noise is problem up 400 iso, but you can limit the auto iso sensitive, some freaks shoot in scene mode.

Opinion: After months of using the R6 i have to post my review here.
I still like this cam. It nearly does all it claims to do.
So here are my positive and negative remarks about the R6.

Positive:
- Excellent Lens for its size (smaller, but a bit slower than the R5 Lens)
- Macro is outstanding!
- Time-Lapse Mode
- Serial shot mode is fast
- Good Battery Life
- fast operation, fast startup
- pretty big screen
- "no-nonsense" menu system. my style :-) no big freaky icons (like casio or whatever)
- 640x480 Movie Mode
- AF Assist lamp works great, even in complete darkness.
- ADJ-Button lets you manipulate your prefered settings in seconds
- Step-Zoom option
- Very useful: 2 different "My Settings", completey configurable

Negative:
- Lots of hotpixels in long exposures
- No manual modes at all
- Dynamic Range of CCD (in combination with slow megazoom-lens) pretty narrow
- Glossy Screen, lots of reflections in bright light and hard to read then ( would've preferred a matte screen)
- Poor sound-quality in movie-mode
- No AE Lock in Time-Lapse mode (can lead to flickering movies)
- No optical zooming in Movie-Mode
- Cameras Image-Browser a bit on the slow side
- Infinity Focus is not 100% sharp at wide-angle!
- No 640x480 Fine Mode
- No "Trigger"-Style Shutter-Button in Serial-Mode. Means you must press the trigger all the time.

Yes, i know i have listed more negative points, but all in all the R6 is still a unique camera and i like it a lot, because it offers more than any other camera i know. But i have to add that you must explore this cam, it doesn't work so great as a simple Point'n'Shoot.