Ricoh Caplio R7

Problems: Six problems encountered:

1. ALIASING ON LCD SCREEN. Pictures viewed on the 2.7" LCD screen appear aliased under certain circumstances, i.e. there are jagged distortions of lines. No other camera does that, only Ricoh! Try taking a picture of a row of parked cars, and observe how the picture on LCD screen is rendered aliased along the contour lines, particularly as you magnify LCD image. Problem is intrinsic to LCD screen, while picture as viewed on PC screen shows no such aliasing.
2. CAMERA'S LCD SCREEN GIVES SOMEWHAT DULL IMAGES. The screen yields dull-looking images when the actual images viewed on a computer screen are actually brilliant. LCD screen needs to be upgraded to match Canon and Sony.
3. SMEARING ON LCD SCREEN. When there is a bright light source, it causes a vertical smear from top to bottom of the LCD screen. Fortunately, the smear does not appear in the captured image. I have never seen any other camera LCD screen show this effect. Why Ricoh?
4. INFINITY FOCUS GIVES OUT OF FOCUS UNDER CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES. When you set focus to infinity for very distant objects, the camera sometimes gives back a blurred out of focus picture. I noticed the problem while taking a panoramic picture of a plain and mountains in the distance on a slightly hazy day. When I switched to Auto Focus, the picture became sharply focused.
5. IMAGE STABILIZATION IS INSIGNIFICANT. The degree of image stabilization provided by the R7 is minimal compared to Canon, Sony, Panasonic, and most other cameras. The inadequacy of the image stabilization is particularly apparent at the telephoto end of the zoom range (100mm-200mm).
6. HALF-PRESS FOCUS PROBLEMATIC WITH MOVING OBJECTS. When you half-press to lock focus on a moving object, the LCD screen display freezes the scene for a small fraction of a second, leading to errors in composition. No such quirk occurs with my Canon Powershot camera.

It is conceivable that some of these problems may be resolved with a further firmware upgrade beyond ver 1.25. For the rest of the problems, I am afraid one may have to wait for the arrival of future generation Caplios. The camera offers manual focus, which is unique in this class of camera.

WISH LIST
The camera does not offer a Panorama setting, i.e. a setting that would permit panning the camera to take a series of shots that can be stitched together to create a panorama. All Canons do. Ricoh, you should!

Also, an aspect ratio setting of 16:9 is lacking, which is a negative for the many of us who which to view their photos on a wide, 16:9 PC screen or on HDTV.

Finally, in the future, it would be desirable for next-generation Caplios to incorporate more manual controls, such as aperture priority and shutter speed priority. A hotshoe for an external flash would further set this camera apart from the crowd.

ALL IN ALL AND DESPITE THE HIGHLIGHTED NEGATIVES, THE R7 REMAINS THE BEST CAMERA TODAY IN ITS CLASS.

Problems: Zoom control is a bit quick but I am sure that with practice it will become easier

Problems: No significant problems, so far.

There is quite a lot of mechanical noise, although not as much as some reports would have you believe. It doesn't bother me at all but could be a problem with candid photos in a quiet environment.

I do wish it had an optical viewfinder but am not sure quite where they'd put it without making the camera bigger. Not that I've had a problem with using the LCD, so far, but I haven't had a chance to try it in bright sunlight (November in the UK!).

Problems: AUTO white balancing is no so effective, at least for internal picture with artificial light

More in general, in my opinion colors, in certain conditions, are warmer on Nikon than on Ricoh. I mean that Ricoh has "cold" colors (too few red "component", you can check it using WB-braket function)

Furthermore the light measurement is tricky on panoramic pictures: it's easy to take dark pictures. You have to measure carefully the light (point, half press button to read light and re compose picture)

I would add to the ADJ commands set the time choosing function (1 sec, 2 or 4 seconds)

In my opinion a max exposure time of 8 seconds is poor, I would add longer time (even 1 minute or a B function as on reflex cameras)

there are few scene modalities, I would add at least a Sunset option as in my previous Nikon

the volume took in movies is very low (good quality but low volume)

it is very noisy. it is impossible to take "secretely" pictures in quiet places as commonly happens travelling and trying to take "real life" scenes

Stabilization function is enhanceble, it is still quite easy to take shake pictures