Last week I wrote a review of the Ricoh G600 ruggedised camera, and over the last couple of days I've been trying the camera out and taking some test pictures with it.
Ricoh G600 Sample Pictures
Ricoh G600 Shooting Experience and results
In common with most compact cameras, the G600 doesn't have an optical viewfinder, and therefore the LCD has to be used to compose and review pictures. Although LCDs generally are really not good for this, I found the G600 has one of the better LCD's and I found I could see it in most conditions, although not full sunlight.
The zoom range, although not excessive, is pretty useful, and I found it helpful to frame up some shots, although I found for the macro shots it is best to keep to the widest focal length and get as close as possible. When used in this way, it's possible to get as close as 1 cm, and I found the camera is capable of some really good macro results.
Although the pictures above have been imported into Lightroom prior to uploading to this post, I didn't change the colour settings at all and found the camera capable of some really good colour rendition.
I was quite impressed with the dynamic range of the camera, especially considering it has such a small sensor. One of the pictures above is a macro picture of a flower which also includes the sun in the top of the picture, and the picture is in no way washed out or poorly exposed, which is saying quite a lot for a camera of this class.
Ricoh G600 Video
The video below is a sample of the video capabilities of the Ricoh G600. As you can see, there are some very pronounced bands running vertically up and down the picture. I don't know if this is a particular problem with the G600 or if it is a problem with my particular camera.
