Ricoh GR2 user review part 3 Setting up the controls 22 January 2019

This is a bit late in the GR2 product life to be publishing a setting up post. But I figure there could be some new GR2 owners soon when established GRists upgrade to the GR3.

This post describes how I set up the camera with reasons. Others may take a different approach.

The basic principle behind my setup is to have the camera operate in most situations as automatically as possible with any changes to settings easily made without having to enter the menus.

The GR2 comes with a printed Operating Manual which is small enough to be taken out as a reference source in the early days of ownership.

Let’s start with the on-body controls.

I usually use P which generally gives an appropriate firing solution (aperture/shutter speed/ISO). But 

I keep an eye on the aperture which will go to f2.8 as soon as the light drops to LV10. If this does not give enough depth of field I will switch to A and f4, rarely f5.6.

It is possible to stay in P Mode and change aperture with Program Shift by rotating the front dial (called the up-down dial by Ricoh). But this can over-ride the previously set minimum shutter speed.

For instance I have  “Change shutter speed” at 1/60 second. This by the way is hidden in the  Setup menu under ISO Auto-High Settings. But if the shutter speed selected by P Mode is already at 1/60 second it will drop lower if aperture is reduced (higher f number) by Program Shift.

There is no auto panorama function so for panoramas you must set the Mode Dial to M and set a specific aperture, shutter speed and ISO and lock the focus before making a set of overlapping exposures.

The My1, My2 and My3 Custom settings on the Mode Dial are a very useful place for gathering together a group of settings for a specific purpose such as landscape/tripod pictures.

On MY1 I have settings for tripod use. These include ISO 100, Av Mode, f5.6, RAW+ quality, 2 sec timer and exposure bracketing at +/- 2 EV steps.

On My 2 I have settings for making panoramas. These include M mode, aperture at f5.6, ISO 100, Raw quality. I lock focus with the AEL button.

My 3 is for bright light outdoors when I have trouble seeing the screen image clearly. This has all my usual settings with one change, being the screen brightness is set to Manual at maximum.

You can name each My setting which is handy. The procedure is well described in the Manual.

This is a handy multifunction control with push and jog left-jog right actions. It is useful in both capture and playback phases of use.

There is a list of functions which can be assigned to the ADJ Lever on page 120 of the Manual.  

I have

* ISO (set to Auto-Hi),

* Focus Mode (set to Spot AF),

* JPG picture settings (I use a custom setting with Saturation 6, Contrast 5, Sharpness 6 and Vignetting Off), 

* Bracketing (Off),

* Continuous (Off). 

I leave this lever at the top position as I find Continuous drive of little use.

If Focus and Drive are set to continuous and Quality to Raw, the camera fires at about 5 fps but the screen goes black. If quality is set to JPG fine the frame rate drops to 2-3 per second and the screen becomes active after an initial blackout period of about a second.

I find this very useful when set to AFL, with the Focus Mode at spot AF which I use routinely.

I set [AEL/AFL Lock keep setting] ON in the Key Custom Options menu.

Now when the button is pressed once the camera focusses on the area under the AF rectangle, an [AFL] sigh appears upper right on the screen, a focus scale appears on the left of the screen and focus is locked while several exposures are made. Unlock focus by pressing the button again.

This is very handy for maintaining focus at a set distance when people, cars, whatever,  are passing across the frame during a series of exposures.

Fn 1 (left cross key)

I leave this at default which is [FA/Move Target]  (FA is focus assist). Press Fn1 to activate the focus area seen as up/down/left/right arrows on the target and move it with the cross keys. Press Disp to return the AF target to the center, press Disp again to return the AF area box to normal appearance.

The instructions on page 63-64 of the Manual, and also indicated on screen are to press Fn2 for detail. This brings up a new screen with settings for focus assist and magnification. I played around with these for a while and found them unhelpful. There are 4 Focus Assist modes each of which I found unhelpful. The problem is the way the feature is implemented with an area of modified appearance around the AF area box instead of changing the size of the box.

So I set Focus Assist Setting [Off] and Move Target Setting [AF]

Ricoh needs to upgrade this feature so the AF area box changes size like other cameras.

The default is self timer on Fn2 and Effect on the Effect button. Page 122.

I put [AF/Snap] on Fn2 so I can switch quickly from AF to Snap.

Note when Snap is set the S icon appears top right on the screen with the snap distance just to the left of the S.

To change snap distance press and hold the up cross key while turning the top/front (Ricoh-up-down) dial. No need to enter the menus.

I allocate self timer to the Effect button.

The options for this are well described on Page 125 of the Manual. The on-screen icons disappear when the shutter is half pressed.

And that’s about it for on body controls. The GR2 has fewer controls than many ILCs but they are mostly well designed and allow an enthusiast user to drive the camera efficiently.