Pentax is not a company to sit quietly on the sidelines and watch the traffic go by. The most recent and startling example of this was the introduction of the Marc Newson designed camera, the K-01.

Going further back and with more relevance to this camera under review were some Pentax products way back in the film era. Remember those times?

The 1970s saw the minuscule 110 format launched by Kodak and a whole avalanche of cameras appeared from seemingly every camera maker that accepted the tiny film cartridge.

And Pentax were in there with the Auto 110, an interchangeable lens reflex camera. Can you believe it!

The camera was so tiny the lens aperture was not built into the lens but into the camera body and doubled as the shutter!

The relevance of this camera is in …

I’m not sure how the Ricoh GR one will do in the marketplace, now that smartphones are gnawing away at the digicam sector. But, I figure it will have enormous appeal to enthusiasts and the adventurous. After all, how many people do you know who will die for a fixed lens camera?

But wait, it images to an APS-C sized CMOS. Surely worth a dollar or two and a moment of your time to peruse this review.

The Ricoh GR is a small, magnesium alloy bodied compact camera with an f2.8 lens equivalent to a 28mm 35 SLR optic. It succeeds the 2011 camera — the GR DIGITAL IV — and upgrades the basic specs and functions of that model.

Ricoh GR Features

The lens diaphragm is …

POMPIDOO BAG REVIEW

www.pompidoo.com

Until recently I wasn’t fully aware of the availability of such stylish camera bags for women, until I received the opportunity to review this refined camera accessory.

The Palermo Camera Bag by Pompidoo is a very stylish and functional way to carry your camera equipment to any occasion. Whether I’m out taking photos, or having a milkshake with my family, this bag plays it’s part perfectly.

When I’m out taking photos, I love the fact that this Palermo bag doesn’t look like a typical camera bag. As well as looking stylish this bag acts as a great safety function for the “Female Street Photographer” like myself, the general person on the street wouldn’t realise your carrying expensive camera equipment as it looks just like a larger style hand-bag….

It was love at first sight!

Totally smitten!

Pulled the P520 out of its unassuming box and there it was: a gleaming vision in deep cherry red.

At the outset, the red base colour and overlaid control ID texts picked out in white made everything abundantly clear … much better than the usual white text on black!
And what a piece of kit it is.

Hitting off with a 42x zoom that moves from a 35 SLR equivalent of 24mm at the wide end and slipping in to a tele of 1000mm, it’s quite a piece of glass, although I found the stabiliser to be wanting when I handheld the camera while shooting video.

The maximum still image size is 4896×3672 pixels, printing out …

Some things seems pretty straight forward and like they’re common knowledge, but I’ve run into this a few times with my students that feel embarrassed to ask what all the numbers on the lens mean. There is no reason to feel stupid or embarrassed if you don’t know this, it is sometimes confusing. So I’m going to run through them one by one.

Common settings seen on newer digital lenses

FOCAL LENGTH

If you have a zoom lens you will have a ring that turns to zoom in and out and it will also indicate what focal length you are currently set to. For example of your lens is a 70-200mm like mine you may see this which indicates I’m at 100mm currently.

If you are using a prime or fixed lens you won’t have a …