Major Design Aspects of the Ricoh GR Series Will Never Change

Ricoh Imaging approaches the design of its camera series with a very specific set of principles. That’s why the general look, feel, and function of the GR series of cameras hasn’t dramatically changed over the years.

Talking with Ricoh Imaging President Yasutomo Mori and Kazunobu Saiki, General Manager of Ricoh Imaging’s Camera Business Division, it’s clear those principles will not be sacrificed.

“Our principles for GR are the golden rules,” Saiki says, speaking to PetaPixel at the GR Space in Brisbane, Australia. “One, GR should always be with you. That is compactness: pocketability. Two, Quick response. GR should always capture what you want. Three, GR should have high image quality. And the fourth principle is ‘evolving.’ So, as long as the first three principles are kept, we always want to add something new. One of the GR IV’s evolutions is the connectivity with GR World, the new app that will provide additional value-adds.”

Saiki says these principles are hard and fast, and the company won’t stray from them: “We don’t soften on these rules.”

Still, Ricoh listens to feedback and tries to do its best to balance customer desires with its core principles.

“We have many, many events where we get to listen to our end users and we get a lot of comments including criticisms and complaints as well as a lot of appreciations,” Saiki says, adding that the GR Spaces around the world are especially helpful for speaking with end users.

It is through these conversations that Ricoh receives feedback on what users think the company should change about a GR camera, especially over the last few years where the expectation of the GR IV launch was reaching a fever pitch. Of those, photographers most often asked for three things: weather sealing, a flash, and a viewfinder.

But to address these issues, Ricoh GR would have to compromise on one of the major design principles: compactness.

“To be frank, we tested weather sealing before starting the GR IV development but that definitely makes the model bigger. Additionally, sealing materials trap heat inside the camera, making heat management another challenge. To address this, we would then have to make the camera bigger or reduce the speed at which the camera can capture photos. Both of those are against our concept of snap shooting. In that way, we are trying to balance customer demands but we always give priority to keeping our GR concept.”

The same can be said of a viewfinder.

“We understand that users want a viewfinder, and we recognize that this is a good idea, but we have chosen to stick to our principles and not change our concept. If we decided to add a viewfinder, the camera would become bigger,” Saiki explains.

When it comes to a flash, Ricoh Imaging made sure to address concerns regarding the GR IV’s ability to shoot in low light and expanded expression capabilities with an optional flash.

“Shooting performance under dark conditions is much improved on the GR IV because the SR function is much more accurate — by two exposure value levels. So this is okay, but still, people still want to have a flash,” Saiki says.

To that end, Ricoh Imaging worked hard to create a compact external flash that would allow photographers to enjoy the unique look of flash photography without compromising the compactness principle.

The optional GR IV GF-2 external flash doesn’t make the camera less pocketable.

“If we allow ourselves to make the camera a bit bigger, we can do many things. But we don’t prioritize that because GR should always be with you and compactness is key to that,” Saiki says.

So while Ricoh Imaging does plan to continue to evolve the GR, the eventual GR V will only change insofar as it abides by the four principles Saiki outlines. That means that there are many aspects of the Ricoh GR that photographers can expect will never change — and to Ricoh Imaging, that’s a good thing.