With a fixed f2.8 28mm lens, this should be a very snappy cam. Indeed a pretender to the DMD throne:
" The GR Digital II is currently the flagship Ricoh compact and occupies a unique position in the "serious compact" market. It isn't the right compact for most people, even amongst those who appreciate advanced compacts. For starters, it doesn't zoom, lacks image stabilization, and sells for $500 at the time of this review (down from a $700 street price at introduction). That said, nearly every photographer I know who has tried this compact for as little as one week has been taken with it.
Link
Will Canon ever release a compact camera system? Yes, they pretty much have to. In the meantime they stuffed an aps-c sensor in some oversized g12ish body, and came up with this:
"Shots taken at high ISO settings were consistently clean and noise-free up to
This is an example of a camera body and lens combination designed by photographers, for photographers, and a prime candidate for the 'desicive moment digital camera' crown. Too bad about the small sensor, the drop in image quality is pretty severe above 400 iso.
"The Ricoh GR Digital was one of the first cameras to put a focus on lens and sensor quality when it was first announced in 2006
It may LOOK similar to the TZ20 it is replacing, but the differences under the hood are anything but subtle: Useable ISO @ 1600 despite the rising to 14 megapixels, better image stabilization, full manual controls, 20x zoom (starting at 24mm), very quick response times and more, well this baby deserves a place into both the 'superzoom' and 'prosumer' tags: