It is beautiful for a person to commit to one thing. Life is short, you might want to concentrate on one thing. On the other hand, diversity can give you enriching experiences.
In the case of photography, enjoying diversity is not just about having both a GR III and a GR IIIx. It's about enjoying different variations: digital and film, color and black and white, street photography and portraiture etc.
One of the things that I've been thinking and enjoying lately is the diversity of digital sensors: CCD, CMOS, and FOVEON.
Although no cameras with CCD sensors are in mass production and sensors with three layers are rare today, I find it fascinating to look at photos taken with each of those sensors.
This is a photo I took with the first generation GR DIGITAL, which had a CCD sensor. It was taken in RAW and developed in Adobe Photoshop. The OG GR DIGITAL showed Ricoh's passion and aesthetics for digital photography as well as their concepts that determined the course of subsequent development.
Although the sensor was tiny, and the processing speed was such that if you took a picture in RAW, you had to wait several seconds before taking the next one, the final developed images were surprisingly clear and three-dimensional.
This was taken with the GR DIGITAL III, which also had a CCD sensor. It produced warmer and deeper impressions of images without using RAW data to develop in the post process.
The first generation GR with its APS-C CMOS sensor also produced clear images. Before its launch, when I was in charge of the official sample photos, Ricoh's developers said that they had "brought the colors closer to those of the CCD," but I didn't think it was that important because it had its own unique colors.
The GR IIIx also produces crystal clear images, which I'm fond of, and richer color tones than its predecessors.
Nonetheless, I don't think a user like me understands how hard it is to match a sensor with a processing engine and how much effort they make to produce a GR, to be honest. All I can do is to appreciate it and enjoy it to the fullest.
(Robert)
