Ricoh R?- Some Settings for Beginners 

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This page contains a few comments on camera settings and starting out from scratch with a new camera. There are more settings on the first page but this one will grow to be the definitive settings page eventually.
When you get a new R series camera....

First charge the battery, may take a couple of hours. Read the manual while that's happening. The battery should be good for about 300 shots or more, but make sure to re-charge before every outing that may use more than a couple of shots. The R6 and up uses a new battery so use the charger that came with the R6 and up and not your old R3/4/5 one.

Format the (purchased extra) SD card in-camera to remove any strange format that may have pre-existed. A 1 gig card will hold at least 300 images. The R3/4/5 will work with 2 gig cards maximum. The in-camera memory of 26 megs is enough to do some brief testing. The R6 expands this to 54 megs internal. Latest firmware for the R5 allows up to 4 gig SDHC cards to be used, also the R6 and up delivers with the ability to use SDHC cards, as well as ordinary SD cards of course.

I have never used the Ricoh software to download, I only use a card reader. If you want to try the Ricoh software you must load that first, and then try connecting the camera with the camera menu item of USB Connection = Original. If wanting to use the normal Windows XP way of talking to connected cameras, then set the camera menu item of USB Connection = Mass Storage. If using SDHC cards then an old SD card reader may not work, there may be card compatibility problems. At least both R5 and up use USB2.0 High Speed so are both quicker than the R3 and R4 when connected to the PC.

We found it best to use the camera at maximum resolution F (Fine) mode, at the top of the menu list.

Start out using it on Auto ISO and Auto White Balance, and turn the flash off for outdoor use, the 'left' button cycles the flash modes. Can try Flash =Auto for dimmer situations, but be aware of the limited range of the flash.

Even with Auto WB and some of the canned WB settings, it always seems a bit "cold" or tending to a blue look. Use a photo editor to adjust colour temperature to taste.

For outdoor shots the quality seems best at Exposure Compensation = 0.3 EV underexposure. Set that by using the ADJ button and the 'up/down' buttons. For flash it's best to go back to 0.0 no compensation, but it doesn't do too much harm to the image to leave it at 0.3 EV under all the time.  The R6 and up maybe seems to be maybe a bit less prone to overesposure, so leaving exposure compenation at 0 is a good way to start experimenting.

Later... BrianJ in the DPReview forum has found that Auto ISO on his R4 does cause weird things like seemingly ignoring the 0.3 EV underexposure setting at times. For more reliable exposure, set Exposure Compensation to 0 and use the set ISO of 64, 100, 200 etc. But I found no such situation on my R3, R4 and R5, even on Auto ISO it obeyed the exposure compensation being added/subtracted. More tests needed.

At 200 ISO and above noise does creep in so try the free version of Noiseware to sort that out. http://www.imagenomic.com/nwsa.aspx

Set the camera menu item of Colour = Neutral for more accurate colours, but many people like the slightly boosted colours of Colour = Normal, as it comes out of the box. Some even like Vivid setting. Yikes!

Focus = Multi or Spot  as your taste dictates, just keep an eye on where Multi is focusing. If using Spot (or Multi) you can half press and hold to freeze focus and metering and then move the camera to recompose and full press to shoot. In summary I do find Spot focus more reliable as I know then what spot I have pre-focused on.

Metering = Multi seems OK for most times. Can try the centre weighted option, but be careful with Spot metering if you have never used it before, it's all too easy to get wrong exposures that way.

The Anti-Shake can be left switched on forever. It starts working as you half press the shutter and in a quiet place you may hear it buzzing away. If switching to Time Exposure and some scene modes it is automatically disabled. Also it should be turned off if using a tripod.

I leave Auto Power Off = 5 minutes and LCD Confrim at 1 second, you may have other thoughts on this.

I hate electronic sounds from cameras so having the Vol Setting to off (three empty 'boxes') means no beeps or shutter sounds, which is nice. That still allows video sound to work OK on playback.

Set Sequential No. = ON to make sure file numbers continue on in sequence on the next card inserted.

Step Zoom = OFF to get a smoother and quicker zoom operation. Set it ON only for experiments where you may need discrete repeatable steps when testing.

The SHTG STGS WARNG = OFF stops warning messages saying that menu items may have been changed, it's just another source of annoyance to me. I use the DISP button to get all information on the LCD so I can see what the settings are anyway.

Slow Shutter Speed = OFF allows up to 1 second auto exposures, to get longer you need to use Time Exposure to get 1, 2, 4, or 8 seconds. For those long exposures use a tripod and set the ISO to 64 for first tries, and also turn off anti-shake when on that tripod. With Time Exposure dark frame subtraction takes place to help eliminate hot pixel noise.

The very fast focus is due to using the external fcous sensor and no idea how it works or what range it's meant too have, this is on R3/4/5 but not on R6 and up. This very fast focus has some drawbacks with occasional slight mis-focus, which may not appear to be significant if printing postcard size. The camera will automatically swap between using that external fast focus device and the internal CCD focus with no really noticeable difference in focus speed. If the focus does seem to be a problem, then try setting to Macro (use the 'down' button) and this focuses much more accurately but much slower, from macro distance to infinity. In complete darkness with flash turned on, a double flash with longer than normal spacing occurs and it uses the first flash to gain focus and for metering. That seems quite accurate within the limited range of the flash. With normal flash use the double flash occurs much closer together and the first flash does the metering only.

Because of the largish front lens element it does seem to pick up the stray fingerprint or dust smudge easily, always examine it for cleanliness and use proper micro fibre cloth etc to clean the lens. A smudgy lens does give smudgy results. The little lens cover leaves are quite fragile so avoid the temptation of poking at them or letting children handle the camera.

From time to time, turn on the camera, go to full tele and then gently clean off any dust smudges found on the three lens barrels. Dust on the outer barrel has caused lens jams for me, cleaned it off and no more problems.

Sometimes the battery goes flat or a bad battery contact may shut down the camera and leave the lens extended. Replacing the battery sorts that out, but if you wish to manually retract the lens when it is stuck out - first remove the battery, then firmly grasp the largest lens barrel nearest to the camera body and twist clockwise looking from the front and the lens will go back in. A small final push on the rim of the barrel sets it completely back in place.

At least one user with an R8 is finding that setting the Auto Hi to 1600 ISO limit seems to cause less noise reduction smearing in all images.

I think that covers a few basics, keep an eye on this page as it may change from time to time in details.

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