I'm on the way to buy a Ricoh Caplio G4 which seems to carry pretty good features(3,2 MP, 3 opt zoom, 1cm macro, and fastest shutter lag & start up etc) with a nice price tag on it, 180euro. Though I used its predecessor, G3, and satisfied mostly unfortunately I couldn't find anyone having the experience of both this caplio G4 and some equal segment famous Canon, Nikon or any. Some comparison/help will be appreciated a lot.
Ricoh Caplio G3 was my first digicam, now replaced. Although it's true that Ricoh cameras have some nice features like fast start, minimal shutter lag and good autofocus in low light, I'd say that there are better cameras out there for not much more money. What I didn't like on G3 (apparently unchanged on G4) was that the camera produces too much internal sharpening. It gives the pictures that crisp look but increases noise and often is too obvious. I'd rather do it myself in post processing. Another weak point of the Ricohs is the optics. It suffers from quite a lot of purple fringing in high contrast areas and this is not easy to fix in PS. Although I haven't used the G4 from what I've seen on the net it appears that the G4 is not a dramatic improvement over G3.
If you are looking for some inexpensive point and shoot cameras take a look at for instance Nikon Coolpix 3200. I've used both the 3200 and G3 and in terms of image quality the Coolpix 3200 is better. Almost no purple fringing and the in-camera sharpening is applied conservatively. It should be available for not much more than 200-220 Euro from some online stores in Europe.
Is Ricoh Caplio G4 a good choice?
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