Ricoh Caplio GX: A new Ricoh GR-1 for the Digital Age?

[Usually we don´t deal with hardware stuff (it´s annoying), but no rule without an exception]

No matter how much you love photography...if you had left your camera at home: who in the world cares about the "untaken picture" except you being the one who had seen one of those "they never come back"-situations? That´s why pros in the past left in their daily life (shopping, driving in an bus, at the dentist) their heavy Nikon F-5 and other stuff at home and sticked to smaller cams...indeed mainly to one camera... .
Do you remember the fabulous Ricoh GR-1 and their descendants (3,5/21 mm)? We still have one on our desk. The first real compact camera with a superb 28mm lens, Magnesium alloy die-cast body, less than 200 gr. and a great exposure measuring system for slide film (even the Agfa black/white slide film SCALA 200X). This - in the golden analogue days - piece of cake pros took to capture daily life situations (this Pulitzer Photo Winnie used it for a long distance marathon where he participated).
The Ricoh GR-1 is a modern classic*.
Now Ricoh comes up with the Ricoh Caplio GX (1; 2): 28-85 mm/F2,5-4,3, 5 MP, external flash possible, 114 mm x 58 mm x 29 mm, 205 g, cute shutter response time, 1.800 mAh... . “The Caplio GX is quite simply the finest digital camera our (Ricoh) organization has ever produced,” smiles Mr. Frans Limburg, the Manager of Ricoh’s PMMC-Benelux Office.
Let´s hope so! Hey, and what about the price?
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*Wanna buy another modern classic? Tiffinbox.org (no commercial site) is selling a Leica M6 together with a 2.8/28mm.

Comments

[Seshu]

Thanks for the plug about the Leica gear. The lens sold on eBay in one day. Wow! The camera has a couple of bids. Thanks also for listing Tiffinbox. Just a small correction, however ... it's a .org, not a .net. Love your site. I believe I have you listed on mine.

I am going to see if I can get my hands on this classic Ricoh. I had never heard of it till now.

[Phototalk]

Shame on you :-) . The Ricoh will be very hard to find. Ricoh has stopped the production years ago; so all left is a second hand buy or Ebay.