Finally got my Ricoh back

I got my GR Digital back from Ricoh now after having the sensor cleaned. It is now perfectly fine. So Ricoh can clean up your GR-D of sensor dust in a couple of weeks under warranty. Wonder what happens when the warranty runs out...

Anyway, it's good to have it back and I hope to post more shots with it soon.

New Firmware for the Ricoh GR Digital

New firmware is available for the Ricoh GR-D here.

It allows new sizes to be specified in jpeg and raw modes as well as allowing auto-bracketing in 0.3 step increments as well as 0.5.

Also added improved AF speed and macro mode focusing.

My GR-D is still with Ricoh services awaiting sensor cleaning. Hopefully I will get it back soon...

How to Holgarize an image in Photoshop CS

Holga and other toy camera images such as those from the Diana have particular characteristics that have created a cult following among some film users. It is also possible to emulate the Holga effect from any digital camera. While it won't be quite the same as using the real thing this technique can sometimes turn a mundane image into something a little more interesting or give a nice sense of coherence to a set of related images.

The main features of these images is a sharp(ish) central focal point which gradually blurs towards the edge of the square frame. There is also significant darkening towards the edges of the image and especially in the corners (vignetting). I recently produced a series of portraits taken using a GR Digital camera which I then holgarized. You can see the series here.

Here is how I produced them using Photoshop:

1. Open the image



2. Select a square crop with the crop tool



3. Convert to monochrome and adjust contrast etc. using whichever method suits you best. I use Convert to Black and White Pro 3.



4. Select a small portion in the centre of the image using the lasso tool. This is going to represent the lens’s sweet spot. Holgas typically have a pretty small area where the image is in focus and the resolution of the lens deteriorates towards the corners of the frame.



5. Select the inverse of this area



6. Now with the feather set to 150-200. Apply some Gaussian blur to taste (I usually use a strength of 2-4).



7. Going back to the lasso tool, make sure the ‘subtract from selection’ box is activated. This is the 3rd button along the lasso tools menu bar.



Then gradually widen the selection by drawing concentric rings around the original ‘sweet spot’ applying more Gaussian blur each time.



And so on…



8. ...until we reach the edges of the frame. I usually do about 3 blurs before I reach the edge. Now we can add the classic vignette characteristic of the Holga using levels as shown.



9. Now deselect and we are ready to apply a tone to the image if desired.



10. I apply toning curves from Paul Butzi’s website, but there are several ways you can accomplish this. You can read about and download these curves here.



And that’s it.

Dirty sensor. The saga continues.

I received my GR Digital back from Ricoh yesterday. Unfortunately not only did they fail to clean up the dust, they actually made it far worse:



I called them in Germany where the technical team seems to be based and was told that they had not cleaned the sensor after all, but had replaced the menu buttons. There was nothing wrong with the menu buttons. It seems that while they were replacing the menu buttons they accidentally smudged the sensor making it more dirty than before.

They now wanted me to send some files showing them what the problem is. So this I have done (including the image above). Hopefully they will sort this out as the camera is now unusable with small apertures. I find on bright days that I need the small apertures to prevent blowing the highlights.