A new little camera

It’s October. The winds are raging outside and all I can think about are my dahlias, in this crazy wind, shall I pick them all or just hope for the best. It’s October. Finally. A month I love so much. I love it mostly for its gentle light, slower and quieter days. For a photographer, light is everything and to me this light is everything. Slower days, in the gardens, on the road. Quieter days, yes. Blankets, knitted socks, candles. The nature of my work - photographing gardens - is very seasonal and most of my work happens between April and October. And within those months, everything happens at the same time. I haven’t yet done my mileage calculation but I can take a wild guess judging by the number of podcasts, audiobooks and albums I listened to in the car while on the road from one garden to another. Oooh, don’t get me wrong, I do love my job and I wouldn’t want it any other way but I realize I do need a break from time to time to be able to get back to it all recharged and energized.  October is also for holidays. For all the reasons mentioned before, light, no Summer noise, no crowds and much less work in my calendar. This year I got a bit carried away, and I will squeeze in 3 little holidays. So! Coming finally to the title of this blog post, I needed a little camera for all these trips (mostly to Italy). Travelling light will important.

My camera bag weighs around 10-12kg. Depending on the shoot but on most of the shoots this is what it is. I love my camera, all my lenses but it’s out of the question that I take these to any of those holidays (or no, I might take it to Scotland, the holiday with the dog). I do enjoy taking pictures with my phone, it’s always with me and I never really use it for anything else anyway (apart from all the weather apps) But for these two little holidays in Italy, I wanted to take with me a little camera, something that is more than a phone but less (especially in weight, bulkiness and value) than my normal camera. 

I have been looking around but I must say I didn’t do a huge amount of research. I knew what I wanted (small) and what I could have (budget) and since the Leica is way out of my budget, I went for the Ricoh GRiiix. I ordered it exactly a month ago, in early September. On the day it arrived, I was going to a super important garden shoot of an amazing garden. I was so excited about my new camera that I took it with me to the shoot and just wanted to use it all the time. In this garden, on its first day, I dropped it. Or well, not exactly, it basically flew in the air, only a bit and only fell on gravel (only..) lens side on the ground. This is a sturdy little camera, I can confirm that, all is well. 

But the first proper outing of the camera was to Tyntesfield (a National Trust garden near Bristol) where I went with my student-became-friend, Carrie. This is her local so she showed me around and I got ever so excited by the pumpkin patch(es). Lots and lots of squashes and pumpkins and all sorts of other garden produce, I do love a kitchen garden. These pumpkin moments put me in a much needed Autumn mood and while I was still on a crazy schedule, this little visit and the time spent with Carrie felt like a mini-holiday. 

Visiting a public garden during working hours doesn’t always guarantee that you get perfect light conditions (or what I would call perfect) and occasionally the sun peeked out from behind the clouds and there was this blinding sunshine that, I’m sorry to say but, I just cannot stand. However, clouds came and went, so all was good at the end.

So these here are the nearly first pictures and quite a few have been taken since. I took the little camera to a short (work) trip to the US and on a dog walk around the village and the card is also filled with quinces. More on quinces, very soon. 

Until then, here are my thoughts about this camera after a month of use: 

Things I love about it:
- It is excellent for what I need it, light weight, fits in my pocket
- Thanks to its high quality (fixed) lens and the sensor, the sharpness is exceptional
- Love the fixed focal length (I’m a prime lens user anyway) 

Things I don’t love about it:
- There is no viewfinder. I use the viewfinder on my big camera, never the back screen. On this camera, sadly, the only option is the back screen. In certain outdoor light conditions, it’s not the best for seeing all your settings and so on.
- On the first day (only then) the lens got dusty and it took me a while to figure out what happened and why it wouldn’t work but since then it’s ok. 
- The battery life is not too long. I bought a second battery with it just to make sure I can use the camera for a day(ish) in case I can’t charge it charges via usb-c very easily.

All in all, I’m super happy with it and I definitely use my phone less for taking pictures which is great. I would definitely recommend this camera to anyone who’s looking for a lightweight yet powerful little camera and yes, you still have to do all the photography settings (but why wouldn’t you want to do that) and for the perfect final image, yes, please, do edit your photos so they become hundredpercent yours.