I have a 40D, and I never use it, its great but I prefer film and I cant be arsed to lug it round half the time. So I have decided to sell, and buy a “prosumer” camera such as the above for usual holiday snaps, general pics blah blah (i.e so I have a digital camera which is good, but not an slr)]

I am biased (canon), and I am told for the second hand 200-250 mark a G9 is a good choice. That said I would like the best available, so are the Ricoh or Nikon alternatives worth considering?

Have a look at the Panasonic LX3 as well…….runs the G9/G10 very close indeed and a little bit smaller. Only downside is that its a 24-60mm (equivalent) zoom.

I’ve got a Ricoh GX200 to slip in my pocket when I can’t be bothered to lug my D700 around. Love the ability to adjust shutter speed and aperture with dials rather than buttons and it’s got a decent wide lens on it. Image quality is OK, it doesn’t have me jumping up and down but it’s not awful as long as you stay under ISO400, but the handling means I’m more likely to get the shot I had in my head, and to me that’s what matters. I tried a G9 and couldn’t get along with it, the handling wasn’t intuitive to me.
Swings, roundabouts…

Ricoh GX100 here.

Love it, particularly from a handling point of view. It’s very customisable and most of the buttons/dials can be set up to do what you want. Lens is excellent (particularly in macro mode) and the results are very good at ISO 80 and 100, good at 200 and ok at 400 where noise starts to become visible. I thought this might bother me but I rarely shoot at 400 or above anyway. Not really a camera for fast action shots but then again no compact is really.

Here’s a sample or two (click to see EXIF data):

Also, battery life is fantastic (300+ shots) and when it does run out you can get by on AAAs. It did me a month in India last summer with no problems.

I have the Ricoh GRD and love it to bits. Great quality, lost of settings and very easy to use with SLR-a-like finger and thumb wheels.

All photos for my article in issue 41 on the MTB Himachal race were taken with the GRD and I only got through 1 and a half batteries in 2weeks of shooting.

The newer GRD II has faster RAW write times and can shoot up to 12 frames before writing (3sec vs the old 12sec time!) and some extra features.

The new CX1 is amazing to look at in the flesh with a very sharp bright screen and a CMOS sensor…might have to get one as an every day camera!

SSP

(Ricoh fan since the GR1 and GR21!)

I really like my G9. Bought for the same reason as you, to replace a D50 that never got used. So solidly built (nice knurled metal knobs and everything) for a relatively cheap consumer camera.

I love my G9 and it can do funky things too like motion detection which is great for things like lightning and loner biking photos. New it cost me £240 but nowhere has them anymore which is a shame.

Another G9 user here

Bloody fantastic pics on low ISO – but noisy in low light/indoor, but thats what you’d expect. however its so much more practical to carry round and still get good photos out of.

I have a G10 – bought for similar but different reasons. I wanted something that would work in poor light in gigs, but was not an SLR, as then I would never carry it. I am just getting used to the G10 but I love the knurly knobs. Have a quick look at http://picasaweb.google.com/catshoe/TheJoyFormidableTheRubyLounge# . Not the best in the world, but not bad for not carrying half a ton of glass.

GeForce Junky said:
I love my G9 and it can do funky things too like motion detection which is great for things like lightning and loner biking photos.

Did you have to change the firmware to use motion detection to take photos, or is it hidden somewhere in the menu system? Had a search around on the web, but can't find any info on triggering the shutter using motion detection on the G9.

Moe – just a thought – might you be interested in PXing my G10 for your 40D? I love the G10 but I no sooner bought it than I got hooked up for photopasses for gig photography, which all of a sudden means I can take SLRs into gigs. The G10 is only a few weeks old, probably around 800 – 900 shutter activations? If you have any thoughts on that, mail me at catshoe@gmail.com
Mike

[Thread hijack] How much would you be wanting for the 40D [/Thread hijack]