New Look for the CX4 Proves Ricoh is Serious about Compact Cameras

After Ricoh launched the 28-300 mm module for its GXR camera system, some photographers were worried that it was giving up traditional compact cameras all together.  But there's noting to worry about: the plucky little firm is back with the new CX4, which picks up where the CX3, new in January of this year, left off.

The CX3 was a technical update to the CX2, sneaking a backlit 10 Megapixel CMOS sensor into a strictly identical camera body.  This time round, the CX4 is technically similar to the CX3, but has a new, more rounded design, that clashes with Ricoh's strategy ever since the R8.

Alongside the sensor, the 28-300 mm lens is also still there.  It's a shame, because we think Ricoh could easily replace it.  It has a very wide dynamic range, but the quality of the lens itself could be better, especially in telephoto, and the competition has got a lot more fierce this year, with cameras that not only have longer zooms but also preserve more detail in photos.

It seems that Ricoh's approach here has been to add extra functions and rework some of the details.  The image stabilization is now more powerful for example, and electronic noise is now managed from one zone to the other, so hopefully Ricoh will join the growing band of manufacturers capable of producing sharp photos up to 800 ISO with this sort of sensor.   The continuous autofocus which follows the subject and the special 'hand-held, tripod-free' mode for taking panoramic shots are both also available.

More surprisingly, Ricoh has followed the trend for adding filters to photos, after years of refusing to include them.  Soft focus, cross processing and 'toy camera' effects are all available.

And because we never fail to point out when Ricoh's rivals include low-resolution screens, we should definitely salute the CX4's LCD and its 920 000 pixels, offering four times as much detail as most of its rivals, and twice as much as the 'good' screens on the Panasonic G11 or TZ10.

The Ricoh CX4 will be available soon, although there's no word yet on pricing.

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