Ricoh has finally released a new camera in the Ricoh GR range, the GR IV. It’s been several years since the GR III, and an update has been long overdue.
That said, this is pretty much an incremental upgrade. It does have useful improvements over the GR III that bring it up to more modern performance. But there’s not really anything groundbreaking. In the short time I was able to shoot with it, I found it to be an improvement over the GR III in several ways, though all incremental.
But better enough to justify the massive price increase? That’s a much harder case to make. But, like the Fujifilm X100VI, the key here isn’t whether the specs make it worth it but rather how much people are willing to pay for it. Any, by all accounts, lots of people are willing to pay for the GR IV even with the price hike.
It has a 25.7MP APS-C sensor and a 28mm f2.8 lens (in 35mm equivalent). It has faster and more reliable autofocus and 5-axis 6-stop sensor stabilization. And if you’re used to shooting with any of the GR cameras, you’ll be instantly at home with this one — it has exactly the same look and feel of previous models.
So I was excited to get out shooting with it. Ricoh is only releasing a trickle of them, so it’s all about waitlists.
I would love to be able to say it went better, and I’d really like to have been able to include more images in this post. But for reasons I’ve gone into separately and won’t rehash here, my GR IV died without even making it 24 hours. Maybe I’ll get a replacement; maybe I won’t. For now, I’m both disappointed and not feeling like jumping on the end of what is likely a long waitlist. But at some point, I’ll probably circle back, and if/when I do, I’ll add more images here.
I wasn’t originally going to post these, but then I figured that maybe even a few sample images might be more helpful to someone than none. So here you go.
Ricoh GR IV sample images
These were all shot in RAW and only very lightly processed in Lightroom. You can click on each image for a full-size view for a closer look.
RAW file test image
I’ve not run into any compatibility issues with the RAW files produced from the Ricoh GR IV, but if you’d like to test for yourself on your own system, here’s a RAW file you can download.
Like its predecessors, the GR IV uses the Adobe DNG format, which is as universal as you can get with RAW files.
Ricoh GR IV manual
I’m including the Ricoh GR IV operating manual here for two reasons.
Firstly, Ricoh doesn’t make it easy to find. Secondly, and more importantly, there’s also a Ricoh GR Digital IV camera, and the manual for that camera often comes up first in online searches. But that’s a different camera. While it has very much the same DNA, it’s a much older camera (released in 2011).
So here’s the product manual for the Ricoh GR IV (the 2025 version), which you can also download directly from Ricoh here.
Price & availability
The Ricoh GR IV has had a large price jump over its predecessor. The GR III came out at $899, which was admittedly several years ago now. The GR IV is out of the gate at $1499.
It’s priced much higher than its predecessor, the GR III. Is it overpriced? It’s hard to make the case that it’s not if you want to be objective about it. But, like the Fujifilm X100VI, objectivity will only get you so far on a camera like this. After all, the right price is the one that people will pay for it, and people are paying for this one in droves.
Ricoh has only been releasing a trickle of them to stores, but at some stores you can jump on the waitlist to increase your chances of getting it sooner as supplies become available.
Check price and availability at:
