NEW Ricoh "enthusiast"camera coming

Well, as you might already know, I am quite a fan of RICOH compact cameras( I still have a film RZ3000 film camera in my cupboard...great camera!) and when I was rung to see if I wanted to see the latest incarnation in the range, I had no idea on what I was going to see! Well I must say, the first words I said when I saw this camera, is not something I can publish here, but the guys at RICOH did say that I wasnt alone in my reaction!. In my early years involved with digital photography, RICOH was always there with something unique in their arsenal of cameras and the first camera that I remember fondly was the RDC-7 which was a 3 megapixel camera that looked VERY different compared to film cameras of the day. Even though it was a 3 megapixel, it was able to produce a 7 megapixel shot by doing a bit of "digital"magic to produce a shot that was very printable at A3!. It was also one of the first cameras to record sound tags to a photo which was very handy for cataloging photos with a sound bite to remind you where the shot was taken, not unlike what people do with video camera as they commentate what they are filming. So what does the GXR bring to the table? A totally new concept camera that will match the attached lens to sensor perfectly everytime a "new lens"is released. The camera is in 2 pieces. The main body where memory card/battery is inserted and the lens component that has the sensor and lens. Changing lenses will also not be susceptible to dust issues as each lens is fully sealed. The other advantage of this system is that when a lens is produced, the sensor can be matched "perfectly"thus giving you the best quality image possible. In a conventional DSLR system, lenses "can" have issues of producing the best quality image with all the lenses available for the camera and so some lenses work better than others to produce good results and so with the RICOH GXR you will be assured that the best lens/sensor combination will always be right on the money! Currently we see 2 lens in the series with a 3x/ 24-72mm (great for travel photography and medium telephoto) which has a a 1cm closeup mode which is typical RICOH feature. The sensor is a 10 megapixel 1/1.7-inch CCD which suits this lens perfectly. The other lens/sensor combo is a 12.3 megapixel APS sized sensor(as found in DSLR cameras today..) with a fixed 50mm F2.5 macro lens with a manual focus ring. This lens is perfect for more high quality crisp portrait photos but amazing detailed 1/2 life sized macro shots as well! This lens/senor combo will also capture HD movies at 720 which then can be viewed on a HDTV connected through the built in HDMI connection on the camera. What will make this camera popular will be the size. The philosophy of the the GR series cameras was to have a small compact camera with high quality. If you are a DSLR camera, this will be the camera you want to have when you don''t want to carry your larger camera. I cant wait till it lands in the next few weeks at all good camera stores!! More here