Ricoh GRD II High ISO Observations

Pavel Kudrys posted an excellent comparison of GRD and GRD II images in Ricoh Forum and was kind enough to make the RAW images available for download. There is little doubt to me that the GRD II images look better (more detail, better white balance, etc), though I believe additional samples will be necessary to determine if this improved image quality is consistently observed. I hate to focus on the negative, but I found two things somewhat worrisome. The first and more obvious is that the GRD II ISO 800 and ISO 1600 color in-camera JPEGs look positively freakish. If that is noise reduction, then give me noise! The more subtle observation is that the GRD II files appear to have less noise, which makes me wonder if this is accomplished via noise reduction applied to the RAW images. Two things are reassuring in this respect. First, I don't notice any smearing of detail in the GRD II files, and second, the disparity between GRD and GRD II noise seems highly dependent on choice of RAW processor. With the RAW processing applications I examined at minimum noise reduction settings, C1 4 beta 2 seems to do the least noise reduction on these files.

Click the image below to see a comparison of ISO 800 crops from the GRD and GRD II as processed using Lightroom, Lightzone, and C1.


Thanks again to Pavel for sharing the RAW files used in this comparison.

Addendum: Here are some ISO 800 crops just to look at noise characteristics. Again, these are from the RAW files provided by Pavel. No resizing, NR, or sharpening done by me.

The crops were taken from the approximate regions shown in yellow:


Here are the bottom center crops:


Here are the top center crops:


Anyone else think the GRD2 noise has a bit more of a "smeared" quality?

Addendum #2: Some discussion of these issues is taking place here and here. After further review of the RAWs, and in light of John Sheehy's (here and here) and PIX Surgeon's remarks (here and here), I think it is unlikely that Ricoh has applied on-sensor, destructive NR to the GRD2 RAW files. That is a relief! Based on these early samples, I believe that the majority of users and reviewers alike will greatly prefer the image quality of the GRD 2 to that of the GRD. On the other hand, the GRD 2 noise does not seem as crisp as it is with the GRD, so the overall high ISO (ISO 400+) aesthetic may not suit everyone who appreciates the GRD look.