Serious Compacts contributor Wouter Brandsma has posted his extended use impressions of the Ricoh GR Digital III over at his personal blog.  Be sure to have a read to get his insights about this exciting camera and see some great photographs!

Link: Wouter photoblog - 'My final Ricoh GR Digital III impressions'

Just received word that Ricoh will be sending me a GR Digital III for review. Although the improvements are incremental, I'm very excited about this camera. Improving the lens speed by roughly two thirds of a stop while improving macro performance - and without sacrificing resolution, camera size, or sensor size (in fact the sensor is a touch larger now) - is quite a feat.

The ability to preset the snap focus distance is another very promising feature. With the kind of depth of field associated with using a small sensor coupled to selectable zone snap focus, there should be very little need for ever using autofocus in situational/street/documentary photography.

We tend to use the word "compact" loosely on this site, and many of the cameras we discuss are really small-bag (eg, E-P1) or big-pocket (eg, DP2) cameras. In contrast, the GRD is an any-pocket camera, and a serious one at that.

For anyone interested, my GRD II review is here.