Perhaps in honor of the recent passing of the great Béla Tarr, Ricoh’s latest compact camera is designed exclusively for black and white creation. Inheriting the substantial base of the GR IV (click here for that write-up), the GR IV Monochrome does a lot more than desaturate. Read on for details! We are expecting shipments as early as mid-February… brooders and chiaroscurites, don’t sleep on this one!
While it’s true that RAW files from just about any modern digital camera can be processed into stunning monochromatic images, there is a quiet tradition of gear oriented for the most enthusiastic chasers of the gray. The GR IV Monochrome is actually physically more capable of plumbing the depths of the B&W dimension. How is this accomplished?
- No permanent color filters
- Rather than filtering light into red, green, or blue pixels and then converting back to black and white, the sensor on the Monochrome has no color filter at all, only anti-aliasing. This means that each and every of the 25.74 million pixels collects pure brightness data, taking full advantage of the extreme resolving power of the GR lens for sharp contrasts and super-smooth tonal gradations. This has the added benefit of more pleasing grain effect at high sensitivity levels.
- Built-in red filter in the lens unit
- A one-touch, physical red filter enables unique compositional tweaks without any extra gear. Darken blue skies, pop red roses, and more—let’s get dramatic!
- Dedicated monochromatic Image Control settings
- Multiple “looks,” crafted by experts, at your fingertips within seconds.
Even the exterior of the camera has been crafted to keep you, intuitively, in the monochromatic creative zone. A soft, matte-black finish completely covers the body and controls, and the power button’s light shines only in pure white. If you don’t feel like you’re keeping pace with Irimiás and Petrina just looking at this thing, perhaps it is not for you. But if you’ve been looking for a way to tune out the fluff and focus on the form (in more ways than one), you couldn’t do much better. Click here to secure your tool and prepare to step into the inky black world hiding behind the customary one.
Downloads
Product images
Optional accessories
Fujifilm has also created a range of custom-built accessories for the GR IV Monochrome, including a flash, wide-angle adapter, and optical viewfinder.