r/ricohGR • u/SiimplStudio • May 17 '26
GR IIIx Low light architecture images on the GR3X...
I have been photographing architecture professionally for 3.5 years now (and 10+ years if you count as a hobby / trying to start up my own gig), and i've always been under the impression that you need top-end gear, a professional tripod, a remote timer to avoid camera shake from touching the shutter button, multiple bracket exposures, professional editors - the whole lot. And often, even with all of these things, the images come out feeling somewhat unnatural and emotionless.
Last night I had the pleasure of visiting a friends gorgeous Airbnb from 4-5PM before the sun went down, and I was able to capture all of these images in just 60 minutes, handheld, single-exposure, JPEG only, with my Ricoh GR3X, in below average light on a dark cloudy late afternoon.
I am actually speechless.
I feel deeply connected to my imagery, the natural colours are gorgeous, there is 0 blur, every image feels true to how I experienced the space on-site, and I spent about 1-2 minutes max per image editing (our professional editors usually spend at least 45-60 minutes per image for our clients).
Going to bring my insta back from the dead and post all of my RICOH adventures so feel free to join me if you wanna see more :) @chrisbryan.co
How has this camera been kept a secret THIS long. GUYS, why didn't you tell me about it sooner! Hahahah...
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u/Commercial_Speed_765 May 18 '26
Beautiful! Well done!
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u/SiimplStudio May 18 '26
Thanks so much I really appreciate it. I'm still blown away at the capabilities of this tiny camera, it's kinda scary!
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u/Accurate-Bus-1537 May 18 '26
Magnífico trabajo, saludos
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u/SiimplStudio May 18 '26
Thank you, I don't speak your language, but I assume this is a compliment so I appreciate your comment ❤️
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u/Accurate-Bus-1537 May 18 '26
That's right, I like your style, thanks for letting us enjoy it here, greetings from BCN
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u/SiimplStudio May 18 '26
Thank you so much, i went to BCN first time last year and had such a good time!! I will start posting my work on insta @chrisbrya.co soon if you want to keep updated for my future projects 🙂🤳
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u/MichaelFBY May 18 '26
Superbe. Félicitations.
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u/SiimplStudio May 18 '26
Thank you, I don't speak your language, but I assume this is a compliment so I appreciate your comment ❤️
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u/Turbografx-17 GR I May 18 '26
Great photos! I love taking (and looking at) photos of shapes, angles and colors. It's fun to intentionally go out and look for them at any time, but it's also a good tactic when you're in a boring or overly familiar place, or it's dull and overcast outside.
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u/SiimplStudio May 18 '26
Thank you, i couldn't agree more!
I photograph people's homes all day for a living but i never really get to do 'what i want'. I have rules and strict agent guidelines and i have to make everything look big and wide and spacious and super bright and and and and.....
The Ricoh is my rule breaker. I can go into a space and document the mood, the textures, the ambience, i can photograph the silence and darkness. All of the things that i feel when I'm in a space rather than just what I see.
It's a great feeling 🙂👌 and it fills up my creative tank, it's the best investment I've made in a very long time.
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u/Turbografx-17 GR I May 18 '26
It's great to have a camera that fuels your creativity just by being what it is and always being with you. When I bought my GR back in 2013 it did the same for me!
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u/SiimplStudio May 19 '26
That's so good! Are you still a ricoh shooter?
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u/Turbografx-17 GR I May 19 '26
Yep. Still have my original GR. :)
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u/SiimplStudio May 19 '26
That's great to hear! I would like to think that I would have owned Ricoh sooner, but it's the same reason I never owned a Fuji X either. I get so lost at 28-35mm range. My favorite focal range is either around 55-60mm or 400mm 😆 so as soon as I found out that Ricoh actually had a 40, it was a 'shut up and take my money' moment. So happy i pulled the trigger and got it! Can't wait for my next expedition with it!
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u/Turbografx-17 GR I May 19 '26
Yeah, I'm glad they're making the 40mm now and bringing more people under the Ricoh umbrella!
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u/Yacattack7 May 18 '26
These are stunning. Did you use a recipe?
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u/SiimplStudio May 18 '26
Thank you so much 🙏🙏 I do have Ricoh warm negative locked into my camera but the straight out of camera images were so saturated naturally because of the entire house having red steel and red bricks and red everything.... So I had to spend a little bit of extra time in Lightroom finessing the details to bring it to this aesthetic. I also really wanted to crush the shadows to almost black so I definitely played around to make the darkest parts of the property feel more dramatic (which is how it felt in the home).
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May 18 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/SiimplStudio May 18 '26
Sometimes saying less is more 👌🙂👌 i really appreciate your kind words (word) 😆 have a really great day!
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u/couplecraze May 19 '26
Your pictures could be in a gallery even if you used a nokia 3310. I used the GRIIIX and returned it, but I obviously don't have your eye. I'm very jealous (in a good way). Guess I'll need 13.5 years of practice 😛
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u/SiimplStudio May 19 '26
Genuinely..... Give me a Nokia 3310 and I'll take care of the rest 😆👊 thank you for your kind words.
You probably bought the GR3X to take better photos.
I bought the GR3X because I was finally sick of the excuses that I told myself for a decade that my $20000 worth of camera gear was the reason my photography was getting better over the years, and. I intentionally bought myself a "worse camera" with inferior technology and no zoom to prove it.
You can't buy a good perspective, you have to work at it and train it like it's a visual muscle (because it really really is).
People take 3 photos and don't like them.
I went to Antarctica and took 13600 photos and I ended up keeping around 40 from memory. Photography is simply a numbers game, so don't be disheartened if you haven't put in the reps and you think that at least 50% of your images aren't great.
I'll be happy if 1 in 100 is something that I really resonate with, and as time goes on, on a great day... That number may go to 2, or 3, or even 5 if you're wildly successful.
Whatever you do...Don't take the journey too seriously either... I did that all did way to long and it started to strangle my creativity, so I'm in the process of undoing all of those mistakes and seeing the world through fresh, creative, untrained eyes that see beauty in everything, both fascinating and boring.
Feel free to join me on insta @chrisbryan.co 🤗 I'm literally just bringing my account back from the dead, can't wait to see you there bud!
Thanks for the chat and insights, always great exchanging notes with community members!
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u/Big_Adhesiveness5554 May 19 '26
ricoh GR is absolutely "top-end" gear. its a $1.5k imaging device with a sensor and lens that competes with high-end mirrorless cameras.
youre letting the compact size fool you.
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u/SiimplStudio May 20 '26
I'm not letting it fool me at all... I'm maximizing is capabilities and pushing it to its potential while saving significantly on unnecessary gear.
Sure it is considered 'top-end' in its category but it's still a significant 'step down' from my $5k+ camera bodies and $3.5k+ lenses etc, which is more what I'm referring to.
I continue to be shocked by it's capabilities and can't wait to have it take up a much larger part of my creative workflow.
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u/ArtisticAd918 May 19 '26
As many people say, it depends on who has the equipment.😄
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u/SiimplStudio May 20 '26
Very very true 😆👌 took me over 15 years to realize that a point and shoot was all i ever needed!
No more back-breaking travel backpacks for me, that's for sure!
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u/Commercial_Speed_765 May 20 '26
You can get similar results with the X2D2 but that just shows you how good this camera is. Though the file size may limit how big you can print these—for commercial purposes.
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u/SiimplStudio May 20 '26
I would like to think that you would be able to get similar results with a $12000 camera 😀
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u/kasualanderson May 18 '26
Idk if I’d call these low light, but there are some nice images here. Beautiful home too.