Just received mine this week. The high ISO looks so much better than the GRIV. Gives the ability to use snap focus in less than ideal light and coupled with the stabilization becomes a very versatile night camera.
Well I drank the Koolaid and bought a GR IV Monochrome. Why? To paraphrase Woody from the movie Nebraska, 'I want a Monochrome Camera'. :-) (The Leica offerings and cost of ownership are just to much for me to bear)
I've only had it for a few days, but took enough pic's to be impressed with it's IQ and tonality. I put a few here: https://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1438439/89#17024019 I even dug up some images I took with a Leica Q2M a while back, then re-shot them with the GR IV Mono. Resolution aside I was surprised how well they held up to the Leica.
Still trying to work out a smooth work flow. I have the GR IV that I use in a conventional way, pull card, out, put in reader... But that micro SDCard is a little fiddley. I lost one out on the streets changing a battery, still trying to figure that out. With the Mono version, I record to the internal memory, then tether to computer via USB cable (LR/Windows or Linux.) The camera shows up as a drive so reading/copying files is easy. I've tried the GR World app, it works fine for files transferred in XS format. But the process stalls and fails transferring large full size images. Does anybody have a fix for that?
After losing one card out on the streets, I'm partial to using the internal memory. Then at home copying to a micro SD card for backup until I get things in the computer. Or maybe use a reader I have that accommodates micro SD Cards. Jury is still out on all that.
I read where some folks have had a problem with the camera shutting down. That has happened to me once. Any ideas on how to avoid that?
Overall the GR IV Mono after only 3 or 4 days of ownership/use is a winner for me.
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Rod
In the GR App set the wifi network access to use a 5gHz connection to the camera instead of the default 2.5gHz, much much faster transfers and more stable in my experience. At least with the iPhone 17 Pro and iPad M4 Pro I use here.
Tarekith wrote:
In the GR App set the network access to use a 5gHz connection to the camera, much much faster transfers and more stable in my experience. iPhone 17 Pro and iPad M4 pro here.
Thanks Tarekith, that did it, works great now. Over 100 pic's input (full size) in a minute or two.
Also wanted to mention that one of my favorite things about the GR is the "Remember Cursor Position" setting in the menus. Makes it so much easier to quickly access settings you want to change a lot, but you're out of assignable buttons for them. I like it remembers the position of the cursor for each menu section too, IE Playback menus, Customize Menus, Shooting menus, etc.
If Leica has the best function button assigning (well until they nerfed it with the v4 update, grrrr) then Ricoh takes the cake for menu access.
I have it, have tested it, and find the resolution comparable to my Leica M246 with the CV Ultron II f2 at comparable apertures, and better above 6,400 ISO because there is (so far) NO BANDING - at last!
The great benefits over the Q3 Mono at high ISO is that Lightroom’s AI denoise works beautifully - it does not work with the Q3 Mono. The GRIV Mono is perfectly useable at 25,000 ISO, but with denoise at about 20-30% the image is very much cleaner.
