If you love the look of the Ricoh GR IV but not so much the $1,499 / £1,199 / AU$2,199 price tag (or the fact that it's sold out pretty much everywhere), George Holden is here to help.
The YouTuber and street photographer has put together a budget-friendly alternative to the GR IV, promising snap-shooting supremacy for just $200.
"I went down to the camera graveyard, dug up the head of a Magnum Photos Prodigy, and stuck it to the body of the local village idiot to create what is my fake Ricoh GR IV," says Holden in his video (which you can watch below).
The village idiot in question? The Olympus PEN E-PL6 – a pocket-sized interchangeable lens camera from 2013 with a 16MP Micro Four Thirds (MFT) sensor.
George picked this up for $106 / $80 / AU$149 on a trip to Japan.
"So, because of the great deal I got on this camera, I ended up going with the Lumix 14mm f/2.5 lens," which has an equivalent 28mm focal length (thanks to the 2x MFT crop factor) and is one of the best pancake lenses ever made.
"With this camera and lens combination, we now have a small mirrorless camera much like the Ricoh GR IV with the same 28mm full-frame field of view as the Ricoh GR IV's fixed lens. However, these cameras are far from equal in every way."
Holden highlights the obvious sensor differences, with the GR IV having a 26MP APS-C chip that benefits from over a decade of sensor development.
It also has 53GB of internal memory, an integrated ND filter, along with WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity. But if you listen to Ricoh's marketing spiel, the most important thing on the GR IV is Snap Focus.
Of course, Snap Focus is just a brand name version of zone focusing. So George assigned one of the E-PL6's customizable buttons to manual focus and, with a bit of clever shooting, neatly replicates the Ricoh feature.
He also points out that, despite being a camera from 2013, the Olympus actually has some features that the Ricoh lacks.
It has a touchscreen with touch-focus, face detect AF, a tilting LCD, double the burst shooting speed (8fps)… but there are also a few compromises and omissions, such as the lack of any exposure dials.
Still, you can't argue with the images that Holden produced with his poor man's GR IV. Take a look at the video and decide for yourself: when you can get such similar results from a $200 kit, do you really need a $1,500 camera?
If you're not already following him, I highly recommend checking out George's YouTube channel – especially if you're a fan of compact, street-friendly cameras and MFT bodies.
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Take a look at the best compact cameras and, if you're an existing GR owner, see our Ricoh GR IV vs GR III comparison to find out if it's really worth the upgrade.
