Ricoh Japan has announced a new compact digital camera that features an ultra-wide lens and an optional removable LCD viewfinder to deliver ?SLR-style? handling for enthusiast photographers.

The wideangle Caplio GX100 is fitted with a 24-72mm f/2.5-4.4 zoom lens, the focal lengths of which can be widened to the equivalent of 19mm with an optional wideangle adapter. The view seen by the lens is shown on the camera?s rear LCD screen, as is usual, but an extra electronic viewfinder can be attached to the hotshoe. This plugs into the rear of the camera and shows a 100% view of the scene to be captured on an internal LCD screen. The hotshoe can also be used to host an external flash unit or an optical viewfinder, all of which are optional extras.

The 10-million-pixel camera has an ISO range of ISO 80-1600 and a wideangle macro mode that allows focusing down to 0.01m. A CCD shift image stabilisation system has been used to reduce the effects of camera shake, and images may be saved in both JPEG or DNG raw formats, as well as both file types simultaneously.

A total of eight image size options are available as well as 640×480 and 320×240 pixel movie modes with frame rates of up to 30fps.

The camera?s metering system uses 256 segments in evaluative, centre weighted and spot configurations, while four subject-based exposure modes are supplemented with program, aperture priority, shutter priority and manual features.

The camera is compatible with SD and SDHC memory cards, and is powered by AAA batteries. The camera is due to cost £399 in the UK.

See the specifications here

Ricoh GX100 spec

See more information from Ricoh here

Ricoh GX100