Product Reviews

If you already own a compact digital camera, you may have got used to shuffling to and fro in order to frame that perfect shot. The problem is that many compacts are severely limited by poor focal range and a weedy optical zoom. To make matters worse, they try to rectify the situation with a digital zoom that only ends up reducing image quality. The Caplio R5 avoids such problems by featuring a lens that has the 35mm equivalent of 28-200mm - an impressive focal range for a compact.

Behind the scenes

The rear of the camera has a straightforward layout, a large 2.5in TFT and a set of buttons that allow direct access to commonly-used functions. Adjustment of multiple settings, such as exposure compensation and white balance, are just a button press away.

Unfortunately, not all the buttons are so ideally placed and we found the power button to be far too close to the edge of the camera. Using the Ricoh's impressive zoom capabilities is also awkward, as the controls are too small to operate easily. Despite ergonomic aggravations, the Ricoh feels responsive in use and beginners will appreciate the camera's simple controls.

We were, however, less enthused by the camera's meagre set of shooting modes. For the enthusiast, there are hardly any manual control options and even if you're just an everyday happy snapper, you'll find the Ricoh doesn't have useful preset scene modes. The Caplio isn't totally devoid of useful features, though. The anti-shake function allows you to

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use longer exposures without camera shake, while the fantastic macro setting allows you to focus on objects just 1cm away.

Unlucky number seven

Seven megapixels might sound impressive, but size isn't everything. The Caplio has a massive range of ISO, or light sensitivity settings - from ISO 64 all the way up to 1600. This should theoretically allow it to capture images in any light conditions. Theoretically is the key word here though, as image noise was visible in shadows even at ISO 200 and worsened throughout the large, but mostly unusable, ISO range.

You can forget about using this camera for night photography too, as the ISO 800 and 1600 settings are dogged by an excessive amount of noise. The downside of being forced to use lower ISO settings is that they require longer exposures, which means that you'll have to leave the anti-shake on if you don't want blurry photos. Unfortunately, when working at ISO 64 and 100 on darker days, the anti-shake feature won't always be enough to save you.

Not everything was so bad though, and despite a tendency to overexpose, images were on the whole accurate. Outdoors scenes and colour were also faithfully rendered, and indoor lighting was generally well balanced in automatic mode, too.

Lacking in stamina

The Ricoh's battery life is merely average and we weren't impressed to see the charge indicator drop suddenly and inexplicably from three bars to a single red one, indicating low power. As we turned on the camera to review our photos and see whether the indicator was mistaken, the battery died almost instantaneously and left the lens dangerously exposed. The problem may be particular to our review unit, but most cameras keep a reserve of power to retract the lens before they completely give up the ghost.

On paper, this camera has it all: 7-megapixel resolution; image stabilisation; fantastic macro and a superb zoom. The wide ISO range looked particularly promising on paper. In reality, the Ricoh feels far too plasticky for a camera at this price and the image quality is average at best.