Ricoh Caplio RR30

The Caplio RR30 marks a change of design for Ricoh. The RDC-i500 (see Labs, issue 86, p110) looked like an old 110-format camera, but the Caplio is closer to an APS compact, albeit a little longer. This compact size is reflected in the type of removable memory used, with an SD slot on hand. No card is supplied as standard though; Ricoh instead relies on 8MB of internal memory, although inserting a memory card disables this. The 3.3-megapixel CCD generates images up to 2,048 x 1,536, four of which can fit into the internal memory at maximum quality.

A couple of functions set the Ricoh apart from the rest of the sub-£300 crowd. First, it has a manual focus operated by the left and right arrow buttons on the rear of the camera. It's also the only camera on test to include a time-lapse mode. This allows the RR30 to take pictures at regular intervals from every 30 seconds up to every three hours.

But the Ricoh really stands out with its macro shot. Although the focus left a little to be desired at the edge of the image, we were able to get the area captured down to 19 x 14mm. Only the Nikon Coolpix 4500 could beat this, and that costs over one and a half times as much as the RR30.

Sadly, the other indoor shots didn't fare as well. There was plenty of noise visible, both with and without flash, while the illumination provided by the Caplio's small bulb tailed off significantly towards the edges of the image.

The Ricoh also struggled in bright sunlight. In the landscape shot, both our model's face and the sky were overexposed, although this did allow more detail to creep into the dark areas of the image. In the portrait shot, which we took at a later time, the exposure was improved but there was noise in dark areas of the image and a blue fringe around the model's hair.

As well as four presets for white balance, the Ricoh allows manual setting using a white backdrop. This should allow the colour to be accurate no matter what the lighting situation. And with an ISO range stretching from 125 to 800, the RR30 can be used in a wide variety of situations. However, digital noise is apparent at the higher settings.

With manual control over such a wide selection of settings, on paper the Ricoh looks like it should be challenging for awards. However, in practice, the results fell short of our expectations, with Sony winning the image quality battle.