RITCHIE'S RICOH RECIPES

Ricoh Recipes App is Available Now!

The Ricoh Recipes App is now available! You can find it in both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.

The Ricoh Recipes App is a mobile recipe library containing 40 JPEG recipes for Ricoh GR cameras! The recipes in the app are the same ones that you know and love from this website, but now take them with you on the go, and have them at your fingertips wherever you are!

The Ricoh Recipes App is free! No annoying ads. Get access to 40 recipes, 20 for Ricoh GR & GR II cameras, and 20 for the GR III & GR IIIx. Each recipe contains an assortment of sample images. Within each recipe there’s a place where you can keep notes, a useful feature for many of you, no doubt. The app will work offline, so if you don’t have internet access but need to find a certain recipe, no problem! The Ricoh Recipes App is a handy tool for street, travel, and documentary photographers, and an essential app to accompany your Ricoh camera.

This app does have some advanced features that can be unlocked by becoming a Ricoh Recipes Patron! These advanced features include filtering by camera, as well as by Effect or color/B&W, sort by Collection, and the ability to favorite recipes for quick access. There’s also a bonus recipe in each Collection, which means that Patrons have access to 48 recipes! The best app experience is reserved for Patrons!

By becoming a Ricoh Recipes Patron, which is only $11.99 annually, you unlock the app’s full potential, you get some bonus recipes, and you help support Ricoh Recipes! It’s a win-win!

The Ricoh Recipes App is available in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store today!

New: Ricoh GR IIIx

Ricoh just announced a new GR camera: the Ricoh GR IIIx! This camera appears to be identical to the GR III except for the lens, which is 39mm full-frame equivalent (instead of 28mm).

I think this is a great move by Pentax, because I sometimes find the GR lens to be too wide-angle. I often prefer a focal length closer to 40mm. As many of you know, I primarily shoot Fujifilm, and I often use between 35mm and 50mm equivalent lenses. My most-used lens is the Fujinon 27mm f/2.8, which is 40.5mm equivalent, and the closest in the Fujifilm lineup to the lens on the GR IIIx. The Fujifilm X100V has a 34.5mm equivalent lens, so the GR IIIx will more closely compete with that camera.

For most people and most situations, a Ricoh GR III and GR IIIx can be a complete kit. With two really useful focal length options, you won’t find a whole lot of situations where one of these two cameras won’t do the trick. If you are a sports or wildlife photographer you’d likely want something different, but, for most other people, have a GR III in one pocket and a GR IIIx in another and you’re good-to-go pretty much no matter the situation. This one-two punch is ideal for street, travel, documentary, and landscape photography, and the GR IIIx is a good option for portrait photography.

The Ricoh GR IIIx will be available in October for around $1,000. The GR IIIx is identical, aside from the lens, to the GR III, so the GR III recipes will be completely compatible with it.

Are Ricoh Recipes Compatible With Pentax DSLRs?

*Captured on a Ricoh GR III using my “KodaKolor” recipe from The Road Trip Collection.*

One question that I’ve received many times since I published this website is: are Ricoh Recipes compatible with Pentax DSLR cameras? Pentax and Ricoh are made by the same company, after all.

I don’t have a good answer because I don’t own a Pentax DSLR. If there is crossover compatibility it is completely unintentional—a happy accident, really. But I have received some feedback that there is indeed some compatibility, so the answer seems to be: yes and no.

For example, I received this message:

“On a Pentax KP, the only things that seem different between a KP and a GR III are Effect and Shading. Also the scale on WB adjustments–KP only goes to +/- 7, but has the same B/G/A/M, with the same categories. So I have the same Hue/Saturation, the three Contrast options, the same Highlight/Shadow/Noise options, as well as Clarity.

“I can somewhat replace Effect with the ‘Custom Image,’ but it uses some different categories (‘Kodak Slide’ recipe has to use ‘Vibrant’ instead of ‘Vivid’ so I’m not sure if it’s exactly the same). Cross Processing works really differently. There’s mostly only just one B&W category, but at least it has all the color filter simulations (including a nifty IR-style one). Most notably, there’s no Positive Film, so that axes a lot of these recipes off the bat.

“I guess there’s another difference: Digital Filters (which I’d need to use for high-contrast BW or Vintage) are mutually exclusive with Clarity. I either have to skip the filter or leave Clarity at 0.

“There does seem to be a lot of overlap (I mean, same company and similar era of camera), and a lot of what I’ve played with has looked pretty good. I think KodaKolor is my favorite so far.“

So it seems that some Ricoh Recipes are indeed compatible with some Pentax DSLRs (although it’s not clear how different it renders the picture), while other recipes are only partially compatible and some are not compatible whatsoever. If you have a Pentax DSLR and you find a recipe that works for you, I would love to know.

How To Add Recipes To Your Ricoh GR Camera

*Captured with a Ricoh GR using the “Classic Analog” recipe in The Color Landscape Collection.*

Adding recipes to your Ricoh GR, GR II or GR III camera is easy!

For Ricoh GR and GR II cameras, there are six “My Settings” presets that can be programmed into the camera with recipe parameters. There are only three My Settings on the top dial, My1, My2 and My3, but the camera can save six, and these can be assigned to the three dial options (in other words, they can be swapped in and out).

Select Menu (the middle button inside the D-Pad), and in the Key Custom Options find Edit My Settings. From there you select which (of the six) custom preset you want to create or edit. Enter the required recipe parameters and save. Then set the White Balance using the WB button at the bottom of the D-Pad. Done!

Another (perhaps more simple) option is to set the Effect using the Effect button on the side of the camera, set the White Balance using WB button on the bottom of the D-Pad, and set the Dynamic Range Compensation and Noise Reduction in the Shooting menu. Alternatively, Effect and White Balance can be set from within the Shooting menu.

For the GR III, it’s similar to the GR and GR II, but a little different. You still have six presets (called Boxes), three of which can be programmed to be accessed through U1, U2 and U3 on the top dial (sound familiar?). One difference is that you have to enter in all of the parameters first. Select Menu and within Still Image Settings select everything required for the recipe. Then select within Custom Settings (a.k.a. “C”) the “Box” you want to save it to. Saving recipes to Boxes for access through U1, U2 and U3 isn’t required, but it is helpful.

There are many other settings on your camera that aren’t found in the recipes. My recipes are simply a way to achieve various JPEG looks. You’ll have to decide for yourself how you want all of the other settings to be. I recommend reading your camera’s manual. It’s important to know the ins-and-outs of your tools. If you don’t have the paper copy of your manual, you’ll find a digital copy for the GR here, GR II here, and GR III here.

Below are a couple videos (not by me) that might be helpful to you.

For GR & GR II:

For GR III:

See also:
Ricoh GR & GR II Recipes
Ricoh GR III Recipes

Understanding the Ricoh Recipe Collections

*“Vintage Teal” recipe from The Lomo Collection.*

*“Xpro Teal” recipe from The Street Collection.*

I’ve created (as of this writing) four recipe collections that are compatible with the Ricoh GR & GR II cameras, and four recipe collections that are compatible with the Ricoh GR III. Each collection contains five recipes (plus a bonus recipe available to Patrons on the Ricoh Recipes App!). The four GR & GR II recipe Collections are Color City, Color Landscape, Lomo, and Monochrome. The four GR III recipe Collections are Nature, Road Trip, Street, and B&W.

If a recipe is in, for example, The Street Collection, it means that, in my opinion, it is a good option for street photography. But just because a recipe is in a certain collection, doesn’t mean that it can’t be used for other genres of photography. There is a recipe in The Street Collection called Royal Supra that might be a good option for landscape photography. In The Nature Collection is a recipe called Analog Film that might be a good option for street photography.

The collections are intended to make it easier to find the “right” recipes for the “right” situations, but they’re not intended to be stereotyped. Feel free to try a recipe in The Lomo Collection for street photography, or a recipe in The Road Trip Collection for landscapes. Don’t be afraid to mix it up.

For each camera there are 20 (as of this writing) compatible recipes (plus four bonus recipes on the app). The Ricoh GR and Ricoh GR II share the same Collections because those two cameras are so similar. The GR II does have a few Effects that the GR doesn’t, but I don’t (yet) have any recipes that take advantage those new Effects. The GR III is significantly different, so it has its own recipes.

What Are JPEG Recipes? Why Should I Use Them?

*Captured with a Ricoh GR III using the “Royal Supra” recipe in The Street Collection.*

Welcome to Ritchie’s Ricoh Recipes! I’m Ritchie Roesch, the creator of this website and all of the recipes here.

The number one question that I expect to receive is: What are JPEG recipes? Recipes are camera settings that allow you to achieve various looks straight-out-of-camera without the need for post-processing. You dial in the specific settings into your Ricoh GR camera, and you get a certain aesthetic from your pictures. It’s kind of like loading film into an analog camera (such as the original GR film camera), except you get all of the convenience of digital. Think of each recipe as a different film canister, except that you can capture as many or as few frames as you’d like before changing the “film” and you don’t have to wait for it to come back from the lab before seeing the results.

Can I still edit the SOOC JPEGs? Yes, of course, if you want to you can, but you certainly don’t have to. The idea is that the pictures produced by the camera are finished images, and editing is unnecessary; however, there’s no right or wrong way to do things, and if you want to edit you can. You might find that you like the pictures unedited, or that it’s 90% of the way there and just a little tweaking is needed to get it the rest of the way. Find what works for you, whether it is unedited or edited, and do that.

If I shoot with a recipe, can I still use the RAW files? Yes, but the RAW editing software won’t apply all of the JPEG settings, so if you are trying to recreate the look in-software it will take some work. Each program is a little different, but you will not get the same results with software as the camera-made JPEGs. However, it’s a good idea to shoot RAW+JPEG, just in case you don’t like how the JPEG turned out. You can edit the RAW file in the software of your choice, or (my preferred option) you can reprocess the RAW file in-camera using a different recipe.

Why should I use these recipes? There are three main benefits to using recipes with your Ricoh GR camera. First, it can save you a whole bunch of time, as you no longer need to sit in front of a computer editing pictures. You can increase your productivity (it frees up time to capture even more pictures) and/or improve your home life (spend more time with family/friends or reading books, etc.). Using recipes will be a game-changer for some of you—it certainly has been for me. Second, it can be more fun. It harkens back to the film era, except with the convenience of digital. Third, it opens up photography for people who don’t have access to or who don’t have the desire to learn Lightroom or other programs. Editing isn’t for everyone, and shouldn’t be a prerequisite to creating great photographs.

You might be surprised to learn that Ansel Adams was a fan of instant film photography, which he called “revolutionary.” One of his famous pictures was captured with a Polaroid camera. In his book Polaroid Land Camera, Adams talked at length of the “one-step process” of instant film photography. By removing the darkroom requirement, Polaroid opened up photography to so many more people, and had an “effect on creative photography” by those who “revel in the advantages” of it. In a similar way, recipes remove the Lightroom requirement, which makes photography more accessible, and is a creative avenue for those who wish to explore the advantages of it.

Are these recipes compatible with all Ricoh GR cameras? My Ricoh recipes are compatible with the GR, GR II, and GR III cameras. GR and GR II recipes are not compatible with GR III cameras and GR III recipes are not compatible with GR and GR II cameras. These recipes are not compatible with “GR Digital” (a.k.a. “GRD”) cameras, as far as I am aware. If you have a Ricoh GR, GR II or GR III, there are many recipes on this website that I created which you can use on your camera.