Ricoh GR III vs GR IIIx: 28mm or 40mm? A Complete Buyer's Guide

Two cameras, one body, two lenses. The Ricoh GR III and the GR IIIx look identical on a shelf, share the same sensor and processor, use the same battery, and run the same menus — yet choosing between them is the single most consequential decision a new GR buyer makes. You're not picking a feature set. You're picking a focal length you can never change.

This guide breaks down exactly what separates the Ricoh GR III from the GR IIIx, what the specs actually mean in the street, and how to decide which one belongs in your pocket. Good news for anyone worried about presets: every film recipe and Image Control setting works identically on both bodies — more on that below.

The Short Answer

• Ricoh GR III — 28mm equivalent. Wider, more context, closer minimum focus, the classic GR focal length. The better choice for street photography, architecture, interiors, and travel.
• Ricoh GR IIIx — 40mm equivalent. Tighter, more selective, more natural perspective. The better choice for portraits, food, details, and anyone who finds 28mm too busy.

If you've never owned a fixed-lens compact, the GR III is the safer first purchase. If you already know from shooting a phone or a zoom that you gravitate to 35–50mm, the GR IIIx will feel like it was built for you.

What's Actually Different

The differences all trace back to the lens. Here's the honest spec sheet:

| | Ricoh GR III | Ricoh GR IIIx | |---|---|---| | Lens | 18.3mm f/2.8 (28mm equiv.) | 26.1mm f/2.8 (40mm equiv.) | | Construction | 6 elements, 4 groups | 7 elements, 5 groups | | Min. focus (normal) | 10cm | 20cm | | Macro range | 6–12cm | 12–24cm | | Crop modes | 35mm, 50mm | 50mm, 71mm | | Dimensions | 109.4 × 61.9 × 33.2mm | 109.4 × 61.9 × 35.2mm | | Weight | 257g | 262g | | Conversion lens | GW-4 wide (21mm equiv.) + GA-1 | GT-2 tele (~60mm equiv.) + GA-2 |

Two millimetres of thickness and five grams of weight — that's the entire physical penalty for the longer lens. Both cameras still disappear into a jacket pocket.

What's Identical

This is the part spec comparisons tend to bury, and it matters more than the differences:

• 24MP APS-C CMOS sensor, no anti-aliasing filter, on both bodies
• GR Engine 6 processor and the same JPEG rendering pipeline
• 3-axis in-body Shake Reduction, worth roughly 2–4 stops in real use
• Hybrid AF (phase detection + contrast detection)
• Built-in 2-stop ND filter — the same one that makes daylight long exposures possible
• DB-110 battery, rated around 200 shots (buy spares for either camera)
• 3-inch touchscreen, no viewfinder, no built-in flash
• The same Image Control profiles, including the Negative Film profile that arrived with GR III firmware v1.70 and GR IIIx firmware v1.20 in January 2023

Because the processing engine and Image Control menus are shared, every recipe written for the GR III applies unchanged to the GR IIIx. Contrast, sharpness, clarity, toning, grain, white balance shift — same parameters, same numeric ranges, same results. Focal length changes your framing, not your colour science.

Living With 28mm

28mm is the focal length the GR line was built around, and it shapes how you shoot. It's wide enough that you must get close — an arm's length from your subject is normal — which is precisely why GR photographers love it. The lens forces participation. You end up inside scenes rather than observing them from across the street.

Where the GR III wins:

• Street photography. Wide coverage means you catch the gesture and the context. Combined with Snap Focus, the deep depth of field at 28mm f/5.6 makes zone focusing effectively foolproof.
• Architecture and interiors. Cafés, subway cars, narrow alleys, tall buildings — 28mm fits what 40mm cannot.
• Travel. One lens, one bag, whole scene. See our travel settings guide for a field-ready setup.
• Close-up work. That 6cm macro range is genuinely special. You can nearly touch a subject and still focus, which the GR IIIx simply can't do.
• Flexibility through cropping. Crop Mode gives you 35mm at ~15MP and 50mm at ~7MP, so a GR III can become a tighter camera when needed.

The catch: 28mm is unforgiving of clutter. Backgrounds fill up fast, edges stretch faces, and you cannot stand back and isolate anything. If your photos feel busy and you can't figure out why, focal length is often the reason.

Living With 40mm

40mm sits in the quiet spot between 35mm reportage and 50mm classicism. It renders roughly the way you remember a scene looking — no wide-angle drama, no telephoto compression. Subjects separate from backgrounds without you doing anything clever.

Where the GR IIIx wins:

• Portraits and people. No edge distortion, flattering proportions, and a comfortable shooting distance. Pair it with a soft film recipe like Rustic Portra 400 and it's a superb people camera.
• Food and objects. 40mm at 20cm is the natural table-top framing that 28mm has to fake by moving in and distorting.
• Details and signage. Textures, hands, doorways, typography — the frame arrives pre-simplified.
• Cleaner compositions. Fewer elements in frame means less to organise. Many photographers find 40mm easier to compose with, especially starting out.
• Reach. Crop to 50mm (~15MP) or 71mm (~7MP), or add the GT-2 tele converter for roughly 60mm native — up to about 107mm stacked with the tightest crop.

The catch: in tight spaces, 40mm hits a wall. You'll back into walls trying to fit a room, and wide environmental street frames are off the table. The longer minimum focus distance also rules out true close-up work.

Pro tip: before you spend a cent, shoot a weekend at a fixed 28mm and another at 40mm on whatever camera you already own — most phones offer both as fixed options, and any zoom can be taped in place. Then check which folder you actually want to keep. That test predicts your GR satisfaction far better than any review, including this one.

Where the GR IV Fits In

Since the GR IV arrived in August 2025 with a redesigned 18.3mm lens, a 25.7MP backside-illuminated sensor, five-axis stabilisation and internal storage, the calculus has shifted slightly: if you want 28mm, the GR IV is the newer path, and GR III bodies have become the value buy. If you want 40mm, the GR IIIx is still the only GR that offers it. Both GR III and GR IIIx also come in HDF versions, which swap the ND filter for a Highlight Diffusion Filter that blooms bright points into a soft, film-like glow.

None of this changes the recipe story. GR III–era Image Control settings remain the shared language across the family.

So Which One?

Buy the Ricoh GR III if you shoot street, cities, interiors, or travel; you want the widest, most flexible frame with crop modes in reserve; you care about close focusing; or this is your first fixed-lens compact.

Buy the Ricoh GR IIIx if you shoot people, food, or details; 28mm has historically felt too wide and busy in your work; you prefer a natural, calm perspective; or you already own a 28mm camera and want a complement rather than a duplicate.

And if you truly can't decide: get the GR III. It crops to 35mm and 50mm with useful resolution left over, so it can imitate the GR IIIx more convincingly than the GR IIIx can imitate it.

Whichever body you choose, the look comes from the settings — and that's the good news. Our whole preset catalogue is Image Control–based, so recipes like Kodak Gold 200 and Classic Chrome load into a User mode on either camera and render exactly the same. Start with the best GR III film recipes, then read how to apply a recipe to save it to U1–U3 and shoot finished JPEGs straight out of camera.

Pick your focal length once. Then stop thinking about gear and go shoot.