Ricoh GR IV vs GR III: Which One Should You Buy?

Both product pages showed "out of stock" when we checked, so availability matters as much as list price right now. Our GR III price guide tracks new, refurbished and used prices for every current GR.

Our pick: for most first-time buyers who can afford it, the GR IV. For daylight street and travel shooters on a budget, the GR III is still the better value.

The three differences you will actually feel

Spec tables make the cameras look far apart. In use, three changes matter. The rest is small print.

1. Stabilization after dark. DPReview reports the GR IV's 5-axis system at up to six steps at the center of the frame (four at the edges), against a 4EV rating for the GR III's 3-axis system. Two extra steps mean you can handhold a shutter speed four times slower for the same sharpness, or stay two ISO stops lower. For a night street shooter, that is the difference between ISO 6400 and ISO 1600 on the same scene. Moving subjects still blur, because stabilization only cancels your hand shake.

2. Battery and storage on long days. Ricoh rates the DB-120 at about 250 shots and the GR III's DB-110 at about 200. Neither number is generous; you still need a spare. The bigger change is storage: about 53GB built in against 2GB. On the GR IV you can leave the house without a card. On the GR III the internal memory is an emergency buffer and little more.

3. Edge sharpness. The GR IV has a new 7-element lens, and DPReview found it delivers "more consistent performance across the frame than its predecessor." In other words, the edges hold up better than on the GR III. If you shoot architecture, signage or tight compositions where something important sits near the edge, you will see it. If your subject is usually in the middle third, you mostly won't.

Where the two cameras are the same

This list is longer than people expect, and it is why the GR III remains a good buy:

• The same 28mm-equivalent field of view and f/2.8 maximum aperture.
• The same crop modes: 35mm and 50mm equivalents.
• A 2EV built-in ND filter on the standard model of both.
• The same 3.0-inch screen with about 1,037,000 dots, fixed, with no viewfinder.
• Full HD video up to 60p and no 4K on either camera.
• Hybrid autofocus (phase detection plus contrast) on both.

On autofocus, DPReview found the GR IV's single AF "generally quick and accurate," but its continuous AF "far more likely to hunt" and called the autofocus dated overall. Neither camera is a tracking camera. For street work, most GR shooters zone focus anyway, and the GR IV adds a Snap Distance Priority exposure mode that builds that habit into the camera.

Controls: the GR IV goes back to the GR II layout

This is the difference spec sheets hide. According to DPReview, the GR IV replaces the GR III's rear dial with a multi-directional controller, brings back the +/- rocker switch for exposure compensation, and turns the ADJ lever into a clickable command dial.

What that means for you depends on where you are coming from. If you learned on a GR II, the GR IV will feel like home. If your hands know the GR III, expect a week of reaching for controls that moved. Neither layout is wrong; just don't buy the GR IV expecting identical muscle memory.

The card format changed too: the GR IV takes microSD (UHS-I), and DPReview calls the microSD slot "mildly annoying." Your GR III's SD cards and spare batteries won't carry over.

Film recipes on the GR IV vs the GR III

For us, this is where the comparison gets interesting, and where the GR III holds up best.

Recipe feature	GR IV	GR III
Negative Film, Positive Film, Retro, Bleach Bypass, Cross Processing, HDR Tone	Yes	Yes
Standard, Vivid and the Monotone family	Yes	Yes
Cinema (Yellow) and Cinema (Green)	Yes	No
Custom slots	3	2
White balance fine-tune	±14 steps, A-B and G-M	Yes

Every Image Control on the GR III's spec page appears on the GR IV's, so every recipe we sell runs on both cameras. Ricoh's GR IV page lists the same adjustable parameters our recipes use: saturation, hue, high/low key, contrast, highlight and shadow contrast, sharpness, shading, clarity, toning and grain effect.

Three things change in practice:

1. The third custom slot. On the GR III you pick two looks to keep loaded. On the GR IV you can keep a daylight color recipe, a night recipe and a black-and-white recipe at once. For a recipe shooter, this is the most useful upgrade that costs nothing to use.
2. Cinema modes. Cinema (Yellow) and Cinema (Green) are new bases with no GR III equivalent. On a GR III, the closest route to a movie-film look is a tungsten white balance on Positive Film or Retro, which is how our night recipes work.
3. JPEG color. DPReview found GR IV JPEG colors "a bit more pleasing than the GR III's," while also listing JPEG softness as a con. A new sensor also means the same settings can render white balance slightly differently, so check your first frames against your GR III shots and adjust white balance before touching saturation.

Our Ricoh GR IV recipes guide shows which three looks to load into Custom 1 to 3 and how to save them with the GR WORLD app.

Our pick: if recipes are the main reason you shoot a GR, the GR III gives you 95% of the experience. The GR IV's third slot is a convenience, not a new capability.

Which one should you buy?

Buy the GR IV if:

• You shoot handheld after sunset at least once a week.
• You travel and want one battery, no card and fewer worries.
• Edge sharpness matters for your subjects.
• You learned on a GR II and prefer the rocker-and-buttons layout.

Buy the GR III if:

• You shoot mostly in daylight, where the stabilization gap barely shows.
• You already own SD cards and DB-110 batteries.
• You would rather spend the $550 difference on travel, prints or a spare battery and a recipe bundle.
• You found a well-kept used or refurbished copy. Our checklist for buying a used GR III covers the dust test and what to ask the seller.

Already own a GR III? Keep it unless one of the three differences above is costing you photos today. And if you are still choosing between focal lengths rather than generations, our GR III vs GR IIIx comparison covers 28mm against 40mm; the GR IV only comes in 28mm.

Mistakes we see all the time

• Paying for megapixels. 25.74MP against 24.24MP is a 6% increase. You will not see it in a print or on a phone.
• Expecting tracking autofocus. DPReview's main complaint about the GR IV is continuous AF. If you shoot kids or sports, neither GR is the right tool.
• Buying a GR III above list price. When the GR III is out of stock, marketplace sellers often ask more than Ricoh's $1,049.95. At that point the GR IV gap shrinks and the newer camera becomes the better deal.
• Forgetting the accessories. Batteries (DB-120 vs DB-110) and cards (microSD vs SD) don't cross over. Budget for a spare battery on either camera.
• Assuming recipes need rebuilding. They don't. Enter the settings, then fine-tune white balance on the GR IV.

In short

The GR IV is the better camera, with stronger stabilization, a longer-lasting battery, 53GB of storage and a sharper lens at the edges. The GR III is the better value, delivering the same 28mm look, the same Image Control bases and the same recipes for $550 less. Night and travel shooters should buy the GR IV; daylight street shooters should buy the GR III, and our Ricoh GR III review explains why it still holds up years after launch.

Whichever you choose, your first recipe works on both. Start with the Kodak Gold 200 recipe ($1.99) for warm daylight color and Indigo Film 800 for night streets, or get both looks and more in the Street Essentials bundle ($8.99).