Ricoh GR Digital 8.1Mp camera

The large 2.5in screen dominates the back plate and provides comprehensive display options, including composition frame lines, an active histogram, or nothing but the image through the lens. The screen is sadly quite difficult to use in brighter conditions and although it is very sharp, I found that shadows and highlight areas in a shot were not displayed particularly well even when adjusting the screen's brightness. The result is a lack of detail that belied the true quality of the shots.

Other controls on the back include the main Menu and OK button; a four-way control set-up that surrounds the Menu button providing flash, replay and the camera's excellent 1.5cm macro settings. These buttons also double as jog-style buttons that assist in scrolling the many menus the GR has to offer or to run through shots you've taken.

The menus include the usual array of set-up options and access to the more advanced settings such as the completely customisable image parameters - sharpness, contrast and colour depth can all be tweaked and saved as custom settings. There is also auto exposure bracketing and white-balance bracketing built-in, along with the ability to shoot with the AdobeRGB colour space embedded into the shots.