Ricoh Caplio R3 Digital Camera

What I like most is the amazing 28-200mm [35mm equivalent] zoom lens.Also the compact size which makes it a TRUE pocket camera.There is no doubt that picture noise is a problem above iso 200, but lets face it,if I wanted to take pics to blow up to anything above A4, I would use a camera more suited to that task.The whole point of my buying the R3 was to have a camera handy at all times without weighing my pocket down and in that respect the R3 does the job admirably.So how DOES the camera perform when it comes to picture quality? Well, I can only tell you that in my opinion, it manages extremely well.I went for a drive with the R3 and my Fuji 9600 to take some pix of the same scenes with both cameras,and,without going into too much technichal jargon, I was more than satisfied with the Richo's performance when using iso 100 or 200 but as I said, it gets a bit noisy above those iso settings. The zoom lens is nothing short of amazing for such a small camera. One other point I would make, is that when using max. wide angle [28mm], there is somtimes some slight vignetting in the corners but if you leave the antishake on, as I do, it gets rid of this problem.
So, to sum up, I think it is a very good little camera and it delivers lovely, well saturated pictures. Given the choice now of course,I would go for the R6 because the noise problem at higher iso has been somewhat improved, but I have no regrets about buying the R3 and would recommend it as a great little pocket camera with an incredible zoom lens.