Ricoh Caplio R7 digital camera offers 8.1 megapixels and a 7.1x wide zoom lens (28-200mm), meaning that it will bring you more optical zoom than any other camera in this range. On the first view, I can say it has a very solid build. Around the back are a selection of well-positioned control buttons, which prove to be responsive. One of these buttons is particularly useful: the ‘adj’ button (abbreviation for adjustments), which allows easy access to a host of useful control options such as exposure compensation, white balance control and ISO settings: the main ingredients for a technically good photo. The on-screen menu system is a doodle to navigate.
The most interesting features of this model are vibration control and face recognition technology. There’s no optical viewfinder, but the 2.7inch LCD screen is one of biggest out there and performs very well even in bright sun. On the other hand, event if Ricoh raised the ISO sensitivity up to 1600, this level is total useless. Usually Caplio R7 is capable of some very fine shots, with a particularly good grasp of colour reproduction, but if used fully extended, some barrel distortion and less detail towards the edges will be present in the image. The rapid start up and response times of this camera are certainly the strongest plus of it next to the white balance performance. What is not so good is the flash: it is either too strong or missing. So, if you want a strong camera with big zoom that still fits even the pockets (unlike big ultrazoom cameras which have a bigger size), Ricoh Caplio R7 is an interesting choice.