Reviving My Ricoh GR: Disassembling and Cleaning the CMOS

Ricoh GR was my 3rd camera after I began my photography journey, bought in 2013. Before that, I was using the Canon EOS 6D. The Canon EOS 6D was a heavy DSLR that I could not bring everywhere all the time. I wanted a compact, high-quality camera so that I could take photos even when my Canon EOS 6D was not available.

In the first few months, I was happy with the Ricoh GR. It fit in my pocket, and I brought it everywhere, taking many photos. However, I noticed a strange spot in all the photos I took with the Ricoh GR. I realised that there was dust inside the CMOS. After researching on the Internet, I discovered that dust issues are common among Ricoh GR users.

I went to the service support, and they charged me HKD 500 for the check-up. They described the exact issue I had found and asked for over a thousand for cleaning, which was more than half the price of the camera. Frustrated by the poor after-sales service, I gave up on my Ricoh GR and switched to the Fujifilm X100T.

The Fujifilm X100T is small, but it does not fit in my pocket either. If it can’t fit in my pocket, why don’t I use the Fujifilm XT4 instead? Ricoh released the GR III in 2019. Over the years, its compact size is still unbeatable. Some professional photographers I follow are using the Ricoh GR III/GR IIIx for leisure. I am interested in the upgraded version, but I am not sure if I could get used to a different system, considering I have been using Fujifilm cameras for almost 10 years.

Then I stared at my Ricoh GR. No one should be interested in my dusty, over-10-year-old camera. Even if they were interested, they would probably bid less than HKD 200 for it. I decided to clean its CMOS by disassembling it. If it works, I can use this old camera again. If it breaks, no one cares, as it is not sellable anyway.

Since dust issues are common among the Ricoh GR series, there are many online resources on disassembling the camera. I spent an afternoon reading the guide and disassembling my camera. It was easy to disassemble the camera, as long as you do not care about the warranty and the resale value anymore. The problem was that it was very difficult to clean the CMOS. I repeated the process more than eight times: disassembling, cleaning, reassembling, and then taking a test shot.

Although the final time still did not look perfect, it was much better than the initial condition ten years ago. This abandoned camera is now back on my gear list. I will spend time with it, taking photos to decide whether I should go minimalist and sell my Fujifilm X100T for a Ricoh GR III/GR IIIx.

It is worth spending time on hands-on activities. I felt much better than scrolling through phones and reading social media. The CMOS might not be as clean as it was ten years ago, but now I know how to disassemble my Ricoh GR, and can clean it whenever I want to. New skill acquired.