Ricoh HZ15 Pro Reviews

The Ricoh HZ15 is one of the cheapest travel-zoom cameras currently available, packing a versatile 15x zoom lens that starts at a wide-angle 24mm into a compact package that can easily be slipped into a coat pocket. The effective optical image stabilisation system and rubberised handgrip help to ensure that your pictures are sharp, while the overall build quality is surprisingly good for a camera at this price-point. Image quality from the Ricoh HZ15 isn't that great, though, with noise at low ISO speeds and aggressive processing removing finer detail, while the low-resolution LCD screen is like something from the noughties. The Manual shooting mode is a little misleading, not providing the expected photographic control, video is only 720p quality, and burst shooting is glacially slow at 0.8fps.

The Ricoh HZ15 offers a good zoom range for a very fair price. Unfortunately image quality isn't the best, but those who share images on the web, rather than produce large prints, will be pleased with the colour reproduction. Ideally you need to avoid shooting with a high ISO, but the flash offered quite inconsistent results.