Choosing a Ricoh digital camera is often illogical. The GR Digital series (such as the GRD3, reviewed here) are idiosyncratic fixed lens shooters based upon the company's once-popular film cameras of the same name, zoomless relic-shaped compacts in a sea of sleek and shiny Sonys. The GXR is a system camera, like the many popular interchangeable lens models sold today, such as the Panasonic GX/GFs, Sony NEXes, Olympus PENs, and yet also unlike anything else on the market — different in that the sensors, too, are interchangeable. That design involves prohibitive costs, and guarantees a niche product.

In almost every specification, the CX6 is outclassed by competitors in the consumer travel zoom category. It's chunky, unsophisticated looking, and only shoots 10 megapixel images with its small sensor where others stretch as much as 16 megapixels from the same. Its zoom goes to 10.7x starting from 28mm wide, not 18x and not 24mm wide like Sony and Nikon models. It doesn't have a GPS unit. Its screen doesn't respond to touch.

Explaining why I recommend this requires a justification of illogical choices. I like its spirit and purpose. Where other companies release 24 new cameras a year, Ricoh updates the CX line once every six months. Despite that, each new CX doesn't include every new feature out there, only a few that matter and that can be done well by a modest camera engineering team inside a large photocopier company.

In these few, critical ways, it stands above the competition. The CX6 features a hybrid phase/contrast detection autofocus system that's much faster than most — 0.1 seconds whether used wide or zoomed. Snapping a photo immediately becomes a real possibility. The company's proprietary white balancing technology also renders color in mixed lighting scenes more accurately by analyzing scenes in pieces, rather than as a whole like others do. The end result of all this automation, like with the GRD3, is the feeling of an almost analog user experience.

Held in the hand, it makes its owner look like a fugitive with the latest in N. Korean technology. And although it often produces beautiful images, they are never quite pristine when viewed at the pixel level. Regardless, Ricoh calls its philosophy "Pure Image Quality", the striving towards honest interpretations of reality, but one might say that the resulting camera here really thinks about light and color in human, imperfect ways. Personally, that's the draw. It's a love that comes to willing buyers from an illogical place.

Here are a few photos I've managed to take in the few weeks I've owned it.

Photos of the CX6 taken with an iPhone 4S