Ricoh is building on the freshly launched GR IV with a variation aimed squarely at photographers who find 28mm a touch too wide. Announced as in development on August 26, 2026, the Ricoh GR IVx keeps the same core hardware but swaps the optics to deliver a longer, more natural angle of view.
At the heart of the GR IVx sits the same 25.7-megapixel sensor found in the GR IV. The difference lives up front: a newly developed lens with a focal length of 26.1mm, which works out to roughly a 40mm equivalent in the 35mm format. This isn’t a recycled GR IIIx optic, either — Ricoh says it engineered the glass from scratch.
The lens uses a construction of eight elements in six groups, including three aspherical elements, with an aperture range spanning f/2.8 to f/16. Ricoh frames the 40mm-equivalent view as one that sits close to the effective field of human vision — a deliberate step away from the 28mm-equivalent wide angle of the standard GR IV.
The company’s pitch is philosophical as much as technical. That tighter perspective, it argues, opens up different creative possibilities for snapshot photography, letting shooters compose closer to how they actually see a scene rather than sweeping in the whole environment. It’s a familiar split for GR fans, who have long debated the merits of the wide 28mm body versus the tighter 40mm alternative.
Like its wider sibling, the GR IVx will ship with a built-in two-stop ND filter. Given that Ricoh has offered alternative filter variants of the baseline GR IV in the past, it wouldn’t be surprising to see similar options branch out from this model down the line — though nothing has been confirmed.
Timing-wise, Ricoh hasn’t locked down a firm release date beyond a Winter 2026 or later window, and no price has been announced yet. The move looks well-timed regardless: production of the older GR IIIx, GR IIIx HDF, and GR IIIx Urban Edition is expected to wind down once the current shipping batch finishes in October, leaving a gap in the lineup for the GR IVx to fill.
There’s also a milestone in the background. Ricoh has been celebrating 30 years of the GR series since April, and so far the anniversary festivities have produced only a special-edition GR IV. A second body carrying the celebration forward fits neatly into that story.
For street and documentary shooters who’ve been holding out for a modern 40mm pocket camera with a genuinely new lens, the GR IVx is shaping up to be the one worth watching.
