Tokyo B&W street surge
Monochrome Tokyo street photography is trending on social feeds — evocative GR‑digital shots and candid urban series are getting traction this week. ( ) The look leans hard on contrast, grain and decisive moment framing — great inspiration if you’re planning a travel or street shoot this spring.
Ricoh officially launched the RICOH GR IV Monochrome on January 15, 2026, pitching it as the first GR-series compact with a dedicated monochrome image sensor. The camera uses a 25.7‑megapixel monochrome sensor paired with the GR’s fixed 28mm‑equivalent f/2.8 lens and carries a U.S. list price around $2,199.95 (£1,599 in the UK). Early technical testing and hands‑on reviews report the sensor’s lack of a Bayer colour filter yields finer detail and richer tonal gradation while boosting usable ISO performance into very high settings. Reviewers also flag tradeoffs: monochrome Raw files offer no colour channels for highlight salvage, and outlets note the mono model is positioned as a niche, premium variant (DPReview calculated roughly a 33–46% price premium in some markets). Ricoh has promoted the format through GR SPACE TOKYO programming and a “Monochrome” exhibition that showcased GR-shot black‑and‑white work by Wahei Kimura, Tomas H. Hara and Rikard Landberg. Since the launch, sample galleries and street‑walk videos labeled “Tokyo” and “Monochrome” have multiplied on YouTube and in GR‑focused Flickr pools, coinciding with review galleries and comparisons that photographers are sharing across social platforms. Hands‑on coverage calls out specific features affecting street work: a selectable red contrast filter, an electronic shutter capable of exposures down to 1/16,000 sec to control bright scenes, and the camera’s single‑channel Raw behaviour that makes exposure decisions more final.
