Sunday, 18 August 2013

The Sony Cybershot DSC-RX100: Still The Champion After A Year?


The Sony RX100 was announced customarily over a year ago, and during a time was widely hailed as a compress camera to beat.  With good reason.  Small adequate to trip into a shirt pocket, built like a tank, and make-up a quick lens by Carl Zeiss that’s a splendid f1.8 far-reaching open, it seemed like a photographer’s dream come loyal –especially with a additional vast 1.0 in. Exmor sensor (about 2/3 incomparable than a sensor used in many compress cameras) and a towering 20 megapixels of resolution.  Positive reviews –glowingly certain reviews –came in from all over, and yet Sony’s customarily announced a follow-up compress –the Sony RX100 II –that camera’s not a deputy so many as an alternative.  The sensor’s somewhat opposite –the RX100 II uses a BSI (backside illuminated) CMOS sensor, while a RX100 uses a customary CMOS sensor –and a RX100 II also throws in a customary prohibited shoe and sloping screen.  However, a RX1oo II is also some-more costly ($750; a RX100 will continue to be accessible for $650) and somewhat bigger, withdrawal open a doubt of possibly or not a kin is still, not customarily a viable choice, though the choice if you’re looking for a best compress camera we can buy.


My initial sense on receiving a camera from Sony was of a beautifully well-made instrument –it’s aluminum, with a feeling of weight and reduction that’s substantially partly due to all a potion in that big, quick Zeiss lens.  Controls are laid out about as good as they can be given a singular volume of genuine estate –this isn’t customarily a compress camera, it’s a very compact camera, noticeably smaller than a other compress in my arsenal, a Leica D-Lux 6 (which isn’t accurately a corpulent gorilla either.)  You’re positively in shirt or trouser slot domain with this camera –I suspect we could theoretically put it on a neck tag too though I’ve always felt a tiny absurd doing that with a unequivocally tiny camera.  It feels a tiny too many like wearing a square of dress jewelry.  So into my slot it went.


The miss of any hold and a fibre of a finish might dishearten some (especially given a price) though it practice, with a wrist tag on, it was for me some-more or reduction a non-issue, nonetheless we might try it with a hold customarily for grins.  Still, this is not a camera we unequivocally wish to start accessorizing.  The whole indicate of a RX100 is to have as many picture creation energy in as tiny a package as probable with as few compromises as possible.


In further to sharpened with it myself, we also gave it to New York transport photographer Regina Walker to test-drive (she’s supposing submit on other cameras as well, including a Leica D-Lux 6.)


Our impressions in terms of doing were unequivocally identical –we both found it manageable (maybe a tiny prolonged to energy up, though fluctuating that poetic Zeiss lens isn’t going to be instantaneous.)  Autofocus is agreeably quick for a contrariety detect complement –we’re not certain how Sony does it, though a camera seems to hoop bad light situations utterly good and we can’t brusque remember blank a shot due to missed autofocus (well, maybe once or twice, though in unequivocally abominable light –virtual darkness, in dual cases I’m meditative of; for many reasonable applications autofocus is some-more than adequate.) The controls are easy to entrance –there’s a customary PASM dial with all a common bells and whistles, and there’s a control ring/4 approach switch, core button, user-programmable duty symbol . . . no surprises, that is customarily as it should be.  The menu complement is candid as good (I consider we can all stop worrying that a infrequently impenetrably orderly early NEX menu systems were demonstrative of any prolonged tenure issues.)



Regina Walker, Red Truck, NYC 2013



Regina Walker, Bug Off, NYC 2013


Really, we customarily had a few quibbles with a handling.  First, a shiver recover takes a bit of removing used to.  There’s probably no transport during all to autofocus –just a light press sets things in motion, and it doesn’t take many additional vigour to glow a shiver (which is probably wordless if we spin a sounds off; one of a initial things we customarily do with a new camera.)  Second, a tiny distance of a camera creates holding it solid infrequently problematic.  The categorical reason this is an emanate is that even with a incomparable sensor 20 MP fortitude means sincerely tiny photosites and it doesn’t take many palm transformation to start introducing suit blur. Finally, there was a somewhat peculiar choice of creation a reduce left control symbol a dedicated undo pivotal for reviewing images –honestly, we didn’t find it a conspicuous emanate during all though there have been a few reviewers who’ve remarkable that they’d have elite it to be during slightest programmable.  None of these are deal-breakers and all are a outcome of a fundamental inlet of a camera –you wanted an ultra-portable compact, right?


Image peculiarity can be breathtaking.  The .jpg files are, well, let’s contend neutral –out of a camera they don’t have a cocktail that other OOC .jpgs do, from other cameras, though that’s not so many a problem as a choice; Sony seems to have motionless it would be improved to leave tweaking a files to a user (you can of march use a camera’s “vivid” mode if we wish to though we might not wish to –more about because not in a minute.)  I contend “can be” for a reason.


The spin of fact we can constraint with this tiny spectacle of record is zero brief of breathtaking; 100% zooms demeanour like they came out of a DSLR.  The perfect acuity of a lens and sensor means we have to unequivocally regulate your expectations when sharpened with a RX100 –you can, if we want, use it a approach many of us would be prone to use a camera this small, though you’ll get improved images if we remember that you’re capturing fact (if all goes well) that we would usually associate with a distant bigger square of equipment.  Indeed, we can spend a lot of time (as we did, and still do with this camera) looking during 100% crops with your jaw unresolved down –at a spin of magnification where many compress camera files spin into Rorschach tests, a RX100 is happily delivering all from particular hairs on a model’s conduct to a headlines of a journal tucked underneath a surprisingly distant divided arm.



Regina Walker, Untitled, NYC 2013


Just sharpened .jpgs with this camera would be a contrition as a tender files are unequivocally where a movement is.  At $650, this is apparently not a infrequent shooter’s camera –it isn’t labelled or spec’d like one –and we consider over a final year it’s turn transparent that this is an fan buy; a chairman who is unequivocally going to notice where a additional 3 or so hundred bucks went is someone who’s going to be looking during tender files in Lightroom or Aperture and is gentle –forsooth, happier –pushing tender information as distant as it can go.


Article source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2012/01/10/national/a235102S41.DTL




The Sony Cybershot DSC-RX100: Still The Champion After A Year?

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