Sony RX-100 Best Point-and-Shoot, Expensive, Requires Skill

[expatdude]

Apparently the best point and shoot camera at the moment. Costs about 600 dollars US. As usual, if you don't know what you're doing, the best camera in the world won't do much for you.

 

Here are some shots I took recently in Buriram:

 

 

[Asian Man]

Great camera, had a chance to play with one.

 

Sensor is larger which is great for such a compact camera, but this also causes a swallower depth of field.

 

Try playing around with the A mode and have the auto iso to go no higher than 1600.

 

If you have enough light, you'll be love how the landscape pictures look a F5.6 or F8

[Big G]

Good start,some interesting angles in those images,always good to get down low,stand on something or a higher viewer point,makes your images stand out,would like to see number 7 in black & white. 

[KUNU]

I bought RX-100 M2 on last week. Not yet had time to learn much how to use it.

Will be in Thailand this week and going to use it as much as possible.

In case anyone has experiences and tips it would be nice to hear.

I'm quite rookie with cameras and photography but like to learn.

[Ru4Real]

...,would like to see number 7 in black & white. 

 

[expatdude]

You can do much better than that if you start with the raw file. Unfortunately, I've been out of the game for a while and can't find the original. When I do, I'll make a pass on it.

[Ru4Real]

Didn't do any post on it really ... just popped it up as Big G wanted to see it in B/W (deleted the download straight away too btw).

[expatdude]

No worries, I was just going stream of thought too.

[Cph]

I've tried this camera as well and really liked it...

 

There is an mk3 about to be launched now, but it will be expensive for a compact camera.

 

For some reason I think this camera is cheaper in Thailand than Europe. Would somebody check out the price in Central and post it here?

 

BR

 

Jens

[manarak]

498 USD including VAT in Switzerland

[Cph]

498 USD including VAT in Switzerland

I meant Central in Pattaya :-)

[manarak]

I meant Central in Pattaya :-)

well, you wanted to compare prices, so I provided one leg for the comparison!

[jethro1010]

I bought RX-100 M2 on last week. Not yet had time to learn much how to use it.

Will be in Thailand this week and going to use it as much as possible.

In case anyone has experiences and tips it would be nice to hear.

I'm quite rookie with cameras and photography but like to learn.

 

Hi I have one and they are very very good....I have downsized from an SLR and will not be going back.

 

There are a couple of great online books that can really help you out. Also Dpreview forums have great information on the RX100 from the users.

 

The only thing I found poor about this camera is the menu system...and this makes things quite fiddley until you get really comfortable with it.

[Fred11]

Thanks of the reviews .... I am considering this myself, though replacing my old and trustworthy Canon S100 will take some doing ;)

[QuotaMan]

Amazing Sony RX100 M3 Offers Incredible Photographic Power in a Pocket Camer

 

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/finally-sonys-rx100-m3-offers-incredible-photographic-89927881004.html

 

Hey, kids — it’s time for a quiz!

Be aware, though, that using the viewfinder cuts the M3’s battery life by about a third (230 shots instead of 320) — and 320 shots isn’t that great to begin with. Second battery, anyone?

Have a look at these photos:

Now then: Which camera do you think took them?

Well, you probably know me well enough to realize that this was a setup. The pictures are from the last camera most people would expect to be capable of such clarity, flexibility, and low-light skills. It’s the tiny one on the right. (You can see the full-size originals of those photos, and many more, on my Flickr page.)

That’s the new Sony RX100 Mark 3 (or M3, as people in a hurry call it). It’s the successor to the M2, which is the successor to the original RX100. Each time, Sony packs more quality and features into this absolutely tiny machine. And in the M3, well, it’s just showing off.

The best feature by far — and a key reason you’re paying $800 for this tiny camera — is the huge sensor inside. Bigger sensors give you better pictures: sharper in low light, better color. Trouble is, small cameras generally have small sensors. Not this baby; its sensor is about four times the size of its rivals’. Read my column here for more on why sensor size matters.

What’s new

The Sony RX100 M1 and M2 also had this 1-inch sensor. So what’s new in the M3? Three big things and a lot of little ones.

First — and read this slowly: It has a viewfinder, the kind you hold up to your eye.

This makes me giddy. Believe it or not, viewfinders are nearly extinct in pocket cameras. I couldn’t find a single compact camera model from Canon, Nikon, or Olympus that still has one; as far as I can tell, they are gone for good.

For longtime photographers, that’s a heartbreaking development, but the people have spoken: They’d rather have a big screen, even if it means leaving no room for a viewfinder.

Too bad. A viewfinder is a big, big deal when you’re shooting outside, because sunshine washes out the screen on the back. And your camera is stabler when it’s pressed against your face.

Sony has found an astonishing solution, a first in the history of cameras: a pop-up viewfinder. It gives you both a viewfinder and a huge screen. When you want to peer through it, you flick a little button at the top-left edge of the camera, and — pop! — the viewfinder snaps upward. It’s been hiding behind that huge screen all along.

To complete the setup, you tug the back of the viewfinder, extending it. Once that’s done, it’s a full-blown viewfinder, complete with a diopter (a lever that adjusts the focus for your particular eye). In other words, you can use the camera without putting on your glasses; the viewfinder does the vision correcting for you.

It’s not an optical viewfinder, mind you, but rather a flawless electronicone, meaning that you’re actually seeing a tiny OLED screen. It also means you get to see the effect of any settings you’re changing beforeyou take the picture.

 

Also be aware that popping up the viewfinder turns the camera on, which is terrific. However, pushing it back down turns the camera off, which is not terrific; sometimes you push it down because you feel like framing shots with the screen. You didn’t want to turn off the camera — you just wanted the viewfinder to go back into its shell.

The second big change in the M3 is the back-panel screen. It tilts and pivots, like the one on its predecessor, so that you can shoot over your head or down low without kneeling — but this time, it flips all the way upside-down, so that it’s facing forward. And you know what that means: It’s perfect for selfies.

(Here’s a little tip I made up myself: You can use the screen’s hinge system to prop the camera at interesting angles.)

All the delicate moving parts on the Sony make me a little nervous. This is not a cheap camera. Sony wants $800 for it (and will find plenty of buyers at that price; photographers online are going nuts over it). You will worry about something breaking or getting bent, or at least I do.

There’s an important third change in the M3, too: Its lens. The RX100’s lens has always inspired the raising of eyebrows because of its industry-leading f/1.8 maximum aperture. (Lenses with smaller f-numbers can let in more light. One delicious result: that blurry background look so common in professional photography.)

But the original RX100 models offered f/1.8 only when you were fully zoomed out. If you zoomed in, you rapidly lost that huge aperture, winding up at a disappointing f/4.9.

The M3 lens doesn’t zoom as much as the previous models’; it’s 24-70 mm (about 2.9X zoom) instead of 28-100 (3.5X). That’s a bummer to many.

But, in exchange, you get a much “faster” lens that dims only to f/2.8 when you’re fully zoomed in — better low-light photos and greater opportunities to blur the background, no matter how much you’re zoomed in. And at 24 mm, the M3’s lens can capture a wider angle.

Minor goodies

The camera offers some minor new goodies, too: a built-in neutral-density filter (cuts down on the light, so you can choose aperture or shutter-speed settings that would otherwise overexpose your shots). And “zebra lines” that warn you, in the preview, about areas of the picture that will be overexposed.

Many old goodies survive, like a ring around the lens that can control whatever you like: aperture, focus, and so on.

And a really wonderful Fn button, which summons instant access to the six or 12 photographic parameters of your choice: flash mode, focus mode, ISO, that neutral-density filter, whatever. And WiFi, so that you can transfer any picture to your phone for instant posting online. And lotsof customizable controls, including four buttons and a notch on the mode dial that can recall whatever set of settings you’ve stored there.

That mode dial also includes Sony’s spectacular, and spectacularly useful, Sweep Panorama mode. It captures full swaths of the world around you with a single swing of your arm, either with the camera held upright —

— or turned 90 degrees, for a taller (but less wide) frame:

There is, by the way, one missing goodie: There’s no more hot shoe (accessory connector) on top. On the M2 model, you could attach an external microphone to it (there’s no way to use one with the M3) or an optional external viewfinder; that, at least, is now unnecessary.

The video story

Not only does this camera take better photos than anything else its size, but it also captures better video. Incredibly good video, thanks to new M3 developments like these:

• Full-sensor readout. Believe it or not, one frame of HD video is only 2 megapixels big. Most large-sensor cameras therefore capture way too much information for video — they throw away as much as 80 percent of the captured information. (They store one out of every five horizontal lines in the image.)

“Since there are so many rows of pixels missing from each frame,” Sony explained to me, “anything in the scene of repeating high spatial frequency (like bricks or Venetian blinds) leads to pronounced aliasing, resulting in color falsing and moiré.”

The M3’s processor is so fast, however, that it records all the data from the sensor, skipping no lines at all. The resulting video picture is pure and artifact-free.

• XAVC compression is a professional-caliber compression scheme for video. It uses much more data to describe the scene — if you buy special SDXC memory cards.

There are also stereo mics, three levels of image stabilization, and an HDMI output jack so you can observe your video on a bigger monitor as you shoot it.

You can use all the camera’s photographic controls for video, and even change many of them (like exposure, ISO, and focus mode) while you’re filming. Sony even designed the lens ring to turn smoothly and silently, to avoid clicking sounds or vibration that would wreck your video.

Making its mark

We live in an age when every camera company has eliminated eyepiece viewfinders from its pocket cameras. Including Sony, by the way.

That Sony can cram that beloved feature and so much more into a palm-sized, pocketable camera already makes the M3 a modern miracle of mechanical miniaturization. But that it also takes better photos and videos than any pocket camera on earth — well, that’s when my admiration turned to awe.

And it’s fast, too. I mean, this thing can pump out 10 shots a second, 20 megapixels each. Incredible.

You might wish it could zoom a little more, or that the battery lasted a little longer, and you’ll pray that all those delicate moving parts remain intact. But, brothers and sisters, this is the camera the world has craved for decades: a professional-caliber photographic instrument that’s no more hassle to carry with you than a phone.

There’s an old saying in the photography business: The best camera is the one you have with you. I’d phrase it differently: The RX100 M3 is the best camera you can always have with you.

 

 

[wrassell]

Very nice shots definitely going to look closer at this camera. Strange that part about using the view finder shortens the battery life.

[fusionx]

I've just received a Sony RX100 M3, and wow, it's pretty amazing.

 

The first thing I noticed is that the pop up tilting flash works very well. It does feel a little weak - not flimsy, but you will want to be careful with it. You can "hook" it with a finger and tilt it up, or press it down, to use bounce flash. It doesn't swivel, though, for adding reflective fill off a wall, etc. Bummer!

 

Next thing I noticed, is that in any of the creative modes I've messed with so far, it seems like the aperture always defaults to f1.8. I have not been outside in much light with it yet - it's been cloudy and rainy, so we'll see. I really never use creative modes, except for handheld twilight, so it shouldn't be an issue.

 

Next thing I noticed was that the images out of the camera were very soft. I tweaked the sharpness in the settings by adding +1, and they look great now. Simple fix, though if you Google that, a lot of people are doing the same thing. Maybe a firmware update will fix it? We'll see.

 

I bought mine as a kit through Amazon.com, fulfilled by Focus Camera. Shipping was fast. However, they sent the wrong extra 2 batteries and wall charger! In writing back and forth to resolve the issue, they really appear to be trying, but they also appear to be brain dead. Different support people keep answering, asking what did I receive instead, even though I've sent that twice now. Frustrating!

 

I'm coming to Patts on the 26th, and don't think they'll send the correct batteries by then. I guess my options are to order them myself and end up with 4 extras (ouch), or wait and see if they do show up. If not, I can likely buy them in Pattaya somewhere.

 

If anyone ends up at TukCom, could you check and see if they have the Sony NP-BX1 batteries? Thanks in advance!

 

I went ahead and ordered some extras, just to be sure. These are delivered directly by Amazon, so no worries.

[fusionx]

Here's a couple of test shots from my M3. These are JPGs straight out of the camera. This camera does a great job on JPG files. The RAW images, well, once Lightroom has a profile for this baby I'll try again.

 

Shot at 1/125, f2.8, 13.34mm, ISO 125

 

Original:

 

 

 

A tight crop:

 

 

 

[fusionx]

I've posted a lot of photos from the Sanctuary of Truth in another thread. All the pics were shot using the new RX100 M3.

 

http://www.pattaya-addicts.com/forum/topic/245333-photos-from-the-sanctuary-of-truth/

 

This camera is absolutely amazing. The ONLY thing I don't like is that you can't attach an external flash. The built-in flash does an OK job in most situations where you would use a compact camera. The camera's ability to add fill light in the correct amounts is very, very good. The flash does swivel up and down, allowing bounce vertically, but not horizontally.

 

The video is stunning. I'll post one up on YouTube and add it here in a little while.

 

Here's a sample from the other thread:

 

[stef74]

must say, having dropped and damaged my casio exilim, i moved on to sony........

 

i wish i hadn't.

 

I will be going back to the Exilim series.

[fusionx]

Here's that video. I'm riding in a Baht Bus down Jomtien beach, and the bus is bouncing all over. I'm just holding the camera in one hand. I was sure the video would be unwatchable.

 

 

Watch it in HD 1080

[SLEUTH]

post-31786-0-61510700-1358910621.jpg

Looks like a pic you would see on a post punk album cover(Joy Division)...true compliments fella

[Androidlocalsin]

I first purchased the Sony RX100 for a compact and good quality travel camera. Having no real photography background, I was in for a real treat! This baby packs a punch in term of photo quality! The only downside is the small zoom range, but with proper editing, you can get around that! And proof that it is light and compact is the fact that it got stolen from me on my trip to Peru, the final day, in the local bus... I was furious offcourse, not that much about losing the camera itself, getting robbed happens... But losing all my beautiful Machu Picchu and Cordillera Blanca pictures was a real bummer. From then on I bought a laptop to go with me and I copy my photo's every night if possible.

 

I had trouble on deciding which camera to buy next though, but in the end went for the RX100 M2. I like the tilt screen and same quality as its predecessor. Will try it out some more on my next trip to Asia this november. If I were to get stolen, probably will go for the M3, though I hope that won't be necessary. :-)

 

Would love the viewfinder though, but as add on using the hot shoe, it's just too bulky and too expensive I reckon.

[jerry]

The RX 100 is for sale now on Lazada for only 12.550Bht , great price for this camera . 

 

http://www.lazada.co.th/shop-cameras/?q=sony%20rx100

[The Sly Fox]

The RX 100 is for sale now on Lazada for only 12.550Bht , great price for this camera . 

 

http://www.lazada.co.th/shop-cameras/?q=sony%20rx100

That is a great price, roughly $450 AUD. Harvey Norman Perth stores are currently selling the same model for $669.