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Well I bought a Sony RX100!Review of Sony RX100

Author	Post

Posted by richw: Sat Dec 22nd, 2012 17:40

1^st Post

I bought and charged on Fri, I'm in Adelaide for the weekend (visitong Jac's family) and I brought the Sony and Fuji leaving my Nikons at home.

First thing - couldn't get the Fuji to work at all - I think the battery is duff and I left my spare in the car at airport, so very glad I had the Sony and the Fuji stayed at the hotel.

The Sony was $728 from the Sony store. I also bought the optional screen protector $19, and leather case $99. I think the case may have been a mistake as it adds a little bulk, but it still fitted nicely into my cargo shorts pockets with case which the Fuji will only just do without a case.

I haven't checked the output on a computer yet (travelled very light for the weekend) but so far I love the Sony. It's everything I hoped the Fuji might be but didn't quite make it. It's small enough to slip into my jeans front pocket, it's fast to focus, the controls are all very accessible and quick to use and it can focus and shoot better than any other P&S I have ever used (and the Fuji).

The only downside is no optical viewfinder but we did a wine fields tour of McLaren Vale yesterday in bright summertime South Australian sunlight and I had no problems at all seeing the image on the LCD, although I do find that composition on the screen works a bit differently in my head somehow?

All in all so far I am very happy with my purchase, if the images stand the test of analysis on the computer then I would go as far as to say I have found the P&S I have been looking for, the camera to always carry with you when you would otherwise go out without.

Posted by Squarerigger: Sat Dec 22nd, 2012 17:52

2^nd Post

Congrats Rich. Looking forward to your review after seeing the final results. I think I would have to really work at getting used to an LCD screen vs. a optical view finder - but that's because I have only used my wife's point and shoot a few times.

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Gary

Posted by jk: Sun Dec 23rd, 2012 04:35

3^rd Post

Well done Rich.
So is this the X100 replacement or is it Jac's little camera.

Be interested to hear what you think of IQ but the camera seems to get good reviews from others.

For me I need to have a viewfinder hence X100 and XPro1 as I really cant see the TFT screen sharp enough to compose without my glasses on and then its all blurry if I look up!,, Getting old has serious disadvantages.

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Posted by Eric: Sun Dec 23rd, 2012 08:10

4^th Post

richw wrote: I bought and charged on Fri, I'm in Adelaide for the weekend (visitong Jac's family) and I brought the Sony and Fuji leaving my Nikons at home.

First thing - couldn't get the Fuji to work at all - I think the battery is duff and I left my spare in the car at airport, so very glad I had the Sony and the Fuji stayed at the hotel.

The Sony was $728 from the Sony store. I also bought the optional screen protector $19, and leather case $99. I think the case may have been a mistake as it adds a little bulk, but it still fitted nicely into my cargo shorts pockets with case which the Fuji will only just do without a case.

I haven't checked the output on a computer yet (travelled very light for the weekend) but so far I love the Sony. It's everything I hoped the Fuji might be but didn't quite make it. It's small enough to slip into my jeans front pocket, it's fast to focus, the controls are all very accessible and quick to use and it can focus and shoot better than any other P&S I have ever used (and the Fuji).

The only downside is no optical viewfinder but we did a wine fields tour of McLaren Vale yesterday in bright summertime South Australian sunlight and I had no problems at all seeing the image on the LCD, although I do find that composition on the screen works a bit differently in my head somehow?

All in all so far I am very happy with my purchase, if the images stand the test of analysis on the computer then I would go as far as to say I have found the P&S I have been looking for, the camera to always carry with you when you would otherwise go out without. Thats becoming a common statement!

I am looking at getting my wife a Panasonic camcorder, as she now takes more movies on her 'Flip' than she does photos on her D7000.

The camcorder is half the weight, 2/3 the price and ergonomically better than the D7000...and its still shots look very good.

I can envisage her having that, me selling the D7000 and Fuji X100...and either replacing it with the EX or Pro model.

My Nikon cameras would then just be the D3 and the D200IR...which by definition are for more specialised events and likely to be 'left at home' on general trips.

____________________
Eric

Posted by Eric: Sun Dec 23rd, 2012 08:11

5^th Post

.....But I may look at the Sony in the new year, as an alternative to Fuji.

____________________
Eric

Posted by richw: Sun Dec 23rd, 2012 08:39

6^th Post

Quick sample image before I go to bed, will post colour images tomorrow, although there is a B&W setting on the Sony this was shot in colour and then converted in PS. Original shot at ISO 1600 (using auto ISO restricted to 1600, IQ perfectly OK at this ISO.

Posted by Eric: Sun Dec 23rd, 2012 10:55

7^th Post

richw wrote:
Quick sample image before I go to bed, will post colour images tomorrow, although there is a B&W setting on the Sony this was shot in colour and then converted in PS. Original shot at ISO 1600 (using auto ISO restricted to 1600, IQ perfectly OK at this ISO.

Lovely shot, Rich.

Isn't it stange though....I never associate Australia with BW?
It's silly, I know, but it seems a shame not to have your golden light in the frame.

____________________
Eric

Posted by richw: Sun Dec 23rd, 2012 17:48

8^th Post

It's a shot of my in laws at their home in Adelaide, shot with side window lighting mid aftoon, the house was otherwise artifically lit and quite dark.

Australians keep the interior of their houses very dark in summer, I had to ask them to raise the exterior blind which was 80% closed, to get the window lighting used in this shot and even so it was only half way up.

It seemed very strange to me when I first came over especially as at the time I was living in a relative palace (air conditioned modern penthouse apartment with deep double glazed, double story windows looking out over the city) but when my rent was no longer tax free and I moved into more normal houses I quickly understood.

The temperature outside was 43C and direct sunlight onto windows (from the most powerful sunshine on earth thanks to our Ozone hole) can quickly turn a house into a reletive oven, even with aircon. So when I leave home on a hot day now I go round and make sure all the blinds are closed and leave the house in darkness.

In England our mind set is all about keeping our homes warm and dry, in many parts of Australia, it's about keeping them cool.

Posted by Eric: Mon Dec 24th, 2012 19:40

9^th Post

richw wrote:

In England our mind set is all about keeping our homes warm and dry, in many parts of Australia, it's about keeping them cool.
Above water is the current aim!:-O

____________________
Eric

Posted by richw: Thu Dec 27th, 2012 20:54

10^th Post

The more I use this camera, the happier I am with it. It's proving to be everything I had hoped the Fuji would be.

Noise at high ISO is very good and I have very acceptable images from noise and sharpness perspective up to 1600, not tried pushing beyond that yet.

Focus is obviously slower than a DSLR but not bad at all, certainly no worse than the Fuji with added features like face detection. The manual focus option is quite nice, there is a multi function ring on the lens that can be used for manual focus and you can program the centre selection button in manual focus mode to zoom in on the point you have focused on. I didn't do photography in the manual focus days and have had very little practice manually focusing on anything but this seems very useable to me.

Colour rendition seems a little cold on the LCD on the camera but comes out nicely on the computer, Lightroom has some canned camera profiles for it for portrait, landscape etc which match nicely with the Nikon profiles so I can use my import presets (mainly portrait) on these images as well.

The controls are actually quite nice, I nearly always shoot in Aperture mode (or Amateur mode according to Ray :thumbsup:) and I find this easy to control with only one annoying feature which is the splash screen that comes up on the LCD to explain what each mode means.

'P' works nicely as well with the control wheel adjusting the aperture for an adjusted P* just like an DSLR.

If you are not using the control ring on the lens for focusing you can assign this to control the aperture/shutter speed and this works well.

Only down side at all is composing on the screen instead of through an eye piece, I need to try and reduce the amount of information on the screen as this is distracting for this, but so far even in bright sunlight I have had no issue with the screen becoming too washed out to see properly. The stance you have to take to hold the camera however is not great, I don't think I'll be taking any steady slow exposures with this camera.

Overall I would give this a very high mark 9/10 compared to 6.5/10 for a fully working Fuji.

Posted by Robert: Fri Dec 28th, 2012 02:59

11^th Post

Thanks Rich very interesting, I think composing on a screen is to be preferred to using a viewfinder when you have the time. i.e. not for sports! I just wish it could swivel so you are looking down on it perhaps with a loupe. That is what I really miss from the medium format cameras, it allows you to *compose* rather than using the viewfinder like a gun sight and aiming it at the subject with the rest of the image taking a back seat in the composition.

____________________
Robert.

Posted by Eric: Fri Dec 28th, 2012 11:22

12^th Post

richw wrote: The more I use this camera, the happier I am with it. It's proving to be everything I had hoped the Fuji would be.

Noise at high ISO is very good and I have very acceptable images from noise and sharpness perspective up to 1600, not tried pushing beyond that yet.

Focus is obviously slower than a DSLR but not bad at all, certainly no worse than the Fuji with added features like face detection. The manual focus option is quite nice, there is a multi function ring on the lens that can be used for manual focus and you can program the centre selection button in manual focus mode to zoom in on the point you have focused on. I didn't do photography in the manual focus days and have had very little practice manually focusing on anything but this seems very useable to me.

Colour rendition seems a little cold on the LCD on the camera but comes out nicely on the computer, Lightroom has some canned camera profiles for it for portrait, landscape etc which match nicely with the Nikon profiles so I can use my import presets (mainly portrait) on these images as well.

The controls are actually quite nice, I nearly always shoot in Aperture mode (or Amateur mode according to Ray :thumbsup:) and I find this easy to control with only one annoying feature which is the splash screen that comes up on the LCD to explain what each mode means.

'P' works nicely as well with the control wheel adjusting the aperture for an adjusted P* just like an DSLR.

If you are not using the control ring on the lens for focusing you can assign this to control the aperture/shutter speed and this works well.

Only down side at all is composing on the screen instead of through an eye piece, I need to try and reduce the amount of information on the screen as this is distracting for this, but so far even in bright sunlight I have had no issue with the screen becoming too washed out to see properly. The stance you have to take to hold the camera however is not great, I don't think I'll be taking any steady slow exposures with this camera.

Overall I would give this a very high mark 9/10 compared to 6.5/10 for a fully working Fuji.

That's an interesting final comment Rich.
I've just been loading some holiday photos on a drive so I can give the relatives visitng this weekend a potted holiday slideshow. I had trouble getting the blu ray player to keep to the right date sequence ...because not only are the files a mixture of Nikon D7000 _DSC and Fuji _DSCF filenames but I forgot to reset the date on the Fuji to BS time...so the 'date' overlaps by an hour! However....on a large screen I have to say that the Fuji images are CLEARLY better than the Nikon files! You immediately see when a FUJI image pops up ...not just because it's out of sequence but ...it's punchier! Now maybe it's the Nikon lenses ( I did have some damage issues with them on the last trip) or maybe the incamera sharpening default is higher in the FujI? But my Fuji is a 9/10 for image quality...6/10 for speed of focus and wake up time!

____________________
Eric

Posted by jk: Fri Dec 28th, 2012 12:51

13^th Post

I'd agree with you Eric.
This is especially noticeable with the XPro1 images. The X100 ones are also very good.

I always thought the D3 and D3 were good but under studio conditions with the 60mm f2.4 lens on the XPro1 I need to use the D800 to get the better quality than the XPro1.

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Posted by TomOC: Fri Dec 28th, 2012 16:17

14^th Post

I'm finding these comparison discussions more and more confusing. There are so many sensor sizes now, it's impossible to remember what is what :-)

I have always been the proponent of a camera that will fit in my pocket and wasted so much time and dinero trying out each p&s that came along.

My criteria were real VF, high IQ (sensor size), fit in jacket pocket.

The Fuji x100 was the first and so far only camera that really meets all of these criteria, though I still haven't gotten my hands on one of the new Sony FF RX1 offerings...and I may not. I have somewhat made a commitment to the Fuji line, much as I made one to Nikon once the D1 was introduced (and gave me a 3 year lead in using a digital DSLR)...that probably means that inertia will now keep me with Fuji unless there is some major fault on their part or breakthrough from someone else - they have truly introduced a new "system" and so far I like it, much the same as Nikon did with the D1.

We'll see, but my advice to Rick is NOT to toss the x100 :-)

Happy New Year everyone !!!!

____________________
Tom O'Connell

-Lots of people talk to animals.... Not very many listen, though.... That's the problem.

Benjamin Hoff, The Tao of Pooh

Posted by richw: Sat Dec 29th, 2012 08:39

15^th Post

Well I have been very happy with the image quality of the Sony to date, as my Fuji is broken a head to head might not be possible but I will try to organise something shooting both in JPG as to date with both I have only used RAW which is then subject to processing differences.

Posted by richw: Sat Dec 29th, 2012 08:47

16^th Post

The below were shot with the Sony this morning - in Raw - I have deliberately over sharpened and over saturated them in processing as I thought it was a good look for these images.

Posted by richw: Sat Dec 29th, 2012 09:18

17^th Post

OK These are very bad photos taken with an iPhone, but I'm getting up early and its nearly 1am so not worrying about the quality (but after a second look almost didn't post) :(
The last image is the worst and needs rotating 90 degrees but is the main reason I love this camera so much. It shows me slipping it into my front jeans pocket. It sits in there comfortably no problem at all - it's about the same size as my blackberry. The fuji simply won't do that, so whilst I believe it would compete OK on image quality I'm much more likely to have the Sony on me at any given point.
For me that is the point of this camera (and the Fuji). If I'm going out with photography as a main objective (or even just having a barbi at home) I'll get the Nikon out. However if photography is an incidental possibility or I don't want to upset my Barbi guests by shoving a D3 in their faces I can pull out a small camera - and the Sony is more convenient than the Fuji.

Posted by Squarerigger: Sat Dec 29th, 2012 10:21

18^th Post

Nice photos of the street art.
Wow, the Sony is really small. Did you find it difficult to handle?

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Gary

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