michaelwatkins Offline Upload & Sell: Off
|
p.78 #16 · Sony RX1 FF Mirrorless (fixed lens) | |
Plenty of wining and dining happens in the consumer electronics industry. Huff writes about all brands and his own personal favourites have not been Sony - he loves the OM-D and his Leica's. Yet Sony brings him out - why? If I had to take a guess I'd say it's because Huff decided to specialize and write about small compacts, is approachable to his readers, puts out a steady stream of content (doesn't matter if it is Sony or not) so they'll get more eyeballs looking at their stuff, even if he isn't always fully complimentary to their products.
Is Huff misleading people about the camera? That's not my impression at all.
Is the AF sluggish? Could be. What are we comparing it to? What Huff wrote about focus back in October is what I've remembered so far:
Its fast enough for just about anything you would shoot with a 35mm. Faster than the Leica X2, faster than any Fuji X series (by quite a bit), faster than the NEX-7..not as quick as the NEX-6 with certain lenses but it is very fast. Not OM-D fast but not Fuji or Leica X slow. I had no problems with focus speed.
Chris Gampat (Phoblographer.com) back at that same event in October wasn't as enamoured with the focus, but everyone has different expectations and tastes depending on where they are coming from. He loved the manual focus and preferred to use that.
Two photographers, two different opinions. No surprise there!
My take away from this first look was that I should expect the RX1 to focus faster and more reliably than the Fujifilm X100, which is a good thing indeed, and be roughly comparable to the NEX-5N, which I'm familiar with. If it does at least that well, I'm a happy camper. More importantly, the manual focus features are solid - an AF compact that has good manual focus support is something I've wanted.
One poster on DPR wrote write about his experience with his new RX1 - he's finding it slower in bad light and low contrast situations, but he's quick to point out that his comparison camera is the m4/3 Oly OM-D which is known for fast focus. I've heard it said that Contrast Detect AF can be slower as the sensor size increases. Maybe there is some truth to that. Presumably whatever processing load exists to calculate focus just gets bigger as the sensor size increases.
At this point there doesn't seem to be enough info out to suggest that the camera is more sluggish than the cameras Huff compared it to (X100, X-Pro 1, NEX-7).
Huff - quick look at AF indoors
Extensive night time auto focus demonstration shot by recent owner of RX1 (
Source)
Based on the worst case situation as depicted in the second video, I don't know that I can bring myself to call the AF sluggish.
So I ask again, is Huff misleading people? Doesn't seem so.
|