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DavidWEGS
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My thoughts on the RX100


For anyone considering this as your catchall camera...

The good:

Since this is aimed at a group who want something small, this is small. Small enough to fit a pants pocket, and easily small enough to drop in a purse (although, I don\'t use it that way).

Build is adequate for the price point, but there are simple things that could be improved. The flash retraction (you push it down) feels like you might be breaking it, although you don\'t actually do so from about 100 tries so far. There is the typical battery and flash card compartment, and they are together again. Seems to be logical/preferred design for this type of P&S, but I don\'t care for that implementation of those things. This too feels a bit loosely fitted, though it does a decent job for its intended use. The body itself is pretty well done, although there are some edges that are not so perfect as you might expect. Nothing that I would bother to complain about, but noted that it\'s a little less than perfect. Lens and the accompanying ring do well and fell pretty solid.

Functions that are \"unnecessary\" abound. Funny filters, toy camera, T/S effects, B&W, Painted, etc. The functions that would be of more value to me seem to have been left off. Sound effects and beeps cannot be disabled, which makes a largely silent camera, more consumer oriented than it could be. Firmware update perhaps? In use the aperture (or shutter speed ring) works very well. The smooth operation is not something I find in the least offensive, but rather a good thing. It does an excellent job when manual focus is employed, allowing you to precisely hit the intended subject. When used to change aperture or SS, that sound effect comes in the form of a clicking sound. While this provides a pleasing audible confirmation, it is not needed as the dial position is shown nicely on the screen.

In the \"auto\" modes (AV, TV, P, etc), there is a very good implementation of the auto ISO. However, auto ISO is disabled in the M mode ?? Not sure why that would be, and it\'s frustrating. Additionally, there seems no way to set the lowest SS and highest ISO in these auto modes. That is almost unacceptable to me.

The more practical side of me likes things about the other aspects of the functions though. What camera allows you to interchange the aperture ring with the zoom and focus ring. Each of these settings can be assigned to the FN button and quickly accessed. I love this idea and its implementation. One other thing that this camera does well in its functionality is to give quick and accurate manual focus via a zoom and peaking functionality. This is great if you want to work quickly to achieve close focus or to get eyes sharp.

On the form of this camera, I have a few misgivings. Firstly, its a bit slick. Not as friendly as the LX5 for my hands (which are not big particularly), but does have a nice heft to it. The next thing is the shutter button. It is placed ok, but you have to \"fiddle\" to find it. I have applied a nice little vinyl cabinet door bump to make it more certain to use. The other thing that is not in its favor when it comes to its form, is the lens. It has too much out front, and this means that when you first turn on the camera, it gets out of balance. This is exacerbated by that missing shutter button and body form (or lack thereof). When you get it balanced in your hand, it is fine, but never really feels \"right\".

My overall conclusion about this camera is, for what it can do, its is worth working around the minor difficulties and niggles I found.

Here are some images with a selection for the purpose of showing it in varied circumstances. I will leave the exif so you can check them out. There are a couple where I intended to up the SS and get some action/sports shots with the AF tracking. You can probably pick those out.




ISO 3200 portrait in low light.

Portrait @100mm eq. and ISO 2000

B&W portrait (modified a little by me) at ISO 1250 and 100mm.

Shallow DOF at a narrow aperture?

Trying to focus between things - FULL shot.

…100% crop from that test.

Color reproduction is pretty accurate compared to what your eye sees.

Using the DRO in auto, you can reasonably get high/low lights to balance.

Using focus tracking at 100mm but only 1/125th. Decent.

High ISO, with \"some\" movement using focus tracking.

Details and close focus at wide aperture (f1.8).

CA is well controlled (see the distant trees), and difraction is minimal considering the lens limitations.

Last, capturing details against bright skies is done well. Not as well as with a 24-70 from Nikon, but not bad.

Not intending to be a pro review, but just sharing some thoughts and feelings I found with this camera.



Aug 07, 2012 at 11:49 AM





  Previous versions of DavidWEGS's message #10864333 « My thoughts on the RX100 »

 




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