davidmathar wrote:
I have had the rxr1 iii for a good week now. I can confirm some of the pros and cons that are stated here so far.
First, its tiny. Compared to my Leica Q3/43 it is really small and weighs essentially nothing. But that is not only a positive in my book. I really like small and unobtrusive, but it is so small, it starts to feel more like a drawbrack than a real plus for me. I like the feeling of the Q much more in the hands. This is also partly due to the typical sony finish of the newer bodies. I much more prefer the solid metal feeling tactile experience of the leica.
Second, at first sight the AF is really good with the typical sony eye AF experience, as compared with the leica AF. But, after a few shots of my kids (3-8 y), the AF is really a disappointment when they start to move towards the camera, even when they are just slowly walking. The focus is nearly always behind the focused eye. And even worse in not optimal lighting, it seems as if it even misses more often than not even for still subjects. That was quite a suprise to me honestly. Maybe its a combination of a lack of sharpness which appears more obvious in dim lighting in combination with a not optimal focus motor system in the somewhat older lens. When the AF is spot on, the sharpness is more than good enough at aperture 2.0. But this only holds if the subject is not far from the camera like in a half body portrait. When the subject (e.g. my kids) are like more than a few meters away, the sharpness seems to drop quite a bit. This might also be due to the AF system that not always seems spot on.
This leads to some really nice shots due to the rendering of the zeiss lens, but also to quite some shots that leave me disappointed. My intention was to maybe replace both Qs (28 + 45) with just the sony and even get more shots in focus of my moving kids. But this is just not the case unfortunately. even more frustrating, my copy appears quite decentered. I can not get the left side really sharp. The right side is quite sharp from 2.8 onwards. That leads me to returning my copy. I am still thinking of trying another copy with the hope that the main negatives might be due to some bad decentering. But I guess the AF won't turn out any faster with my kids anyways.
Have you tried maximizing the auto focus settings for your particular scenario? Even with the original a 7C and a 7C2, choosing how sticky the autofocus is, and if accuracy and/or speed is prioritized to make a large difference. I went from getting very few keepers of dogs moving around quickly to having a very high keeper rate just through settings changing with the sigma 35i
Aug 14, 2025 at 11:41 AM
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