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The Sony Cyber-shot RX10 III has impressed us so far. Its new 24-600 F2.4-4 lens has impressed us on the trail and in our initial testing, but it does come at a pretty price. We put it in the studio for a more controlled lens, and image quality test. See how it stacks up against its nearest competitors.
See the Sony RX10 III in our studio test scene comparison
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
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When the RX10 III was revealed as the ‘top secret’ Sony product launch in San Francisco earlier this year, I felt a bit cynical. ‘Another RX10, Sony? Really?’ I cried, along with a few bored commenters. ‘The last one is hardly a year old!’
Then I saw some telephoto sample images and was immediately impressed, wondering if I had been underestimating the 1″ bridge camera segment. Then Barney described the RX10 III to me as ‘magic’, which is high praise indeed and warranted further investigation. Which is exactly what we’ve done, below. Note that our results here are only indicative of the one copy of each camera we have on hand, some of which appear to be slightly decentered.
Starting at the wide end, which is around 25mm for all the cameras tested, we see in the center of the image (where our RX10 II appears to perform as expected) improvements over the RX10 II aren’t incredibly pronounced. Other areas$ (document).ready(function() { $ (“#imageComparisonLink2506”).click(function() { ImageComparisonWidgetLink(2506); }); }) of the scene show the advantage of the RX10 III, especially when it is stopped down from its maximum aperture of F2.4 to F2.8$ (document).ready(function() { $ (“#imageComparisonLink2507”).click(function() { ImageComparisonWidgetLink(2507); }); }). Its performance is definitely a step up from the Panasonic FZ1000$ (document).ready(function() { $ (“#imageComparisonLink2510”).click(function() { ImageComparisonWidgetLink(2510); }); }), and is miles ahead of the Canon G3 X$ (document).ready(function() { $ (“#imageComparisonLink2511”).click(function() { ImageComparisonWidgetLink(2511); }); }).
Where crazy zoom lenses like these typically struggle is in the extremes$ (document).ready(function() { $ (“#imageComparisonLink2513”).click(function() { ImageComparisonWidgetLink(2513); }); }) of the frame, with neither the RX10 III or the FZ1000 being an exception. The sharpness fall-off is less severe$ (document).ready(function() { $ (“#imageComparisonLink2515”).click(function() { ImageComparisonWidgetLink(2515); }); }) with the RX10 III, though, and all in all, the RX10 III is the best performer on the wide end.
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Moving on to 400mm$ (document).ready(function() { $ (“#imageComparisonLink2517”).click(function() { ImageComparisonWidgetLink(2517); }); }), the maximum focal length for the Panasonic FZ1000, we see a similar amount of detail between the Panasonic and Sony near the center of the image. Sharpness and resolution change for both throughout the frame, with the Sony showing a slightly iffy left side$ (document).ready(function() { $ (“#imageComparisonLink2523”).click(function() { ImageComparisonWidgetLink(2523); }); }), and a better right side$ (document).ready(function() { $ (“#imageComparisonLink2524”).click(function() { ImageComparisonWidgetLink(2524); }); }). Through most of the scene the two are practically neck and neck, with the G3 X turning in comparable performance as well, but let’s not forget the Sony and Canon still have more zoom range to go.
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The RX10 III’s 24-600mm lens isn’t only useful for distant details. |
The real reason people consider bridge cameras is for the reach, and Sony extended the RX10 III’s reach by a full 400mm over the RX10 II. That means it now offers the same amount of reach as the G3 X’s 600mm$ (document).ready(function() { $ (“#imageComparisonLink2516″).click(function() { ImageComparisonWidgetLink(2516); }); }) equivalent maximum focal length. The RX10 III’s lens is clearly sharper, but it has another thing going for it: its faster maximum aperture helps it combat diffraction. Remember that F4 and F5.6 on 1”-type cameras are equivalent to F11 and F15, respectively. Both cameras are limited by atmospheric distortion at these focal lengths (hence the drop to ‘print’ resolution in the previous comparison link), but it’s clear that the RX10 III exceeds the G3 X’s performance, while offering just as much zoom versatility. The Canon PowerShot G3 X’s trump card has been trumped.
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Even at 600mm (equiv), the Sony Cyber-shot RX10 III’s lens delivers sharp results. |
In all, it seems the RX10 III does offer a bit more than similar 1″ bridge cameras from other manufacturers. It exceeds, or at least matches, the competition with respect to zoom range, while offering sharper images, and brighter apertures than all but Sony’s own RX10 II. Importantly, sharpness performance appears to be maintained throughout the zoom range, from wide to tele, which cannot be said for any of the other cameras in this test. Feel free to explore through these images and post your own findings below.
As you look at the comparison widget, bear in mind that It appears our copy of the RX10 II appears to be slightly decentered$ (document).ready(function() { $ (“#imageComparisonLink2509”).click(function() { ImageComparisonWidgetLink(2509); }); }). This isn’t really noticeable in normal shooting but it’s obvious in a controlled test like this.
The second caveat to these results is the weather. Light varied over the course of the test, and had darkened so much that the Panasonic, the final camera tested, needed 2/3rds more exposure to produce a comparable image. All the exposures were processed in ACR with default sharpness and the ‘Adobe Standard’ profile used across the board.
We’ll be adding the RX10 III to our standard database of studio test images very soon – watch this space!
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
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| Mount Rainier, captured from the trail up Mount Teneriffe, near North Bend in Washington State. ~200mm (equivalent), ISO 800. Still another 2 miles to go until lunch, and another 400mm to go before the RX10 III’s maximum telephoto setting. |
Sony’s new Cyber-shot RX10 III might look a lot like the older RX10 II, but its lens is really something else. With an effective focal range of 24-600mm, the RX10 III is one of the most versatile cameras we’ve ever used. But focal range is only part of the story – it’s optical quality that impresses us most. And boy, are we impressed.
See our updated Sony RX10 III real-world sample gallery
A very short shooting experience by Barnaby Britton
Caveat: This is not a review, nor is it sponsored content. This is a shooting experience based largely on a single day of picture-taking, during a hike. Four miles up a mountain in the sunshine, four miles down in the dark. One memory card half-filled, one battery half-emptied. All shots were processed ‘to taste’ from Raw and all are un-cropped. Your mileage (both literal and figurative) may vary.
I’ve been searching for the ideal hiking camera for years. Since I moved to the Pacific Northwest I’ve tried and rejected DSLRs, fixed-lens primes, travel zooms, super-zooms and several iPhones. Recently, I’ve been packing my Ricoh GR II for its small size and sharp lens, but the lack of a viewfinder really limits its usefulness in some conditions.
The last time I brought a DSLR on a mountain hike I almost left it tucked under a rock on the trail, rather than drag it all the way up (that was the old, famously brutal Mailbox Peak trail, for any PNW natives reading this…).
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| Pretty good flare performance, considering the complex lens. This shot was slightly adjusted in ACR to bring out a little detail in the shadows. 24mm equivalent, ISO 100. |
It’s been a few years since I experimented with a superzoom compact camera, after a couple of bad experiences with sub-par lens performance. I’ve always liked the idea of them, but all too often I’ve been disappointed by the results in practice. These days, though, as my colleague Jeff likes to remind me, the good ones are actually pretty good.
OK, sure, but ‘pretty good’ for a super zoom is only ‘OK, ish’ by the standards of a shorter-lens compact or interchangeable lens camera, right? Well, that’s what I thought, too. Until…
We knew the sensor is good from our experience of using the RX100 IV, but the Sony Cyber-shot RX10 III’s major selling point is its lens. And the lens in the RX10 III is, as far as I can tell, made of magic. I genuinely have no idea how Sony’s engineers packed a 24-600mm equivalent lens of such high quality into a camera this small. It defies all reason. From wide-angle all the way to extreme telephoto, the RX10 III’s lens delivers impressive results. Weirdly impressive.
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| As well as distant details, the RX10 III is capable of capturing sharp images of tiny things, very close to the camera. Like these wildflowers. 24mm equivalent, ISO 100. |
Now, obviously I could take technically better shots with a DSLR and a fast zoom, or for that matter a prime lens compact like the GR II. Portraits with shallower depth of field, landscapes with critically better edge-to-edge sharpness and all the rest. But this past weekend a DSLR was out of the question. If I’m hiking up a mountain in 80+ degree weather, I’m traveling as light as possible. Most of the weight on my back this weekend was drinking water, and although it’s a fairly chunky camera, the RX10 III was light enough to clip onto the shoulder strap of my backpack with one of these.
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| Mount Teneriffe on a hot day is a pretty demanding hike, but the view from the top makes it worthwhile. 40mm equivalent, at ISO 100. |
The Ricoh GR II is lovely, but I knew that from Mount Teneriffe I’d be looking at three peaks – Mount Rainier, Mount Baker, and Glacier Peak, as well as Mount Si and Mailbox, a little closer at hand. So 28mm just wasn’t going to do the job. We timed our hike so that the sun would be go down shortly after we summited, and I knew that I wanted a nice, closeup (ish) shot of Mount Rainier’s famous purple glow (see the picture at the top of this page).
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Exposed for the highlights, it was easy to brighten shadow areas in this shot using Adobe Camera Raw. 24mm, ISO 100. You can’t really see here, but just where the blade of grass meets the horizon to the right of my subject, is Seattle’s distinctive skyline. See below for a shot taken from the same vantage point at 600mm. |
A lot of the prejudice about long zoom compact cameras comes from a misunderstanding of how to interpret their lens performance, especially at the long end. Atmospheric distortion and haze from moisture, pollen and pollutants will reduce the sharpness of any telephoto lens, especially on warm days.
So if your telephoto shots look like they were taken through a frosted bathroom window, the lens might not be the culprit. On the other hand, if everything in your pictures looks like someone went over the edges with a magenta highlighter pen – well, that’s the lens.
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| Seattle at sunset, from almost 40 miles away. 600mm equivalent, at ISO 100. Moderate ‘dehaze’ applied in Adobe Camera Raw. |
I had no such issues with the RX10 III (which was reassuring, since it costs $ 1500) but as always, I was shooting Raw, so what little fringing I did see in my images was easy to correct. Likewise, Photoshop’s ‘dehaze’ control in Camera Raw came in very useful to bring back some clarity to images taken at the telephoto end of the RX10 III’s lens.
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| Mount Baker, seen through more than 90 miles of pollen-laden air, just before sunset. This shot didn’t require quite so much dehazing as the last one. 600mm equivalent, ISO 250. |
During a day’s shooting during which my hiking partner and I walked a roundtrip of about 13 miles up and down a 4500ft peak, the RX10 III nailed virtually every shot. And that’s everything from a knee-level picture of some tiny wildflowers a few centimeters away from the lens, to a 600mm capture of Mount Baker, 90 miles away from my vantage point and half lost in haze (above).
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We hiked about half of the trail back to the car in the dark. For the last half mile we were accompanied by an owl. This grab shot was taken at ISO 12,800, by the light of our headlamps. At 95mm equivalent, there’s no motion blur at 1/15sec. |
From these sunset landscapes to ISO 12,800 snapshots of an owl that followed us back to our car at the trailhead, every time I looked at something and went ‘oooh’ and tried to take a picture of it, the RX10 III – and its insanely wide-ranging lens – got me the shot that I wanted.
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| Hiking through the forest just before sunset. 50mm equivalent at ISO 6400. |
We’re working on a more scientific assessment of the RX10 III’s lens right now, but in the meantime, I hope you enjoy our updated samples gallery (now with Raw files!).
I’ve only been using the RX10 III for a few days, and there are plenty of things I don’t like about it (confusing menus, clunky ergonomics, no touchscreen, laggy GUI, the aluminum lens and focus rings scratch the minute you look at them) but somehow, despite all that, I’m already planning next week’s hike.
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Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
At the end of March (2016) Sony released the new version of their Cyber-shot RX10 Mark III. The main difference between it and its predecessor, the Mark II, is the lens, which is a lot longer. Let’s take a quick look at its main features:
This video from B&H photo will show you what the new camera looks like, check it out.
This video by Chakru shows some of the key features and specs:
If you are a travel photographer and want to go light, this might be a good option for you. Or maybe even as a a backup camera to a heavy pro SLR. Perhaps an upgrade from a point and shoot camera is in order, give it a go and see if this is the right one for you.
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The post Quick Intro to the New Sony Cyber-Shot RX10 Mark III by Darlene Hildebrandt appeared first on Digital Photography School.
All video was shot in Sony’s XAVC 4K codec, at 4K/24p (except for the high-frame rate samples). Shutter speed was locked at 1/50 sec, aperture was manually selected on the lens and the camera was left in Auto ISO. Both manual focus and continuous autofocus were used.
The Sony Cyber-shot RX10 III is a conventional product for Sony. That might sound slightly negative at first, but really it means that the RX10 III is built well, attractively designed, packed with great technology and is capable of capturing excellent images. Unfortunately, it also means that there’s some usual Sony foibles at work; the menu system is horrid, there’s no touch screen, there’s some operational weirdness carried through from the rest of the Cyber-shot line, and some of the ergonomics could use some work.
The standout feature on the RX10 III is its lens. As you can plainly see from our samples gallery, the 24-600mm F2.4-4 lens is stellar. What’s more, while the camera is somewhat hefty for a ‘compact,’ it doesn’t feel unbalanced in your hand. When you combine that stable hand-holdability with the RX10 III’s optical stabilization, the average user will be able to get smooth telephoto video and sharp telephoto photos with ease. The XAVC 4K codec also means video will be crisp and detailed, the flat S-Log2 Gamma control (which was not used in the sample video above) and audio in / out ports indicate that the RX10 III will appeal to aspiring videographers as well.
What about downsides? Well, even if you’ve come from another Sony camera, you’ll need to spend some time figuring out where your menu options are. As mentioned in our RX1R II review, even the video and audio recording settings are spread not just across multiple pages, but also multiple sections of the menu. We also wish Sony would add things like video capture resolution and frame rate to the ‘Function’ menu in movie mode. And though it’s to be expected with such a wide zoom range, some users will be turned off by the amount of time it takes to zoom that impressive lens in and out. Unlike Sony’s a7 cameras, you cannot half-press the shutter to acquire focus in movie mode. It’s either continuous AF or manual focus. My last major gripe is that, like on other Sony cameras, the C1 and C2 buttons require a contorting of the hand to operate.
Overall, though, once you get used to some workarounds and get familiar with the camera, the RX10 III represents one of the most versatile and capable all-rounders I’ve ever used.
The standout feature of Sony’s new RX10 III is, without a doubt, its lens. It’s got incredible reach, and with a maximum aperture of F2.4-4, remains relatively bright throughout its zoom range. Brighter max apertures help keep noise (and ISO) levels low, and afford relatively good depth-of-field control (or background blur). A look at our equivalent aperture diagram indicates the RX10 III is well ahead of its nearest competitor, the Canon G3 X (lower equivalent aperture is better for any given focal length). The RX10 III’s lens is also far brighter than Nikon’s 24-500 DL, which ranges from a max aperture of F2.8 on its wide end to F5.6 on its tele end. That said, if you really don’t have much of a need beyond 200mm equivalent, the RX10 II retains a brighter aperture for most of its zoom range, save for on the wide end where the RX10 III is slightly ahead (F2.4 vs F2.8).
The lens appears sharp edge-to-edge even wide open at 24mm equivalent, at 70mm, 200mm, and 600mm. Granted, these are JPEGs we’re looking at, which are sharpened (with a class-leading sharpening engine, no less), so we’ll have to reserve final judgement for when we’ve been able to analyze the Raws, but, suffice it to say we’re thoroughly impressed by the performance of the lens so far. Good performance wide open is important on smaller sensor formats: it means you don’t have to stop down too much and deprive the smaller sensor of more light, which also helps combat diffraction-induced softness (which starts at earlier F numbers with smaller sensor formats, as diffraction is correlated with equivalent aperture).
Sony’s recent improvements in its JPEG engine also mean very high detail retention through smart sharpening and noise reduction that very effectively reduces noise while maintaining detail at high ISOs. This 220mm shot has plenty of detail despite being shot at the tele end of the zoom, and at ISO 320, which is approximately ISO 2500 equivalent on full-frame, assuming equivalent sensor efficiency and performance. Impressive.
Pair that lens and JPEG engine with a stacked 1″-type high dynamic range, high sensitivity CMOS sensor, and you’ve got a very impressive camera. The stacked sensor design marries a separate chip for memory and signal processing circuitry to the image sensor itself, which allows all that data to be read off the image sensor faster. The faster readout offers a number of benefits: faster autofocus, and fast frame rate video, as well as oversampled 4K video generated from 6K readout.
How about downsides? There are plenty, ergonomically. The Cyber-shot philosophy is starting to make less and less sense with such high-end offerings, and we wish Sony would instead essentially brand this as an Alpha camera, conferring upon it the advantages of the Alpha line and a consistent user-experience across all their cameras. For example, it doesn’t make sense that the ‘Focus Settings’ option can’t be assigned to the center dial back button on a Cyber-shot, yet can on an Alpha – it’s one of my favorite ways to make that button have dual function: click it to use the 4-way dial to move the AF point in any Flexible Spot mode, or click it and turn the dial to change AF area. As it is, on any Cyber-shot, you can’t assign this option, instead requiring you to leave the button assigned to ‘Focus Standard’ – lest you wish to lose control over focus point placement. That means you’ll have to waste yet another custom button for AF area mode.
Thankfully, pressing that back dial’s center button now toggles the camera into AF point selection mode (like the a6300), which means you don’t always have to first press it to the move the AF point, but this isn’t ideal: I’d also like access to whatever custom functions I’ve assigned left, right, and down to on that 4-way dial. I don’t understand why Sony doesn’t simply include an AF point selection joystick, or add a touchscreen for that matter.
Particularly problematic across all Sony cameras is the menu system. As I wrote in our a7R II review: ’22 AF options are split across 11 different submenu pages under two different main menu headers,’ and things aren’t any better for the RX10 III either. The lack of organization is inexplicable, but what makes it even worse is the lack of a customizable ‘My Menu’. Furthermore, now that these cameras are both stills and video powerhouses, there need to be separate customizations for each. Currently, if I assign a button to ‘Focus Magnifier’ to get around the fact that the camera doesn’t automatically magnify focus as I turn the focus ring in any video mode, that button becomes entirely redundant in stills mode, where the camera does do so.
There are countless other examples of button customizations that are relevant to video, but entirely useless in stills – for a camera body with rather limited customizable buttons and dials, there really shouldn’t be any assigned physical controls that are only useful in one shooting mode. And as Carey mentioned, there also remain the customizations (like movie frame rate or codec) that remain unassignable to the Fn menu, requiring a menu dive, which should be avoided at all costs considering the disorienting, unorganized menu system.
Frankly, Sony would benefit from hiring a firm dedicated to UI to re-design the physical controls, menus and button/dial interface completely from scratch. It pains me to see such refined technological achievement placed into hands of photographers, only to hear ‘I wouldn’t shoot it because I’m constantly fighting the ergonomics’ or ‘it just isn’t a pleasure to use’. An ergonomic overhaul would go a large way to addressing such complaints.
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
DPReview is in San Francisco checking out the new Cyber-shot RX10 III. The RX10 III maintains the ergonomics and key specifications of its predecessor, but incorporates a massive 24-600mm equivalent F2.4-4 lens. We’ve been doing some shooting with the camera in a range of different situations, and we’ve created a (JPEG only, for now) gallery.
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Click to view our gallery of samples from the Sony Cyber-shot RX10 III
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
Sony’s new superzoom may look a lot like its predecessor, but an updated 24-600mm lens makes the Cyber-shot RX10 III a much more versatile camera – in theory. We’ve been able to spend a bit of time getting to know the camera’s new features and putting its long zoom range to work. Take a look at what’s new to the RX10 series in our video overview.
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
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The Sony Cyber-shot RX10 III boasts a 24-600mm equivalent zoom lens, 14fps continuous stills shooting and 4K video capture. We’ve had the chance to get hands-on with Sony’s newest flagship compact camera today for a few hours, and we’ve put together some first impressions. Click through this slideshow for a closer look at the new Cyber-shot RX10 III.
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Cosmetically and ergonomically, the RX10 III is a near twin of its predecessor the RX10 II. It feels the same, looks pretty much the same and the key controls are laid out in the same way. The grip has been slightly redesigned (our impression is that it’s slightly more comfortable when the lens is zoomed fully, but there’s not much in it) but if you’ve used an RX10 II, the RX10 III will feel immediately familiar.
At just over a kilo (~2.3 pounds) in weight the RX10 III is not not quite as heavy as it looks, and in use (like the RX10 II) it feels solid and well-made.
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The RX10 III isn’t a particularly ‘compact’ camera when it’s turned off, but once it’s turned on and the lens extends, it gets even larger. Here, the camera is shown with its lens zoomed out to 24mm…
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…and here’s what the camera looks like when zoomed in all the way to 600mm. This is a big lens and it takes around 4 seconds to go from 24mm to 600mm.
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To help frame your shot with such a long zoom, Sony has provided a ‘Zoom Assist’ feature that lets you jump back to wider framing so that you can re-find your subject, before releasing the button to jump back to your chosen zoom level.
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The RX10 III boasts a powerful video feature set, based around 4K capture which samples a 17MP chunk of the sensor then down-scales to 4K, . In theory, this should mean that video quality is pretty darned good, and we’ll be posting some samples as soon as we can.
As we’d expect from a camera with such solid video credentials the RX10 III offers headphone and microphone sockets, as well as HDMI out and USB (2.0). This view also shows the articulating rear screen, folded out. As usual (sadly) for Sony, the screen is a magnet for finger prints and general crud, and isn’t touch-sensitive.
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The RX10 III’s built-in flash is (as usual for cameras like this) pretty weedy, but its pop-up mechanism raises it unusually high above the lens axis, which should reduce the risk of red-eye in portraits, and minimize shadowing caused by the massive lens.
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The rear control layout of the RX10 III is exactly the same as the RX10 II. Twin control dials (one to the right of the movie button and one around the 4-way controller) allow control over exposure parameters, and a generous rubber thumb grip helps to get a firm hold on the camera.
The RX10 III’s electronic viewfinder is very nice indeed, boasting 2.35 million dots (giving 1024 x 768 pixel resolution).
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The RX10 III is rated for 420 shots from its supplied NP-FW50 lithium-ion battery, which is a modest increase from the 400 shot rating of the RX10 II (as per CIPA ratings in both cases). For maximum battery life, deactivate the built-in Wi-Fi and NFC when not in use.
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One of the things we liked about the RX10 and RX10 II is the physical aperture ring. The RX10 III also boasts two additional rings for focus and zoom – the latter function doubled by a conventional compact camera-style ‘W-T’ rocker around the shutter release. And note that the shutter button is threaded for a mechanical cable release – a nice touch, and a subtle indication of the RX10 III’s high-end positioning.
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We’ll be posting images and video samples from the RX10 III as soon as we can – keep an eye on our homepage!
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
The RX10 II is an extremely versatile camera and so far, it has impressed us with its ability to perform well in most scenarios. But what about sports photography? We decided to bring it to the soccer field and pit it against a DSLR to see if it could keep up. The results? Find out here
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
We’ve been toting around the Sony RX10 II for a little while now, testing its ability to capture 4K video, high speed stills and super slow motion video clips. And while a superzoom may not be DPReview writer Dan Bracaglia’s first choice for his favored rock-and-roll and street subjects, he ultimately came around to the impressive capabilities of this camera. Read more
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)