Sony Sony RX100 III Announced and Available for Pre-Order

The Mk III is much more in line with what I (currently) want from a compact camera of its type, as the lens starts at 24mm and tops out at 70mm, f2.8. Having shot with the Panasonic 12-35mm f2.8 for a while on the EM-5, I can say that 24-70mm covers most of my needs. A camera like the Mk III fits for that reason alone.

The pop-up EVF is exciting news to many, although I have recently been discovering the utility of a tilting EVF. On the weekend, for example, I was able to take photos and video in a dark concert theatre with the Panasonic LX7 without lifting the camera to my eye or using the LCD, a real boon in those situations. A fixed EVF wouldn't have that flexibility and would lessen the usefulness of the camera in such situations. I'm therefore not singing and dancing about the pop-up EVF, as much of a technological innovation that it is.

It appears that Sony are sticking with the same bar-of-soap approach to handling they started years ago. Instead of a textured finish or even tiny grip bars, the Mk III still has that slippery expanse of metal. Add-on grips and covering are available, but if Sony realizes there is a market for it, then why don't they just change the body shell design? Even the original Sigma DP1 had three rows of stippled dots for grip. Canon changed the texture of the S series cameras and added grip strips. Come on, Sony, do you WANT people sending them back for repair after it slips out of their hands?

But all in all, the Mk III looks like a very good upgrade and one that should prove quite popular in future sales.
 
Does anyone wknow what the write speed of the RX100 Mark III is? I would suspect that it's faster than the two previous cameras given the video codec. But does anyone know if one would need a 95mb/sec card to take full advantage of the camera's speed? B&H has been offering 40 mb/sec Sony cards with the Mark I and Mark II.
 
Thought I should re-emphasize that for DoF purposes, 70mm f2.8 should be able to negate the longer focal length of 100mm f4.9. Someone can check my math, but off the top of my head, I'm pretty sure cropping the 70mm image at f2.8 so that it covers a 100mm field of view should actually give you shallower DoF than you would have gotten from the MKII at 100mm and equal subject framing. And with 20 megapixels, you should have more than enough slack to crop.

Basically, if you have your subject stand a fixed distance away from you, set both the RX100 II and the III to their longest focal length and brightest available aperture, and then crop the image of the III so that it matches the II, DoF and bokeh should be pretty similar, or even better on the III.

To get 70mm to an 100mm angle of view, you need to crop of x1.4ish. That would mean losing a bit less than 1 stop of DoF, making the 70mm f2.8 equivalent into a 100mm with a DoF like F4 on a 1 inch sensor, which is still faster than 100mm F4.9. And you'd still have 14ish megapixels to work with.

Someone please check that, it's late.

Of course, that's more work you need to do after taking the image, but still.
 
To get 70mm to an 100mm angle of view, you need to crop of x1.4ish. That would mean losing a bit less than 1 stop of DoF, making the 70mm f2.8 equivalent into a 100mm with a DoF like F4 on a 1 inch sensor, which is still faster than 100mm F4.9. And you'd still have 14ish megapixels to work with.

If you crop by 1.4x, you'll only be left with ~10MP, since you're cropping by 1.4x in both dimensions. As to DoF, in theory you're right but in practice the greater magnification of the pixels will also have an effect. The real question to me is whether the lens is good enough for pixel level sharpness at 70mm. If so, 10MP will be plenty.
 
An E-PLX with a popup finder like that would be uber awesome.

*argh* Don't tell me ... yes, indeed it would. But I can't see that coming, really. As it is, I think the III will probably hit the spot as digital equivalent of the Minox GT-E for me: Very pocketable (not exactly comfortable in a pants pocket, but doable in a pinch), great quality-to-size ration, real photographic handling experience due to the RF paradigm; and it'd be really, truely all-in-one.

But as you say - if Olympus were to include this kind of technology in one of their smaller PENs, it'd be hard to resist. In fact, if my PM1 had that, I'd stop looking for any other small second body; even though the PM1 makes a very good backup to the M10, I'm still comtemplating the PM2 or GM1/"2" or whatever in the long run - because without a VF, they offer at least better IQ and are both faster and more versatile than the already very good PM1. I'd probably stick to Olympus due to accessory compatability ...

But honestly, I think the III would stop me thinking about that if I really got one. As a backup or second body, the PM1 is really good enough (I have the VF-2 in case I really need it) BUT the III easily replaces it as a very capable take-everywhere solution. It might even substitute the PM1 as a lightweight (biking) holiday camera (I use the PM1 with 12-32mm now - great combo, but bigger and considerably more bare-bones)!

The camera it doesn't replace, though, is the GR ...

M.
 
when i bought my RX100 i did so based on this review (www.photoclubalpha.com/2012/07/24/sony-cyber-shot-dsc-rx100-review/)

it appears to state that the original version was 24mm at widest using RAW, yet rated at 28mm for corrected JPEGs.

check out the roll-over image of the iron gate, halfway down the page.

quote: "...The raw file is uncorrected, and shows a diagonal field of view closer to that of a 24mm (85°)...."

is the reviewer incorrect? it not, is the new RX000III that much wider?

or did sony just chop off the tele-end of the original zoom to be able to offer a "faster" telephoto f/stop? (ie: /2.8 instead of f/4.9)


.
 
Here is Jordan and Chris's review from the camerastoretv:

Yes, original RX100 had +11.2% distortion to fit the fast lens in a small package and most probably the III has a similar distortion, which makes it a very wide lens. Here is the lenstip's RX100 distortion/optics review:
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Here is Jordan and Chris's review from the camerastoretv:
Chris is saying that the high ISO / low light is better on the III than the first two models due to the new processor. They didn't quite say it was a full stop better but they did say 6400 is usable on this model where it wasn't quite on the previous models (pretty much my experience with the first one - 3200 was surprisingly good but 6400 was a step too far). I'm assuming this is a jpeg processing thing only if the sensor is the same and there's probably no difference in raw. But I'd love to find out I was wrong...

-Ray
 
AS of this morning B&H had them in stock. I put my order in. Should get it Thursday. This continues to be the smallest high quality SC as far as I can see.

Dan,

There was a bit of an uproar on the DPR Sony forum yesterday over this. B&H showed them in stock yesterday morning, a number of people ordered them and were told they'd ship later in the day. But evidently Sony had a release date of June 20th on the camera and a lot of those folks had their ship date and order status changed later in the day. By last night there were some conflicting reports with a few people saying their's still showed as shipping yesterday while other's had clearly been held up. Did you get an actual shipping notification yet? I hope you get it when it was promised. Sounds like a screw up somewhere along the line between B&H and Sony.

-Ray
 
Dan: Let us know how it performs. I stay very interested in this camera, even though I'll probably postpone getting another fixed lens compact until the dust has settled after the news stampede that is expected for this month and the next ...

M.
 
Dan,

There was a bit of an uproar on the DPR Sony forum yesterday over this. B&H showed them in stock yesterday morning, a number of people ordered them and were told they'd ship later in the day. But evidently Sony had a release date of June 20th on the camera and a lot of those folks had their ship date and order status changed later in the day. By last night there were some conflicting reports with a few people saying their's still showed as shipping yesterday while other's had clearly been held up. Did you get an actual shipping notification yet? I hope you get it when it was promised. Sounds like a screw up somewhere along the line between B&H and Sony.

-Ray

You are right, Ray. I got a notice this morning that there is a hold from Sony until June 20th even though B&H has them in stock. The original reply from B&H said expected delivery was to be yesterday. I do not like being misled, so I cancelled my order this morning. In fact, about the time they would ship on the 20th I will be up in your area for the Lenswork Roadshow.
 
You are right, Ray. I got a notice this morning that there is a hold from Sony until June 20th even though B&H has them in stock. The original reply from B&H said expected delivery was to be yesterday. I do not like being misled, so I cancelled my order this morning. In fact, about the time they would ship on the 20th I will be up in your area for the Lenswork Roadshow.

As one might expect, the Sony forum on DPR absolutely erupted yesterday over this. Many accusations of bad faith on the part of B&H. Where it was clearly just a screw up. They had / have them in stock but can't ship them until the 20th because of an embargo by Sony. But somebody in the web department didn't get the message in time and didn't put the message on the site (for the first few hours - then changed it) so a bunch of people ordered and were told their orders would ship that day. Henry from B&H was on the site answering questions and apologizing for the error, but the natives were / are out for blood and believe it was a concerted effort to rip off their customers. Because B&H has always done business that way? Pretty ugly scene - unfortunately not surprising.

Anyway, sorry you got caught in that. I'd never heard of the lenswork roadshow. Just looked it up. I'd love to come meet up with you while you're in the area, but we're heading for the shore that (next) weekend while some extensive work is done to our place. So probably not a workable time. I hope it's a good workshop!

-Ray
 
As one might expect, the Sony forum on DPR absolutely erupted yesterday over this. Many accusations of bad faith on the part of B&H. Where it was clearly just a screw up. They had / have them in stock but can't ship them until the 20th because of an embargo by Sony. But somebody in the web department didn't get the message in time and didn't put the message on the site (for the first few hours - then changed it) so a bunch of people ordered and were told their orders would ship that day. Henry from B&H was on the site answering questions and apologizing for the error, but the natives were / are out for blood and believe it was a concerted effort to rip off their customers. Because B&H has always done business that way? Pretty ugly scene - unfortunately not surprising.

Anyway, sorry you got caught in that. I'd never heard of the lenswork roadshow. Just looked it up. I'd love to come meet up with you while you're in the area, but we're heading for the shore that (next) weekend while some extensive work is done to our place. So probably not a workable time. I hope it's a good workshop!

-Ray

Unfortunate that they are going after B&H when it's Sony and their shenanigans they should be going after. Price fixing and sell dates are huge turn offs to the Sony brand for me.
 
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