Sony Sony RX100

It looks very interesting. and I'll try to keep an open mind. I'm still concerned about 20mp on a sensor that size.

The sensor is much larger than that of the Canon PowerShot S100. Would the sensor of the S100 be as large without changing pixel density, it would have 33.4 million pixel. Digital Photography Review has posted a hands-on preview of the Sony with some sample images. I have looked at some pictures and noticed their quite good quality. At base ISO the image quality should be very fine, since these are just JPEGs out of the camera. I have also looked at a photo shot at ISO 1600 and it looked very fine for a compact at that high ISO. Since I can get much better image quality from raw files, I am not worried at all.

And the lack of a viewfinder of any kind makes me want to pound my head against the wall. That single omission is a clear indication the camera isn't really intended for enthusiasts.

Sorry, but you are mixing up your wants and those of others. This camera is one of the smallest cameras on market offering good enough image quality and is surely one of the best compromises between size and image quality. It is not much bigger than the Canon PowerShot S100, but offers a much larger sensor and a faster lens. In my opinion there is a big market for cameras like this and I am sure that enthusiasts are one of the main targets the camera is aimed at.
 
I don't think so, their NEX line is already built around being the smallest CSC (excluding the Pentax Q), so to introduce an even smaller system would dilute that message. I do hope they'll make a range of several serious compacts around this sensor, all small enough to be considered pocketable!
 
Looks very nice. Lots of details to find out about. After the X10 and the G1X and now with this, the compact wars are really heating up. I'm gonna stick with my LX5 and GRD3 for the foreseeable future since I don't really shoot with compact much anyway. And wait to see what Panasonice and Ricoh and maybe Olympus and others come up with. The Sony looks very useable at 1600-2000 and sort of OK at 3200, kind of similar to the X10. And I didn't even want 16mp in my larger sensor cameras, so I'm more than a little annoyed at the thought of 20mp in a tiny compact. But I'm sure that's gonna be as nearly unavoidable in another year as 16mp or more is for m43 and APS these days. As long as they keep making the sensors better, I guess I can stop complaining about how much better they COULD be if they'd just cap the mp at something reasonable, like 10-12...

I'd bet by the end of the year or next spring at the latest we'll have a half dozen compacts competing on this turf, with larger sensors (the X10 probably being the smallest going forward?), better high ISO, good quick reflexes, hopefully faster lenses through the zoom range traded off for slightly larger size, etc. All cameras are getting better - why should compacts be any different???

-Ray
 
I don't think so, their NEX line is already built around being the smallest CSC (excluding the Pentax Q), so to introduce an even smaller system would dilute that message. I do hope they'll make a range of several serious compacts around this sensor, all small enough to be considered pocketable!

Sony has a tradition of selling their sensors to others. Hopefully, that will happen with this one too.

Looking at the review on I-R, the only question about the RX100's performance is how the quality of the RAW files are (no standard RAW converters support it yet).

DH
 
The fact that the RX100 is so much smaller than an XZ-1 or LX5 or similar camera really makes me wonder why we haven't seen something like this a long time ago, even if it was in a larger form. Has compact lens design advanced that quickly?
 
I would expect the processing power and software needed to correct the optical compromises have been advancing rapidly, more so than lens design. The uncorrected raw files on the wide end would be quite interesting to see.
 
Software correction is actually quite simple because without any attempt at optical correction, the distortion at wide angles tends to be pure barrel distortion.

This is an example of the Canon G1X distortion at a focal length of around 17mm. The brickwork shows the distortion quite clearly. The second image has been manually corrected for barrel distortion

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IMG_0103-DNG-R.jpg
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This is the G1X at it's widest setting (15.1mm) + a manually corrected version of the same image

IMG_0660-RAW.jpg
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CG1X-IMG_0660-PR Canon Powershot G1X Glasshouse Mountains Australia by Nic (Luckypenguin), on Flickr

These are taken from raw files converted DNG. The camera does the same thing to it's own proprietary raw and jpeg files.
 
I'm liking what I see so far. Only thing left I'd like to know is how bad the NR is in camera and if it can be adjusted. I also don't think I want to spend over 500 dollars when most CSC's can be had for around that price or better.
 
The fact that the RX100 is so much smaller than an XZ-1 or LX5 or similar camera really makes me wonder why we haven't seen something like this a long time ago, even if it was in a larger form. Has compact lens design advanced that quickly?

My theory is that there simply wasn't a competitive need to, plus the sensors weren't readily available. Now that mirrorless and cell phones are encroaching on the compact market, there's a need to offer something 'unique' to draw in customers (and not lose existing ones).

Software correction has been common on compacts for at least the past 4 years, so I doubt that had too much to do with it.

DH
 
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