Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 III Review

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 III strikes good balance just as that of the LX series of Panasonic. It features lens of greater speed plus wider angle starting point. It trades-off less reach at end of the telephoto. Sony uses new F1.8-2.8 lens equivalent to a 24-70mm lens that is both wider and faster than what its preceding version had. This however comes at expense of telephoto power.

The RX100 III from Sony features a fast lens which combines with extra-size sensor and fast lens. These promise the user stronger performance under low-light conditions, along with shallower depth-of-field at telephoto end, compared to majority of enthusiast compacts. The lens is somewhat impressive, but the pop-up electronic viewfinder is most likely to get the best attention. This superb feature provides flexibility of EVF-access at all occasions, without imposing significant bulk to camera.

As such, the RX100 III is put in a unique feature by including the viewfinder. Even though the RX100 III lens is fairly fast, the telephoto lens-end stops at 70mm now as opposed to the 100mm exhibited by Mark I and II of RX100. Sony has however been able to create much faster lens using only small camera-size increase. Sony has fit in neutral density filter to facilitate bright maximum apertures, accompanied by lower diffraction-levels and shallower depth-of-field over broader range of circumstances. This allows using wide apertures while using long exposures which are requirements for shooting movies.

There is more than EVF and lens to the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 III, especially in matters touching video functionality. The first major improvement here is full sensor readout that facilitates video of higher resolution that they typical compact/interchangeable lens camera. This feature came at first with Cyber-shot DSC-RX10. As well, the RX100 III supports XAVC S codec that allows for recording of 1080/60p movies at 50Mbps. This marks marked improvement over Mark II’s 24 and 28Mbps rates.

In addition, the RX100 has ability of output ‘cleaning’ HDMI video over the HDMI port. The EVF functionality should in fact make it more pleasant taking photos on the outdoors and minor tweaks have been done to the UI. However, not many changes overall have been made from the Mark I and II. Shooting experience of these two previous RX100 versions was fairly wanting. It was awash with cluttered controls and most notably ‘clickless’ wheel which surrounded the lens, but offered no tactile feedback.

A number of critical features nonetheless make the Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 III from Sony a fabulous pick. This includes its 20.1MP 1-inch-type BSI-CMOS Exmor sensor, 24-70mm equivalent Carl Zeiss Vario-Sonnar F1.8-2.8 T lens and WhiteMagic 3-inch tilting LCD having 1.23M dots. Other functions include 1.44M-dot SVGA pop-up OLED Electronic View Finder, Clean HDMI output, 1080/60p video featuring full sensor readout plus 50Mbps XAVC S support. Look forward as well to experiencing great convenience owing to Zebra patter plus focus peaking, neutral density 3-stop filter, customizable front lens ring, 320 shots per charge and Wi-Fi having downloadable apps and NFC.