Small camera advice

[bjohn]

On 7/1/2020 at 1:05 AM, noone said:

My RX100 iv turned up.     As expected, MUCH better in looks than the photos showed and no different to any other i suspect and of the three small issues, one is no issue for me, another has not happened at all yet (and if it does will not affect image quality) and the third I would never have known really if i had not been told about it and again, no affect to IQ...bargain of the year for me (in a year i have gotten a few real bargains).

I am going to, love this camera on the one hand and get very frustrated (just occasionally) as i have large clumsy hands and it is small with tiny buttons.

Already i can highly recommend it (i am used to Sony menus so no problems using it right away).

I had the RX100 iii for a few years and initially loved it then grew increasingly disappointed. I ended up replacing it with a Google Pixel 2, which took vastly better photos, even in low light, although video was a tossup. I actually bought the Pixel as a camera rather than a smartphone and didn't even have a SIM card in it for the first year or so. I've since downgraded to the new iPhone SE and am missing the stills quality of the Pixel but I think the video quality is better (and it's better than any video I got from the RX100). The iPhone has better audio capabilities, which is why I got it; I can get world-class audio recordings using a Sonosax M2D2 with a stereo pair of mics, recording into an iPhone. I haven't tried combining audio and video yet. In general, I feel like today's smartphones can outperform most real pocket cameras.

[newfoundmass]

I busted out the GX85 today for personal use. I love it so much 🙂

[noone]

2 hours ago, bjohn said:

 I feel like today's smartphones can outperform most real pocket cameras.

I would agree for most cameras that have tiny sensors but not for the 1 inch sensors like the RX100 iv.

After now using it for a few days, in good light, it is not a huge way behind my FF camera with a reasonable lens for regular photos and in low light, its lens is very nice and I rate it very good for low light (but then it is a shade of my A7s for that but so is pretty much everything else I have had). .

I do not think I will be frustrated all that often now either as i have it set up to use manual mode with auto ISO and easy to change all the settings.

DXO (just a rough guide to me) has its sensor even being about the same as some M43 cameras just behind even some current cameras and ahead of many older ones.    Of the cameras I have had, it sits pretty close even to the APSC NEX 3-N I had recently which I think has IQ much better than a phone for stills anyway...It is a better camera to me than the Pentax, Canon, Nikon and Olympus DSLRS I have had and better than the Oly M43 camera and I even prefer it to the GX7 I had (and loved) and only the NEX-3N, two A7s and first version A7 take better photos and only the A7s better video (and in some cases not even that).

I have not used it for video yet really other than mucking around with the HFR video (that HFR mode on the mode dial is a real bonus).

The local zoo has reopened this weekend so I am possibly taking it (and the A7s) there today.

I barely use a phone as a phone let alone for photos/video but i think it will still be sometime before I would prefer a phone for photos and videos (that day WILL come but not close to it yet).

[bjohn]

11 hours ago, noone said:

Of the cameras I have had, it sits pretty close even to the APSC NEX 3-N I had recently which I think has IQ much better than a phone for stills anyway.

I believe Sony made some significant improvements in the RX100 v4 vs. the version iii that I had. I felt the IQ of my stills was far below that of my NEX-6 and even well below that of the Pixel 2, although of course the RX100 is more versatile than a smart phone (and I agree that the NEX-series cameras take much better photos than anything you can get from the best smartphones). For video, one thing I discovered is that I could mount the RX100 on top of a Blackmagic Video Assist monitor and record ProRes HQ footage (it outputs clean video via HDMI), which gave me a bit more latitude for color grading although I still didn't like the quality of video from the RX100.