RX100

[AndyMelbourne]

It just doesn't work. It took me some experimenting before I could actually see the preflash. In Manual set a long shutter speed; select rear curtain for the flash; point at self and it's immediately clear though. As I said before, in normal operation it is very hard to see. Before that I did get the Bowens out. Of course nothing came of it. Theoretically one could use a device to delay the strobe setting off, assuming the delay is the same for regular flash in one given mode (A or M). Ah, looking around the interwebs, that's totally unnecessary: the trick is to count the pulses. That's much more simple and works regardless of the delay: http://dptnt.com/2010/03/smart-optical-slave-flash-trigger/

Sunpak used to have a slave that probably operated like that: the SYK-5 it's still available on Amazon. If you would have an Elinchrom D-Lite, you could set the strobe to ignore the preflash. Or you could go the David Hobby/Joe McNally route and use speedlites. Yongnuo and Metz have a setting to ignore preflash.

 

I have looked into the disabling of the preflash for the RX100 as well and have found nothing so far.

 

It is a simple camera after all. Some have suggested that it's customary for Sony to offer a basic version first and later trick it out so you will buy the upgrade. What I miss most in the #1 is some way of tethering or remote. And I must say the mk2 does this with a vengeance: with wifi and NFC.

 

Before the RX100 I have experimented with a NEX-3, which was even cheaper at Euro 200 including a 16mm and it could take the dozens of lenses I have with a handful of adapters. (I used it mainly with that 16mm.) There are two hotshoes by Fotasy now to allow coupling a regular remote or flash to a NEX. The old NEX-3 is only 14 megapixel, but the firmware got an upgrade at some point which even allowed peaking. So if size and weight is not as critical, then a Nex could fit your brief as well. (A 16 Mp Nex 5 with a 16-50mm would of course be even better, and still a small package.)

 

wim

Thanks for that Wim, pretty much as I have read on a few forums but it's nice that you can actually confirm it.

After much deliberation I think it is going to have to be the MK2 after all for this very reason. Even if I never use the hotshoe, I just hope I get a good one.

I don't fancy the idea of going down the flash delay gadget route.

As for the Nex, the whole point is to have a small, sealed dust free camera that I can take an image, do a quick contrast/brightness on PS etc and upload without dust spotting.

The other options have been the G1X which is a bit too bulky for what I want, or, if I can live with the smaller sensor, the LX7 which is considerably cheaper and ticks a lot of boxes. With those in mind I think it is going to have to be the RX100 MK2

If all goes quiet it's because I have just told the wife how much.

 

Thanks again for your valued input.

Andy

 

P.S. Sorry Liam for Hi-jacking your thread.

[David Kilpatrick]

Andy - in three years of using NEX since the 2010 launch I've never yet needed to deal with dust spots. Don't ask why, the sensor is right there unprotected. For whatever reason, dust just does not seem to be an issue for NEX - and the same goes for the Olympus OM-D - not a single spot so far.

[AndyMelbourne]

Andy - in three years of using NEX since the 2010 launch I've never yet needed to deal with dust spots. Don't ask why, the sensor is right there unprotected. For whatever reason, dust just does not seem to be an issue for NEX - and the same goes for the Olympus OM-D - not a single spot so far.

Thanks for that David.

 

Andy

[AndyMelbourne]

Just bit the bullet and purchased a RX100 Mk1. It's currently charging and then I am off out around town to play with it and photograph all those things in my home town that I have never got around to.

 

In the end I couldn't justify the extra for a hot shoe and combined with the consensus that the MK1 possibly delivers better images it was the way to go.

I will report back in a day or two as to what I think.

 

Incidentally Currys/Pc World are selling it for £359.99 online on click and collect 1 hour later in store. The store price is £399.

Thanks for everyones input over the various RX100 threads.

Andy

[AndyMelbourne]

Well! I should have shot myself with the bullet rather than biting it. I know I am going against the grain here but I find it almost unusable.

I agree that noise is controlled (even up to 800) but the image quality is dire.

At 100% I don't think they look good enough and I am bitterly dissapointed with it. It may be a good sensor but the lens is about as good as a 3rd party cheap kit lens. Wide open and at the wide end would scrape QC but full tele is useless with edge definition and grain (yes grain) is way over the top.

It may be that I am spoilt and my standards are high. I usually use a D3 and the best prime lenses and I have not had a QC fail for nearly 4 years.

As for the settings I have noise reduction off etc for the jpegs and have been shooting jpeg/raw and I find that the Raw does not offer any marked improvement.

I have even found a dust spot just to cap it off.

With very careful shooting in good light I may pull off the odd QCable shot but as a general point and shoot it's a big no.

Am I alone with this?

[wiskerke]

I feel somewhat responsible for that now ;-)

Some think it's the best since sliced bread ;-)

 

For me it's a camera that I meant to use as a sort of ultimate remedy in case I couldn't use a proper camera for various reasons, but as I said before I find I use it too often and for that I have to pay a penalty later on in the process.

Because for good results it needs good shooting techniques and a lot of post.

Shooting technique on this level is merely getting used to whatever camera and it's quirks. I use to think I'm pretty good at it, but all the while it took me more than a week. Typical issues for this one: it's really light; difficult hand holding: people add grips. I use a neckstrap, more like a lanyard, on the right side only, in true p&s fashion. With that I pull the camera taut in my hand by winding the strap. That's a personal thing: I do it with all my camera's, but it helps a lot with this one. On the front I have added a 52mm adapter. The lens shade that goes in it gives some extra stability in some positions. And it keeps my fingers out of the frame. I now have an Olympus 1.7 tele converter too that works quite well, but increases the stability problem.

Adding stuff onto frail Sony engineered gems is always a risk though. There's a reason for it being the smallest and lightest in it's class. It's not like German engineering: ok it fits all the specs plus all safety margins, now make it twice as heavy to be on ze safe side.

 

Regarding graininess: because I shoot raw and jpg I have DRO on. In raw there is no effect unless you use a converter that takes into account the jpg settings. The drawback is that you have to do all cleaning and straightening yourself. The profile in ACR is quite good for the geometrics. For aberrations not so good. For grain ACR is excellent nowadays, salt according to taste. I use two settings (or two smart layers) in the case of 400 and 800 iso images: high and low. I paint some of the critical parts in if need be.

My lens is pretty good in tele. There have been reports about sample variety especially decentering. You may want to be careful with that and test it against another sample. I'm sure that a lot of these problems are in fact image stabilization related. Not stabilizing by the photographer ;-) but by the lens. The dust spot is unforgivable of course. That alone is reason to return it.

 

There was some more info on this previous thread.

 

wim

[Gervais Montacute]

I would send it back and get a refund. There's no point in messing around with something if you're never going to be happy with it.

 

Comparisons with a D3 and Nikon G lenses, (the ones I own were all well over a grand each) is probably a bit futile when comparing that combo to a £360 all in one camera.

 

The coke can image and recent Exeter and supermarket shots on my list are all with an RX100 II and I don't really get any trouble with them QCwise so far. They may not be going on anyone's wall but they all at least looked respectable in post and none rejected by QC as yet.

[AndyMelbourne]

Thanks for your replies, and Wim please don't feel responsible in any way whatsoever. I have been lusting for a good compact for a while now and this one seemed to be the one. Your advice and input is appreciated.

 

Anyway, I may have been slightly premature and some of the results could be due to a degree of user error. I have discovered what the zoom problem is and it is due to the clearview and digital zoom settings being on. The digital is woefull and the clearview is not good enough for stock but with both switched off it is just usable.

As for the dust, I have has a closer look and although it looks like a sensor flaw it has moved between two consecutive images and has turned out to be a plastic bag blowing in the wind or something.

I am going to persevere for a day or two as I really do want a compact in my pocket whilst wandering around town and I think this is the nearest I am going to get for the purpose. It's still not good though.

I don't rate the lens at all and it is certainly the weak point of the camera but with a bit of effort I may get some decent shots out of it.

I have had a play with the flash and it does not sync but I now realise I could not use it in the studio anyway.

I agree I may have been a tad over optimistic as to the expectations over my usual kit, The 105 F2 DC is like shooting in HD, I would say it is twice as good as my 50 1.4.

 

Thanks again for your replies and I will march on.

 

Andy

[AndyMelbourne]

 

Well! I should have shot myself with the bullet rather than biting it. I know I am going against the grain here but I find it almost unusable.

I agree that noise is controlled (even up to 800) but the image quality is dire.

At 100% I don't think they look good enough and I am bitterly dissapointed with it. It may be a good sensor but the lens is about as good as a 3rd party cheap kit lens. Wide open and at the wide end would scrape QC but full tele is useless with edge definition and grain (yes grain) is way over the top.

It may be that I am spoilt and my standards are high. I usually use a D3 and the best prime lenses and I have not had a QC fail for nearly 4 years.

As for the settings I have noise reduction off etc for the jpegs and have been shooting jpeg/raw and I find that the Raw does not offer any marked improvement.

I have even found a dust spot just to cap it off.

With very careful shooting in good light I may pull off the odd QCable shot but as a general point and shoot it's a big no.

Am I alone with this?

 

Andy,

 

I also have the RX100 MK1 and I love it. But I only use it in those situations where it is ideal (people / street scenes) and my trusty D700 would be a burden. With the RX100 I feel a whole lot more comfortable shooting street scenes, simply because nobody notices me (try doing that with your D3 and a 70-200/2.8 mounted). A few days ago, it was museums night in Ghent (museums open till midnight and free access) and it was a great joy wandering around with that little camera in my pocket. No hassle at all. See something nice, grab the camera, point, shoot and put it back in your pocket. No people staring it you, no personnel asking questions, free as a bird

 

Now for the noise. Though I shoot in RAW + Jpeg, I mainly use the RAWs. I use CS6 and it takes two seconds in ACR to control the grain. ACR does a superb job! The only drawback I notice is a degrading of the image along the edges, but that's the only shortcoming I can think of. On the other hand, I HATE crooked verticals (walls). So, when I straighten the walls with CS6, the edges (in less quality) fall outside the frame. Another trick is reducing the dimensions to 12Mp and thus also getting slightly better quality.

 

I would return it because of the dust inside, but get another one instead. Of course, don't use it as a replacement for your D3, but as an additional little buddy for taking ..... euh, how to call it .... "professional snapshots"

 

Cheers,

Philppe

 

Thanks for your input Philippe. The purpose for it is pretty much the same as yours except I don't really worry about doing street photography with the D3 and 80-200 or 105 attached. For me, I like a beer or two so leaving my kit on a bus etc is a real possibility and as long as I don'f forget my coat then the sony is safe.

On a more serious point, it is strange that the image quality improves with downsizing the image. Sony might as well have made it a 12mp sensor and possibly created a better camera.

I have been shooting raw/jpeg and I can honestly say the Raw difference is so minor as to not bother. They both shoot fairly soft images but they do come good with some carefull sharpening post shooting. It's a shame that the camera does not facilitate some control over in camera sharpening.

I am going to give it a week of toying with it and let you all know, after all it may just be me being stupid as I have only been doing this for about 30 years but I am still however open to learning.

Andy

[Gervais Montacute]

I think the lens on my RX100 II is fantastic actually. No problem with it all. I don't compare it to Nikon G lenses, but for a compact lens on a compact camera I think it's very good. I shoot RAW only on anything.

[Allan Bell]

Unfortunately there does seem to be a problem with the lens on some of the RX100 models, but not all. I am happy with mine but have read somewhere on this forum that someone returned their RX100 to Sony because of the lens problems. Sony worked on it and when it was returned the images were better, apparently, but still not of the quality that the photographer was fully happy with.

 

I must admit that when comparing the images from my Canon 5DmkII with the images from the RX100 the 5D wins, but as stated above as a street camera the images from the RX100 are good and I have not had a failure yet with it.

 

Allan

[David Kilpatrick]

I've had three RX100s in total and one RX100 MkII on test, and the lenses did all differ slightly. My current one I am very happy with, for my typical uses. One point worth making is that users coming from FF systems may think f/1.8 is just not an option, and try to shoot everything at f/5.6 or whatever, because this will be 'better'. On the RX100 it isn't. f/2 or f/2.2 may be better, but f/1.8 at the wide end is very sharp and has enough depth of field on the 10mm lens to cover most subjects. So, never hesitate to prefer ISO 100 and f/2 to ISO 400 and f/5.6 - the loss from using 400 is combined with (if anything) slight softening at f/5.6 - diffraction limits of the tiny pixel size mean f/4 is about optimum.

[Peter Jordan]

Unfortunately there does seem to be a problem with the lens on some of the RX100 models, but not all. I am happy with mine but have read somewhere on this forum that someone returned their RX100 to Sony because of the lens problems. Sony worked on it and when it was returned the images were better, apparently, but still not of the quality that the photographer was fully happy with.

 

I must admit that when comparing the images from my Canon 5DmkII with the images from the RX100 the 5D wins, but as stated above as a street camera the images from the RX100 are good and I have not had a failure yet with it.

 

Allan

Allan,

 

Yes that was me.  Initially I was not happy with the IQ.  The blurring, that most people report in the corners, on my camera extended all across the right hand side of a (landscape) image.   As a result of this PP of every image was rather a trial with many images that I would not risk sending to Alamy and others that needing cropping.   I sent the camera to Sony for warranty repair (broken USB flap and the lens problem).   The turn around from Sony was very fast and efficient and the camera was much improved.    

 

All my other cameras are Olympus 4/3 and M4/3 models.   All my Olympus and Panasonic lenses give excellent IQ so I was surprised and disappointed with the Zeiss lens on the RX100.   I still use the RX100, but in the winter when I am wearing a heavy coat, my surreptitious carry around camera is Oly E-P3 and Panasonic 14-42PZ lens.  With this combo, especially in the winter gloom, I find it far easier to get marketable results than with the RX100.  

 

That said, the RX100 is small and very versatile, for example the "Hand held twilight" setting has produced excellent images in the dark. 

 

Probably I need to work a bit harder on my shooting technique with the RX100 as I often still have have mis-focuses and/or camera shake.

 

It is certainly easy to carry about and does not draw attention, so I like it in any urban situation.

 

I always shoot RAW + jpg, but in bright conditions I often send Alamy the OOC jpg without needing any PP, so mixed experience, but when it is good it is very very good...

[Allan Bell]

Peter,

 

Thanks for the confirmation.

 

Allan

[Allan Bell]

I've had three RX100s in total and one RX100 MkII on test, and the lenses did all differ slightly. My current one I am very happy with, for my typical uses. One point worth making is that users coming from FF systems may think f/1.8 is just not an option, and try to shoot everything at f/5.6 or whatever, because this will be 'better'. On the RX100 it isn't. f/2 or f/2.2 may be better, but f/1.8 at the wide end is very sharp and has enough depth of field on the 10mm lens to cover most subjects. So, never hesitate to prefer ISO 100 and f/2 to ISO 400 and f/5.6 - the loss from using 400 is combined with (if anything) slight softening at f/5.6 - diffraction limits of the tiny pixel size mean f/4 is about optimum.

 

David,

 

I have been using f5.6 - f8 from ISO 100 - 800 with no problems. Perhaps I have just been lucky. From what you say above I think I will have to try out the larger apertures too and see what transpires.

 

Allan