Sheila Smart Posted May 8, 2013 Share Posted May 8, 2013 I have just ordered for my husband (yeah, right!!), the Sony RX100. Any tips on using this P&S for him (and, ahem, me!)? It would appear ideal for street photography which I tend to do a lot and also weekend snaps for my husband when he is zooming around the New South Wales, Oz countryside on his motorbike(s). Cheers Sheila Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Kilpatrick Posted May 8, 2013 Share Posted May 8, 2013 Use the Sunny Day LCD screen setting sparingly, but use it when you need to, as it makes the screen much easier to see. Get a cloth bag (I have a Barbour lightweight jacket with two rib-level fleece pockets, guess they are intended for hand warming but they make great pockets for a bare camera provided I do not accidentally drop coins or keys in the same place). Get a LARMOR glass screen protector too, I have just removed the hard plastic one I bought and replaced with the completely scratch proof GGS Larmor one. Do not worry at all about aperture settings, even at f/1.8 the depth of field at 10.4mm focal length is extreme; trust the stabilisation; allow the auto ISO to go to 1600 all the time and to 3200 for night shots; do use the JPEG-only modes like hand-held night scene as they really do work; turn off all sounds (the camera can be totally silent if you want, mine is); use wide area focus for street photography and centre spot focus for composed stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geoff s Posted May 8, 2013 Share Posted May 8, 2013 does the 'sunny day' really work in very bright conditions ? I often take pictures from a kayak as well as in snow which has always made me shy away from cameras without a viewfinder. But as the little fujis - x10 and x20 - whilst lovely designs keep failing on the image quality front, I am tempted by the rx100. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Kilpatrick Posted May 8, 2013 Share Posted May 8, 2013 It's pretty good in very bright conditions (example Morocco last month). It's much brighter than the max manual setting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted May 8, 2013 Share Posted May 8, 2013 Use the Sunny Day LCD screen setting sparingly, but use it when you need to, as it makes the screen much easier to see. Get a cloth bag (I have a Barbour lightweight jacket with two rib-level fleece pockets, guess they are intended for hand warming but they make great pockets for a bare camera provided I do not accidentally drop coins or keys in the same place). Get a LARMOR glass screen protector too, I have just removed the hard plastic one I bought and replaced with the completely scratch proof GGS Larmor one. Do not worry at all about aperture settings, even at f/1.8 the depth of field at 10.4mm focal length is extreme; trust the stabilisation; allow the auto ISO to go to 1600 all the time and to 3200 for night shots; do use the JPEG-only modes like hand-held night scene as they really do work; turn off all sounds (the camera can be totally silent if you want, mine is); use wide area focus for street photography and centre spot focus for composed stuff. Just wondering, is the hand-held night scene mode on the RX100 better than the "hand-held twilight" one on the NEX cameras? I've experimented with the latter on my NEX-3. And while the results are surprisingly good, I'm not sure that I would submit the them to Alamy due to the noise levels. It is actually unclear to me how much noise QC is willing to tolerate. The example given in Alamy's submission guidelines shows the extreme amount of noise often seen at high ISOs. However, QC can fail even low ISO images with very little noise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allan Bell Posted May 8, 2013 Share Posted May 8, 2013 I use the Sunny Day screen constantly and do not seem to have any problems with it. Allan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Kilpatrick Posted May 8, 2013 Share Posted May 8, 2013 ISO 3200 or 6400, night shot mode, very low noise on the stuff I was doing recently - but because it involved some movement of people, not suitable for submission. I have put some through with no problems. My latest batch includes a load of A99 6400 and RX100 1600 to 3200 material. Here is an example from the RX100 - the settings are difficult to believe, and the image does show some slight movement of a rifle and one figure: This one was uploaded a couple of days ago and is on sale now. It was taken with the RX100 at 37mm (longest focal length) and f/4.9 (wide open) = 100mm, ISO 3200 noise reduction multi-shot mode, 1/13th of a second recorded as the exposure, direct to JPEG, file reduced to 2400 x 3600 for Alamy (just gave a bit of edge to the wall texture etc). Even in the dark shadow areas of sky and palm leaves there's no serious noise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted May 8, 2013 Share Posted May 8, 2013 ISO 3200 or 6400, night shot mode, very low noise on the stuff I was doing recently - but because it involved some movement of people, not suitable for submission. I have put some through with no problems. My latest batch includes a load of A99 6400 and RX100 1600 to 3200 material. Here is an example from the RX100 - the settings are difficult to believe, and the image does show some slight movement of a rifle and one figure: This one was uploaded a couple of days ago and is on sale now. It was taken with the RX100 at 37mm (longest focal length) and f/4.9 (wide open) = 100mm, ISO 3200 noise reduction multi-shot mode, 1/13th of a second recorded as the exposure, direct to JPEG, file reduced to 2400 x 3600 for Alamy (just gave a bit of edge to the wall texture etc). Even in the dark shadow areas of sky and palm leaves there's no serious noise. That's pretty impressive. Does the RX100 automatically apply noise reduction and choose ISO when you use the night scene mode? Or do you set them manually? I assume that was hand-held as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Kilpatrick Posted May 8, 2013 Share Posted May 8, 2013 Hand held. You can choose the ISO, or at least the maximum auto ISO. This is from an in-camera JPEG which I open using ACR and apply a small further amount of NR and if necessary capture sharpening to (but sharpening is off for everything except ISO 125 by default). I have ACR set to open JPEGs as well as RAW files, because I make use of some of the other controls which have no equivalent within Photoshop. I learned 'proper' photography the hard way at age 14-15 using an Olympus Pen D - half frame developing and printing, and trying to match the work of others using much larger cameras, is what gave me an edge when I moved up to 'proper' SLR cameras. But I have always retained a love for small cameras, and for one period in the 1990s abandoned SLRs and worked with two Minolta CLE bodies. So for me, the RX100 is a return to my favourite set-up - the completely unencumbering, invisible camera which can still produce great image quality. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted May 8, 2013 Share Posted May 8, 2013 Hand held. You can choose the ISO, or at least the maximum auto ISO. This is from an in-camera JPEG which I open using ACR and apply a small further amount of NR and if necessary capture sharpening to (but sharpening is off for everything except ISO 125 by default). I have ACR set to open JPEGs as well as RAW files, because I make use of some of the other controls which have no equivalent within Photoshop. I learned 'proper' photography the hard way at age 14-15 using an Olympus Pen D - half frame developing and printing, and trying to match the work of others using much larger cameras, is what gave me an edge when I moved up to 'proper' SLR cameras. But I have always retained a love for small cameras, and for one period in the 1990s abandoned SLRs and worked with two Minolta CLE bodies. So for me, the RX100 is a return to my favourite set-up - the completely unencumbering, invisible camera which can still produce great image quality. The RX100 sounds like a really cool little camera. If money were no object (unfortunately its is), I would probably run out and buy it. That's if I could find one. Stores in Vancouver seem to be all out of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheila Smart Posted May 9, 2013 Author Share Posted May 9, 2013 Thanks David. Much appreciated. John, I ordered mine from a Sydney based online dealer and will probably get delivered in a couple of days via Hong Kong. It was $250.00 cheaper than Sony Australia was asking. The last time I ordered via a Hong Kong company (Canon flash unit), it arrived in less than two days! At the same time, I ordered a T-shirt from a Melbourne company and it took three weeks to get the 1,000 kms to Sydney! Sheila Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Walker Posted May 9, 2013 Share Posted May 9, 2013 David, I was interested to read that you set ACR to open JPEGS in addition to Raw files. Do you know if this this option is available in the ACR part of PSE10 and if it is - where is it set? Regards John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheila Smart Posted May 9, 2013 Author Share Posted May 9, 2013 How sharp are zoomed images as I have always been wary of using optical zooms on Point and Shoots. Sheila Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bizair Posted May 9, 2013 Share Posted May 9, 2013 I have a G12 as a P&S and they are very sharp. But the noise at anything above ISO 200 is a problem. I understand though that the newer 4/3 and APS-C sensors on the more recent P&S's are much better. My current 5D III processed in LR4 shoots noise down in flames. For the moment I'll stick with having to carry the 5D III and heavy lenses around. It's just better all round for my purposes. But each to their own of course. Ken Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Kilpatrick Posted May 9, 2013 Share Posted May 9, 2013 The Preference to open TIFFs, or JPEGs, as RAW is found in Adobe Bridge, so I imagine it applies in Elements as well. Here's a topic on photoclubalpha forums (RX100 owners feel welcome to join, it may not be an Alpha but the forums cover all makes and types of camera anyway): http://www.photoclubalpha.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=7675&p=79983#p79983 Read all of my replies with the posted images and you'll be surprised, especially when thinking about Alamy QC, image sizes, and stuff like that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted May 9, 2013 Share Posted May 9, 2013 Thanks David. Much appreciated. John, I ordered mine from a Sydney based online dealer and will probably get delivered in a couple of days via Hong Kong. It was $250.00 cheaper than Sony Australia was asking. The last time I ordered via a Hong Kong company (Canon flash unit), it arrived in less than two days! At the same time, I ordered a T-shirt from a Melbourne company and it took three weeks to get the 1,000 kms to Sydney! Sheila Thanks for the tip, Sheila. I'll keep it in mind. Right now I'm focusing my limited financial resources on building a Sony NEX system. The RX100 certainly does sound like an intriguing new toy, though. Hope you enjoy it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Walker Posted May 9, 2013 Share Posted May 9, 2013 Thanks again for the info David, I've managed to open a jpeg in Elements 10 ACR - very useful. Click on image and Select 'Open As'. Then Select Camera Raw as the file type. The jpeg then opens in ACR giving all the options that ACR offers. Great for controlling highlights. John The Preference to open TIFFs, or JPEGs, as RAW is found in Adobe Bridge, so I imagine it applies in Elements as well. Here's a topic on photoclubalpha forums (RX100 owners feel welcome to join, it may not be an Alpha but the forums cover all makes and types of camera anyway): http://www.photoclubalpha.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=7675&p=79983#p79983 Read all of my replies with the posted images and you'll be surprised, especially when thinking about Alamy QC, image sizes, and stuff like that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SFL Posted May 14, 2013 Share Posted May 14, 2013 I think the answer is no as I have gone through the menu couple of times. However just to make sure, with RX100, when you shoot RAW+JPEG, is there an option of turning off sharpening to JPEG? Sung Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Kilpatrick Posted May 14, 2013 Share Posted May 14, 2013 Menu > Creative Style > press centre button for the Style you are using (eg Standard) > use right click to access Contrast, Colour Saturation and Sharpening settings for that style. Change these as you wish and save. The default sharpening in 'Standard' seems perfectly OK for Alamy, to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SFL Posted May 14, 2013 Share Posted May 14, 2013 Thank you David. Am I right to think that the default sharpening in Standard is 0? I asked the question because when I compared RAW and JPEG side by side, the JPEG looked a lot sharper. Sung Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Kilpatrick Posted May 14, 2013 Share Posted May 14, 2013 Correct, the default sharpening is actually 0 in nearly all the styles - I think landscape may be +1 and portrait -1 but without checking them all, can't say. Those are the normal defaults in Sony cameras. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheila Smart Posted May 19, 2013 Author Share Posted May 19, 2013 Any tips on using this P&S for him (and, ahem, me!)? Cheers Sheila Well, here's a very useful little gadget you can use with the RX100 (or any other point & shoot camera): the GorillaPod Micro 250 Cheers, Philippe (ordered my Sony RX100 a day ago ) Thanks, Philippe. I had one of those years ago when it was supposed to support a DSLR but my Canon was too heavy. You have got me searching for it as it would be ideal for the RX100. Sheila Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheila Smart Posted May 19, 2013 Author Share Posted May 19, 2013 Thanks all for the posts on this great little camera. I am much impressed so far, especially the detail in close ups and also the ability of the optical zoom. Sheila Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allan Bell Posted May 19, 2013 Share Posted May 19, 2013 Hi Sheila, I have been using the RX100 for a while now but have not tried the digital zoom. This is because I did have another camera with that option but was not happy with the results. Can you let me know what you think of the results you are getting with this model on digitally zoomed images please? Allan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheila Smart Posted May 20, 2013 Author Share Posted May 20, 2013 Sigh.... Again someone has given me a red negative by thanking you all for your helpful posts. Alamy, what is going on here?! The system is being abused yet again and I have reported the negative "vote". Cheers Sheila Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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