Sony's new superzoom may look a lot like its predecessor, but an updated 24-600mm lens makes the Cyber-shot RX10 III a much more versatile camera - in theory. We've been able to spend a bit of time getting to know the camera's new features and putting its long zoom range to work. Take a look at what's new to the RX10 series in our video overview.
Just to confirm, is the manual focus behavior just as bad as the RX10 MKII? I find it unusable for video. I can't believe they are marketing video around this super duper lens and while keeping this approach for focus.
Also, why are they still playing the 30 minute recording time limit game? Yes, I know all the usual BS about taxes but let get real, I am not buying it because of the 30 minute limitation. How many sales could they add if an unlimited version was offered? I only need 1080p60 to be unlimited, not 4k for this to be a more useful tool for my business.
What exactly about the MF behavior bugs you? I'll tell you what bugs me: having to assign a button to focus magnifier just to get focus magnification in video mode for MF. It's not engaged automatically when turning the focus wheel. And yet it is engaged automatically when doing so in stills shooting, which means that that focus magnifier button you've assigned for video becomes useless (redundant) in stills shooting... on a camera that has sparingly few customizable buttons to begin with! Well, at least the RX10 III has a couple more spare buttons than its predecessor.
Thanks for your reply. The manual focus on the MKII is not repeatable. It accelerates and decelerates instead of being constant. Turn a little to the left and you expect a certain amount of change. But with whatever system they are using, a little can be huge change or almost none at all.
Basically unusable for live video. Luckily the AF is good enough but for specialty shots it is often a challenge. I just want a "normal" manual focus like what most expect.
Still waiting to hear if the lens dislodges as the zoom goes past 136mm, and whether the zoom is too uneven to use during video. That's what I hear about the RX10 II.
A petty criticism I know, but when describing the macro magnification, your reviewer/presenter described is as 0.49 (letter) X. It's not a letter X, it's a multiplication symbol, so the image on the sensor is 0.49 TIMES(about half) life-size.
For clarity, I wasn't deriding the use of the symbol 'x' for the multiplication sign, I was commenting that the presenter pronounced it as an 'x' (the letter) incorrectly; it would be like calling the plus sign "cross". If that was unclear in my original remark, I apologise. And if we're going to Wikipedia for clarification, you might like to read, and pay attention to, the first line in this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiplication_sign
One of these and a RX1 Mk2 (X100t maybe) would be my travel kit of choice, I think it covers most things unless you are very specifically traveling to shoot landscape and wildlife, I think if the opportunistic sighting of wildlife and scenery urban and in the wilderness, for example if hiking, fishing or shopping, is your primary activity this would be a decent rig, although MFT aficionados may disagree.
wouldn't be able to afford to go far though, oh well Derbyshire gets some great light in the spring
I shoot almost exclusively Sony at this point, but Canon does have to get the credit here for zoom assist. Sony has 100% copied that feature. Canon has had that feature for several years now on all their large zoom compact cameras including the G3 X, a direct competitor to this camera.
You're right, it was more like "digital zoom assist" or crop assist as you said, but nevertheless what you saw on screen was just like how zoom assist works on the cameras mentioned by EricoftheNorth.
I wonder how this one compares to A6300. I just sold the A6000 after 6 months because it drain battery too fast, shutter click to too loud, EVF lags and the 16-50mm kit lens starts to make funny noise at power on. Looking for replacement and considering A6300, this one and Nikon DL 24-500.
a6300 EVF lag is very, very short, almost imperceptible at this point. Make sure you set the EVF refresh to 120Hz, and Display Quality to 'Standard' (not 'High').
Just FYI, the RX10 III doesn't really have much of a shutter sound, because of the leaf shutter.
The shot of Alcatraz is way better than what I get with GX7 and PZ 45-175. Of course my setup only cost 1/3 but still, RX10 have amazing lens and sensor.
But how does Sony implement the Zoom Assist feature? The EVF, LCD are all fed off the lens' view, unless you zoom out or have a separate lens giving the wider view, how can the view change?? Anyone?
@fatdeeman That'd make sense. What I wasn't sure about is when Rishi says "zoom in" literally means the lens zoom out or just the screen view "zoom in". The reason is that it's supposed to take "4 secs" to go from 24-600mm according to the DPR handson. That's quite slow to zoom, but in the video, it seems instantaneous.
It zooms the lens back out, and then there's a little frame that gets smaller and as you turn the zoom ring that tells you what the FOV will be if you zoom into that focal length.
In other words, while in this mode, as you 'zoom in' by turning the zoom dial, the lens doesn't actually zoom in (it's zoomed out to 24mm, remember); instead, it just shows a frame of what the FOV will be. Then when you let go of the Zoom Assist button, the camera zooms into the preselected focal length, which you've determined by turning the ring until seeing the framing you want.
Should be pretty self-explanatory in the video where we show Carey using the feature.
@Rishi, Thx for the detailed explanation. After retracting and selecting the view from the wider position of the lens, does it cause much delay to zoom back to the 600mm position? The optical quality of the lens at 600mm seems really good, gives Olympus 300mm F4 a run for money. The only weakness is the lack of PDAF or the Sony 4D tracking. So it can't be effective for moving objects in spite of the Zoom Assist
It seems fairly fast looking back in our video at 1:27 and 1:34. Not sure we filmed how long it took to use go from zoomed out to 600mm in the Zoom Assist mode - sorry. Will try and go back through the footage to see if we have that.
Yeah, it does seem optically impressive. Would love to see some quantitative data on this lens for comparison (DXO?) - it'll still take us some time to get our lens tests back up and running (I'm working on it though).
Some sort of dual pixel architecture is really necessary on these things for phase detection, particularly at long focal lengths. One thing I wonder is how on-sensor phase-detect systems will deal with the large phase differences of longer focal length lenses. And how they'll be able to make measurements from extreme defocus.
One thing's sure: almost anything is possible, and I believe engineers will find some way to crack this problem. :)
The 4secs num is from here: http://www.dpreview.com/news/9082856164/hands-on-with-sony-cyber-shot-rx10-iii?slide=4 If you work on the test score on long lenses, I strongly suggest including a test of sharpness at various distances, say at intervals from 10-50yards, e.g. nail an eye chart on an side wall in a parking lot. I can't believe not a single site does something like that. Different lenses' resolving power at different distances can vary dramatically, we need some quantitative measurements. If you do it, that alone will make DPR future test report worthy of reading.
The 4s was a very rough estimate; just a rough guess on the spot, not measured. Also, that was when using the rocker. It may be quite different with Zoom Assist. We'll remember to measure it once we get one in our offices.
As for various subject distances - I've wondered this as well. However, I have yet to see conclusive quantitative evidence that the results change drastically with different distances beyond a certain threshold distance, say, 30m or so. Between 40x focal length and infinity, I have a feeling that results don't drastically change - do you have any evidence to the contrary?
Results can certainly change at closer focus distances.
The thing is, it would be very difficult to test multiple focus distances, & I am yet to be convinced there are huge differences - but that's a chicken & egg problem. Until you have the automation and resources to test multiple lenses at multiple distances, you just won't know how much of an issue this is.
More important to me, actually, is showing results for both focus at the center (flat-field results), vs. focusing at each measurement point in the frame. Else, for lenses that have a lot of field curvature, you risk underestimating the lens performance for portraiture - where you'd actually focus an off-center subject using an off-center point.
Even if we did do one subject distance, though, I feel like there's so much value add we could have. First of all, testing representative copies, showing both visual and MTF results, presenting them in an easily comparable manner (a la our old lens widget), for perhaps a couple different bodies, etc., would still provide something unfortunately I can't find elsewhere.
If you feel thorough comparative results exist elsewhere, though, please do let me know - I'd like to know if I've overlooked something or some site. :)
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Fsmyu1PZSLs/VqOE9a-LTzI/AAAAAAAAs0M/6DqygaMi6FA/s1600/P1230747a.jpg by two lenses that can't be more different (btw not my pics). And I'm certain if the bird is placed 30-50 yards out, the results will be drastically different even though I don't have the images to prove. And you'll agree to that too once you find out what the lenses are (I'll give answer tmrw :). The surprise is how similar the two images are.
Hi BostonC - not sure what to conclude from those. Mind PMing me any details about what I should extrapolate? I'm working on designing lens tests at the moment. Thanks!
Wait for FZ1000 II to top that, along w DFD focusing, touch screen. Hopefully it comes w better lens spec, and AF assist (kudos to Sony for that). And $500 less.
Yeah they can. It's much much easier to adjust to millisecond delays than it is to rely on a computer to guess where you want the focus to be or hope that our fat human fingers can pick out what small fine detail we want to focus on from a tiny screen. Unless you're constantly going to extreme opposing planes every half second, wire focusing shouldn't be a problem.
An f2.8 lens made a lot of sense in front of the 1" sensor. You got effective light gathering and DoF control that was on-par with an APSC DSLR with superzoom - With overall IQ being probably a bit better, good build quality and a more convenient package.
With this lens, the camera is back in traditional bridge-camera territory. A good bridge camera, but no longer a DSLR alternative.
Compare it to a 4K DSLR and 24-600mm eqiv zoom lenses. The RX10 III #1 feature is 25x zoom for 4K UHD video. If you just want to shoot stills get the A7 or a DSLR.
It would be interesting to see a FF 600 f4 lens shot at f11 to f16 to compare with the RX10 III wide open. Perhaps include something like that in the full DP test ?
"It's about F11 full-frame equivalent on the tele end."
What means "equivalent" here? The crop factor of the 1'' sensor is 2.7. It's the DOF (depth of field) which is equivalent to about 600mm full frame at F10.8 - with the CoC (Circle of Confusion) also adjusted according to the larger sensor, usually it is 1/1500 of the sensor diagonal. But the 220mm 4.0 of the RX10 III is still F4.0, not F11.
DOF-Example: 220mm Tele at F4.0 in 10 meters focus distance in front of a 1 inch sensor leads to a calculated DOF of about 172 mm.
The full frame DOF equivalent is about 600mm Tele at F10.8 in 10 meters distance: Calculated DOF about 166 mm. But the background (in the same distance behind the focus plane) is more blurred compared to the 220 mm lens.
And 600mm with a full frame cam in 10 meters focus distance at F4.0 results in 61 mm DOF. But of course, the lens diameter would be very large then (600mm / 4 = 150mm).
Thanks for the link to pointsinfoucs.com's DOF calculator!
I checked it with the following data: Full frame cam (Nikon FX, crop factor 1.0) Circle of Confusion (CoC, sharpness criterion): 0.03 mm Lens: 600 mm f-number: 10.0 Object distance: 10 meters (10'000 mm)
Results for DOF: pointinfocus online calculator: 178 mm DOFMaster online calculator: 0.16 m (=160 mm) Excel sheet with DOFMaster formulas: 157 mm
Why the deviation with the pointsinfocus-calculator?
I checked the formulas there and found an error in the formula for the near distance of DOF:
In the denominator (beneath the fraction line) it says: H + s + 2f
It should be (compare DOFMaster formulas!): H + s - 2f
I assume that the 0.49x magnification is a 35mm film (FF) equivalent, because 0.49X magnification on a 1 inch sensor would be super close. Is it a 35mm film equivalent magnification?
I'll match the video OOC against most APSC DSLR's, except the NX1 any day, and you would never tell which one was the 1" sensor! It's that good! Read the reviews at B&H from the pros!
I know it's just because it's a 600mm lens, but that's quite a cool demonstration how the houses from Belvedere were compressed in above Alcatraz, and the contrast was decent considering the atmospheric effects that are common over the Bay.
I can't think of any circumstance where 1 inch camera / lens size would make a difference though. All great cameras. Think about what choices we had 10 years ago.
What camera did you use to record Rishi? It looks... bouncy. Otherwise, thank you, and I appreciate you answering a question I hadn't thought to ask - the non-bouncy flash is disappointing. I use that all the time on my a6000!
I agree. And people who complain because it doesn't have a mechanically coupled zoom obviously don't see the possibilities. (I also like being able to frame when using remote control apps.)
Zoom assist is a very cool feature. Surprised it took this long for it to appear - is this the first example? However, where this is most needed, i.e. fast paced photography with a lot of scene changes, it probably cannot really be used.
Given your comments on the focusing system, I guess it would be fair to assume that birds in flight style photography might be asking a little much from it?
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