Introduction

Ease of Use

The aluminium bodied Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 is Sony's attempt at providing a pocket camera for professionals. On paper at least it offers almost everything that the more experienced photographer could want - a relatively large 13.2 x 8.8mm CMOS sensor, which is the same size as that used in the Nikon 1 series compact system cameras and 4xas big as a typical compact sensor, a fast lens (at least at the 28mm wide-angle focal length), a large and high-resolution screen, speedy auto-focusing system plus manual focusing too, full control over exposure and even Raw file format support. The only notable thing that's missing is an eye-level viewfinder, either optical or electronic, but including this would inevitably have made the RX100 too big for the trouser/jacket pocket that it will spend a lot of its life in.

The Sony DSC-RX100 has a fast maximum aperture of f/1.8 at the 28mm wide-angle setting, but somewhat disappointingly this slows to f/4.9 at the 100mm full telephoto setting. Still, the combination of the fast lens with a seven- bladed circular aperture and the big sensor is a real joy to use, allowing you to easily create defocused depth-of-field effects that you simply can't achieve with most other pocket cameras. If you've been searching for a small camera that will give you DSLR-like bokeh, then look no further than the RX100 - check out our Sample Images page to see just want you can achieve. The combination of the f/1.8 aperture, effective built-in image stabilizer and maximum ISO speed of 6400 also makes this camera well suited to hand-held low-light photography.

Surrounding the lens is an innovative control ring, much like the one first seen on the Canon PowerShot S-series cameras. Depending on which shooting mode is currently selected, this allows you to change key settings including aperture, shutter speed, the digital zoom and picture effects. The rear control ring also achieves the same things, but we found it more intuitive and quicker to use the large, smooth front ring. It's not original, but is very effective.

Despite its large image sensor and correspondingly physically big zoom lens that dominates the front of the camera, the Sony RX100 is still quite small and slender, measuring just over 3.5cms in depth, 5.8cms in height and 10cms in width, and weighing 240g with the battery and memory card fitted. On the back there's a large 3-inch, 1228k-dot resolution LCD screen. As you'd expect with a screen of that size on such a small camera, the RX100 has no optical viewfinder to fall back on in brighter lighting conditions, although in practice Sony's WhiteMagic technology results in a a very high contrast screen that can be comfortably used outdoors even in harsh sunlight.

There's no means of gripping the camera on the front, with just a small thumb-shaped lozenge on the rear, making the DSC-RX100 a little difficult to get to grips with, especially since its aluminum body is very smooth. Also located on the front of the RX100 is the lens and a porthole on the left for the self-timer/AF illuminator. There's a clever fold-out pop-up flash unit on top of the camera which is automatically raised when you select a flash mode - it can also be manually raised and lowered if desired.

Front	Rear

Press the small On/Off button on the top plate and the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 quickly readies itself for action in a just over a second. The adequately sized shutter-release button has a definite halfway point, very quickly determining focus and exposure with a bleep of affirmation even in low-light, focus points highlighted as green rectangles on the LCD.

When you manually focus, MF Assist automatically magnifies the image to help you get sharp result, and there's also the same convenient Peaking function from Sony's DSLRs that highlights sharply-focused areas of the image on the LCD screen.

Go on to take the shot and JPEG or Raw images are quickly committed to memory in a single second, the screen momentarily blanking out and then displaying the captured image before the user can go on to take a second shot.

The shutter release button is encircled by a responsive forefinger-operated push/pull rocker zoom lever, with the camera taking around four seconds to zoom from wide-angle to full telephoto. The RX100's twin built-in stereo microphones are also located on top of the camera, plus a round shooting mode dial with a knurled edge and positive action. This lets you quickly switch between the various shooting modes that are on offer.

Sony has included Intelligent Auto scene recognition, which works in virtually identical fashion to the intelligent auto modes of Panasonic's and Canon's compact ranges. Simply point the RX100 at a scene or subject and the camera analyses it and automatically chooses one of 11 pre-optimised settings to best suit. There's also the Superior Auto mode, which places greater emphasis on reducing blur and noise and increasing the dynamic range.

Adding to the RX100's snapshot simplicity, these features accompany face recognition and smile shutter functionality on board, the former mode biasing human faces in the frame and the latter mode firing the shutter when it detects a smiling subject. The Face Detection system automatically adjusts the focus, exposure and white balance for people in the frame, and can even be set to distinguish between children and adults. Smile Detection offers three self-explanatory options, Big, Normal and Slight. Used in conjunction, the Face and Smile Detection systems do result in more hits than misses, especially in contrasty lighting conditions, although all those smiling faces could ultimately freak you out a little! The self-portrait options in the self-timer menu work by automatically taking the shot with a two second delay after either one or two people have entered the frame.

Front	Top

In addition to the regular Program mode, which provides the full range of camera options and additionally allows you to change settings like the ISO speed and metering, is the welcome inclusion of Aperture-priority, Shutter-priority and fully Manual modes which let you independently set the aperture and shutter speed, making the RX100 instantly appeal to the more experienced photographer. The range of apertures on offer is extensive for a compact camera, ranging from F1.8-F11, and the ability to choose from 30 - 1/12000th second shutter speeds opens up a lot of creative potential. There's also very welcome support for the RAW file format, which is really the icing on the cake for serious photographers looking for a backup-pocket camera to their DSLR, although at the time of writing only the supplied Sony Image Data Converter fully supports the RX100's proprietary ARW files.

The proven Sweep Panorama mode lets you capture a panoramic image very easily without the use of a tripod. All you need to decide is whether you would like to start from left or right, top or bottom. Then press and hold down the shutter release while doing a "sweep" with the camera in hand. Exposure compensation is available before you start the sweep, but the exposure is fixed once you depress the shutter button. After you are done with the sweeping, the camera does all the processing required, and presents you with a finished panoramic image. There are two modes, Standard and Wide. Note that if you do the sweeping too slowly, or you let go of the shutter release button too early, the panorama will be truncated.

In the Hand-held Twilight and Anti Motion Blur shooting modes, the DSC-RX100 takes six shots in a rapid sequence, typically at a high sensitivity setting and a (relatively) fast shutter speed, and then combines them into a single image that has somewhat less noise than a single shot taken at the same ISO and exposure settings. In our experience, the difference between the two modes is that in Anti Motion Blur mode, the camera is more willing to pick a really high ISO setting like ISO 1600 to maintain a fast shutter speed, whereas in Hand-held Twilight mode, it will only go as high as absolutely necessary to avoid camera shake at the chosen focal length. If light levels are truly low, however, the RX100 will pick a high ISO speed even in this mode.

The Clear Zoom function effectively digitally doubles the zoom range, using Sony's new Pixel Super Resolution Technology to increase the magnification. The Auto Portrait Framing mode uses face detection and the rule of thirds to automatically crop and create tightly framed portrait shots. The same Pixel Super Resolution Technology ensures that the resulting image is still a full 20 megapixels in size, and the original uncropped image is also saved for easy comparison.

Sony's long-standing D-Range Optimizer and HDR functions are present to help even out tricky exposures, for example where a bright background would normally throw the foreground into deep shadow. You can see from the examples on the Image Quality page that these features produce a photo with noticeably more dynamic range than one taken using one of the standard shooting modes, but at the same time without replicating the often "false" look of many HDR programs, and both offer a wide degree of customisation that's previously only been seen on Sony's DSLR/SLT range.

Pop-up Flash	Side

Present and correct is the increasingly ubiquitous ability to shoot High Definition video clips, but unlike its main competitors the RX100 does so at full 1080p HD rather than 1080i or 720p, and also with stereo sound rather than mono. The various options are 1920x1280 or 1440x1280 pixels at 50p or 50i in the AVCHD format, and 1440x1280 or 640x480 pixels at 30fps in the MPEG4 format. During video recording you can take a 17 megapixel still image by pressing the shutter button, or alternatively grab a still from your video footage during playback.

There is full use of the 3.6x optical zoom during recording plus the ability to change the EV level, white balance, and metering options and turn on either standard SteadyShot or the Active Mode mode, which provides up to 10x more anti-shake effectiveness with no side-effects. If you set the shooting mode dial to Movie, you can also choose from Program, Aperture or Shutter priority and Manual modes, giving you full control over exposure for both stills and movies.

There's also a direct HDMI output from the camera, useful for playing back your footage on a HDTV set, although sadly there's no HDMI cable supplied in the box. The dedicated Movie button on the rear of the DSC-RX100 allows you to start recording a movie with a single push of a button, and then stop recording by pressing the same button - a lot more intuitive than having to select the movie mode then press the shutter button, as on most compacts. You can also activate the movie mode via the Shooting Mode dial.

The rear of the DSC-RX100 is dominated by a large 3 inch LCD screen, with the resolution a pleasingly high- 1228k dots. To the right of the screen is the useful one-touch movie record button next to the rubberised thumb-rest. Underneath is the Function button, which accesses up to 7 customisable options that appear on the LCD screen as a semi-circle of icons that can be selected using either the lens or rear control rings. The Function menu proves to be a very handy way to quickly change the RX100's key settings and one of the main ways of setting the camera to suit your shooting style.

Alongside the Function control is the Menu button - press this and a number of shooting and set up folders appear on screen, with white text on a black background aiding visibility. The five shooting folders allow users to select image size, ratio and quality and - if JPEG (RAW and RAW+JPEG also available) - compression rates too, plus features like SteadyShot, long exposure and high ISO noise reduction - all in fact activated as a default. The Movie folder contains the video quality and audio options, while the three Customise folders allow you to tweak the RX100 to your way of working. Playback, Memory Card, Time and two further Setup folders allow the likes of the LCD brightness to be adjusted, the help guide to be turned on or off, plus user languages, folders and file numbering to be specified.

Memory Card Slot	Battery Compartment

The traditional round navigation pad can be used to navigate through menus and options, in conjunction with the small button in the middle which activates whatever it is you've chosen. The four directions on the navigation pad also provide a quick way of setting the Display, Flash, the Exposure Compensation / Photo Creativity interface (dependant upon the current shooting mode) and Continuous Shooting/Timer options. The Photo Creativity options make it easier for beginners to change the colour, brightness, vividness and Picture effect modes, with changes previewed in real time on the LCD screen. The navigation pad also doubles up as a control ring that's used to set the aperture and shutter speed in the creative shooting modes, amongst other things. The ring is a little small, but it's not too over-sensitive and the ability to take full control of the RX100 is very welcome.

The Sony RX100 can shoot full-resolution 20 megapixel pictures at up to 10fps, a very fast rate for a compact camera. To achieve the full 10fps you need to set the exposure mode dial to the Speed Priority Continuous option, which locks the focus and the exposure at the first frame. The RX100 can shoot up to 13 Fine JPEGs or 10 Raw files at 10fps, with the regular continuous burst shooting changing the focus and exposure between frames but providing a much slower rate of 2.5fps.

There's a small button for playing back your images underneath the navigation pad. Users have the ability to dip in and out of created folders of images or the calendar view, view thumbnails, select slideshows and choose transitional effects and accompanying music, or delete shots. Press the shutter button halfway and you're helpfully catapulted back into capture mode. And that's basically it. With a press of the Menu button in playback, users have access to a few in-camera retouching effects, including the ability to crop and sharpen an image and apply red-eye correction.

Completing the rear of the RX100 is a button with a question mark. This provides a list of shooting tips that Sony no doubt hopes will provide a crutch for new users trading up from a more bog-standard point and shoot compact. Examples of textual advice, complete with small pictorial thumbnail alongside, include 'increase the ISO sensitivity to make the shutter speed faster', and then, the thoughtful addition: 'higher ISO sensitivity may make noise stand out.' Hand holding for those who want it then. Sadly the button can't be reconfigured by more experienced users to something more useful.

The bottom of the Sony RX100 features a standard metal screw thread for attaching it to a tripod. A lockable plastic cover protects the lithium-ion battery, good for 330 shots or or 80 mins AVCHD video, and the removable memory card, with the RX100 supporting the SD / SDHC / SDXC format in addition to Sony's own proprietary Pro Duo Memory Stick format. The right side of the RX100 has a tiny metal eyelet for the supplied wrist strap and also the USB port underneath a sturdy plastic cover, with another wrist strap eyelet on the left side. Note that the camera battery is charged via the USB port, rather than a more convenient separate charger, so it's a good idea to invest in an extra battery.

Image Quality

All of the sample images in this Review were taken using the 20 megapixel JPEG setting, which gives an average image size of around 5Mb.

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 produced images of outstanding quality during the review period. This camera handled noise well, not becoming obvious until ISO 1600, and then becoming progressively worse at the faster settings of ISO 3200 and 6400, an excellent performance for a small image sensor with such a high pixel count.

Chromatic aberrations were in evidence but were well-controlled, with some limited purple fringing effects appearing in high contrast situations. The images were a little soft straight out of the camera at the default setting and require some further sharpening in an application like Adobe Photoshop, or you can increase the in-camera sharpening level.

Macro performance is good, allowing you to focus as close as 5cms away from the subject. The built-in flash worked well indoors, with no red-eye and good overall exposure. The maximum shutter speed of 30 seconds allows the cameras to capture enough light for most after-dark situations. The Steadyshot anti-shake system works well when hand-holding the camera at slower shutter speeds.

The effective Dynamic Range Optimizer function extracts more detail from the shadow and highlight areas in an image, without introducing any unwanted noise or other artifacts. The High Dynamic Range mode combines two shots taken at different exposures to produce one image with greater dynamic range than a single image would produce. It only works for JPEGs and for still subjects, but does produce some very effective results. Sony's now tried-and-trusted Sweep Panorama is still a joy to use. The Picture Effects quickly produce special looks that would otherwise require you to spend a lot of time in the digital darkroom, while the Creative Styles provide a quick and easy way to tweak the camera's JPEG images.

Noise

There are 9 ISO settings available on the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100. Here are some 100% crops which show the noise levels for each ISO setting for both JPEG and Raw formats.

JPEG	Raw
ISO 80 (100% Crop)	ISO 80 (100% Crop)
ISO 100 (100% Crop)	ISO 100 (100% Crop)
ISO 125 (100% Crop)	ISO 125 (100% Crop)
ISO 200 (100% Crop)	ISO 200 (100% Crop)
ISO 400 (100% Crop)	ISO 400 (100% Crop)
ISO 800 (100% Crop)	ISO 800 (100% Crop)
ISO 1600 (100% Crop)	ISO 1600 (100% Crop)
ISO 3200 (100% Crop)	ISO 3200 (100% Crop)
ISO 6400 (100% Crop)	ISO 6400 (100% Crop)

Focal Range

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100's 3.6x zoom lens offers a fairly versatile focal range, as illustrated by these examples:

28mm	100mm

Sharpening

Here are two 100% crops which have been Saved as Web - Quality 50 in Photoshop. The right-hand image has had some sharpening applied in Photoshop. The out-of-the camera images are just a little soft and ideally benefit from some further sharpening in a program like Adobe Photoshop. Alternatively you can change the in-camera sharpening level.

Original (100% Crop)	Sharpened (100% Crop)

File Quality

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 has 2 different image quality settings available, with Fine being the highest quality option. Here are some 100% crops which show the quality of the various options, with the file size shown in brackets.

Fine (5.41Mb) (100% Crop)	Standard (3.73Mb) (100% Crop)
RAW (19.7Mb) (100% Crop)

Chromatic Aberrations

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 handled chromatic aberrations well during the review, with some purple fringing present around the edges of objects in high-contrast situations, as shown in the examples below.

Example 1 (100% Crop)	Example 2 (100% Crop)

Macro

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 allows you to focus on a subject that is 5cms away from the camera when the lens is set to wide-angle. The first image shows how close you can get to the subject (in this case a compact flash card). The second image is a 100% crop.

Macro Shot	100% Crop

Flash

The flash settings on the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 are Auto, Forced Flash, Slow Syncro, No Flash, with a Red-eye Reduction option in the Main menu. These shots of a white coloured wall were taken at a distance of 1.5m.

Suppressed Flash - Wide Angle (28mm)	Forced Flash - Wide Angle (28mm)
Suppressed Flash - Telephoto (100mm)	Forced Flash - Telephoto (100mm)

And here are some portrait shots. As you can see, neither the Forced Flash setting or the Red-Eye Correction option caused any amount of red-eye.

Forced Flash	Forced Flash (100% Crop)
Red-eye Reduction	Red-eye Reduction (100% Crop)

Night Shot

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100's maximum shutter speed is 30 seconds in the Manual mode, which is great news if you're seriously interested in night photography. The shot below was taken using a shutter speed of 10 seconds at ISO 125. I've included a 100% crop of the image to show what the quality is like.

Night Shot	Night Shot (100% Crop)

Steadyshot

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 has an antishake mechanism which allows you to take sharp photos at slower shutter speeds than other digital cameras. To test this, I took 2 handheld shots of the same subject with the same settings. The first shot was taken with Shake Reduction turned off, the second with it turned on. Here is a 100% crop of the image to show the results. As you can see, with Shake Reduction turned on, the images are sharper than when it's turned off.

Shutter Speed / Focal Length	Shake Reduction Off (100% Crop)	Shake Reduction On (100% Crop)
1/4th / 28mm
1/6th / 100mm

Dynamic Range Optimizer

D-Range Optimiser (DRO) is Sony's solution to improve shadow detail in photos taken in contrasty light.

Off	LV1
LV2	LV3
LV4	LV5

High Dynamic Range

High Dynamic Range Optimiser (HDR) is Sony's solution for capturing more contrast than a single exposure can handle by combining two exposures into one image.

Off	1.0EV
2.0EV	3.0EV
4.0EV	5.0EV
6.0EV

Creative Styles

There are 6 Creative Style preset effects that you can use to change the look of your images.

Standard	Vivid
Portrait	Landscape
B/W	Sunset

Picture Effects

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 offers an extensive range of thirteen creative Picture Effects.

Off	Toy Camera
Pop Color	Posterization
Retro	Soft High-key
Partial Color (Red)	High Contrast Mono
Soft Focus	HDR Painting
Rich-tone Mono	Miniature
Watercolor	Illustration

Sweep Panorama

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 allows you to take panoramic images very easily, by 'sweeping' with the camera while keeping the shutter release depressed. The camera does all the processing and stitching and even successfully compensates for moving subjects.

Standard

Wide

Sample Images

This is a selection of sample images from the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 camera, which were all taken using the 20 megapixel Fine JPEG setting. The thumbnails below link to the full-sized versions, which have not been altered in any way.

Sample RAW Images

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 enables users to capture RAW and JPEG format files. We've provided some Sony RAW (ARW) samples for you to download (thumbnail images shown below are not 100% representative).

Sample Movie & Video

Product Images

Front of the Camera

Front of the Camera / Lens Extended

Front of the Camera / Flash Raised

Isometric View

Isometric View

Isometric View

Isometric View

Rear of the Camera

Rear of the Camera / Image Displayed

Rear of the Camera / Turned On

Rear of the Camera / Function Menu

Rear of the Camera / Main Menu

Rear of the Camera / Help Menu

Top of the Camera

Bottom of the Camera

Side of the Camera

Side of the Camera

Front of the Camera

Front of the Camera

Memory Card Slot

Battery Compartment

Conclusion

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 takes a clear shot at the popular Canon PowerShot S-series and in most ways clearly beats it, resulting in the best pocket camera that avid photographers can currently buy.

Sony have obviously been "inspired" by the Canon S100 and its forebears, with the RX100 mimicking its main rival's twin control rings and button layout, so much so that they look like long-lost twins at first glance. Where the RX100 gains significant ground, though, is with the inclusion of a much larger sensor, previously seen on Nikon's 1 compact system camera series. We think it makes much more sense in a small camera like the RX100, though, with the ability to achieve DSLR-like effects and image quality a real surprise given the camera's small size and light weight. The RX100 now proves that you don't necessarily have to buy and lug around a larger camera to get excellent results - it really does hit the sweet spot between portability and image quality.

The 20.2 megapixel sensor provides excellent results from ISO 100-1600, with only the faster settings of 3200 and 6400 suffering from a little too much noise and smearing of fine detail. Chromatic aberrations are well controlled and colours a little dull but largely accurate, and the fast 3.6x lens is great for achieving that shallow DSLR-like depth-of-field and using the camera in low-light conditions. The headline grabbing F1.8 maximum aperture soon slows down as the zoom increases, but it's still perfectly possible to throw the background out of focus throughout the range.

As the RX100 is a Sony camera, it boasts a long list of other stand-out features, particularly excelling in the speed department. Auto-focusing is very quick and reliable, shutter lag only notable by its apparent absence, and image processing times thankfully non-intrusive, even for the large Raw files that the RX100 produces. This camera really does deliver DSLR-like performance and image quality in a pocketable format, music to the ears of most enthusiasts.

Flies in the ointment are few and far between. In attempting to appeal to beginners, pros and everyone in between, the RX100's wealth of options is initially intimidating and at worse downright confusing, although we suspect that once you've turned off or ignored the features that don't suit you, it will prove more pliant. We don't like the in-camera battery charging as it essentially forces you to buy a second battery, while the pop-up flash though clever in design takes ages to recharge and is underpowered when finally ready. Still, these are fairly minor gripes for what is otherwise an undeniably excellent camera.

Sony have not only blurred the lines between compact and compact system in terms of the RX100's features, performance and image quality, but somewhat inevitably perhaps also in terms of its price. $650/£550 is more than many mirrorless cameras and even some DSLRs too, but on the other hand this is no humble compact. The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 is the first truly pocketable camera to offer a DSLR experience, and in that regard it could almost be seen as something of a bargain - it's certainly deserving of our highest Essential! accolade.

Ratings (out of 5)
Design	5
Features	5
Ease-of-use	4.5
Image quality	5
Value for money	4

Review Roundup

Reviews of the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 from around the web.

Specifications

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