The Sony RX1

The Sony RX1

Photo taken from  www.reviews.cnet.com

by Lori Grunin

Sony’s new addition to its camera family has cleverly included a full-frame sensor in a Cyber-shot-branded camera. They’ve named it the RX1, a "compressed" digital camera for professionals that provides the exact same 24.3MP Exmor CMOS sensor released today along with the A99. Labelling the rangefinder-esque one-pound shooter “little” may appear off-base, particularly contemplating the Zeiss Sonnar T* 35mm f/2.0 fixed prime lens sticking out from its front, however it's not really very big (3-inches tall by 4.5-inches wide) up against its small cousin, the RX100 - looking at how much bigger the RX1's sensor is, well, that's when some might fall in to a subdued shock. 

Whilst it's not a "pro-NEX" as quite a few die hard photographers had wanted, Sony mentioned that it selected a set lens to prevent the size of a lens-mount.

Looking at the quality of the Sony RX1's photo's
taken from  www.engadget.com 

Movie shooters will be pleased to know that the camera shoots 720p AVCHD 2.0 footage at 24 and 60p, with 30p assigned to the web-friendly MP4 file format. 

Even though the connected lens is the only choice for optics, it's custom-built to exclusively flatter the sensor. In the camera, it's packing a 9-bladed aperture ring, which Sony claims ought to assist in producing Bokeh. Better yet, the lens offers manual aperture, focus rings and a macro switch that mechanically modifies the optics for close-up shots.

The 24.3MP sensor is powered through Sony's most recent Bionz processor, so a person can certainly assume pictures of practically equivalent quality and 14-bit RAW files stored onto your SD card. That said, the autofocus onboard is contrast-based like the NEX-7 (not precisely best if a photographers in a severe low-light scenario), whilst it's burst rate tops out at 5FPS; these 2 factors in specific are downgrade's from the A99's phase-discovery AF and 6FPS burst chops. Native ISO range will go from 100 to 25,600, which may be lengthened as minimal as 50, and as huge as 102,400 thanks to a function named Multi Frame Noise Reduction (basically put, several photos are put together to create 1 fresh picture in {dim conditions).

Pop up flash of the RX1
taken from www.digitalcamerainfo.com 

For ergonomics, the camera seems very much like a chunkier RX100, however it has the support of a hand grip this time. On the camera's top right you'll get committed mode and exposure compensation knobs and a threaded shutter button. Whilst the left side possesses a pop-up flash which may be shifted backwards à la the NEX-6 and 7 (See image to the left).. 

Going along towards the back, towards the screen's right you will see 4-buttons along with a control wheel, manual control dial, dedicated movie button, and programmable function button, amongst others such as the AE-lock.

As I described before, the RX1 is specifically focused at professionals and should be offered in the UK in November, the price is still to be confirmed.