Sony Rx100 VI with full sensor 4K & HLG

[ND64]

5 hours ago, Mokara said:

They cancelled the DL series because they were having manufacturing difficulties and the delays meant that it would have been effectively obsolete relative to the competition by the time it arrived.

They said they cancelled it because they were not profitable as they expected at that price range. 

 

5 hours ago, Mokara said:

Overheating in cameras is due to the processor, not the sensor

Even with your logic, stacked sensors are the bottleneck, since there is a processor AND a DRAM right behind them!

5 hours ago, Mokara said:

They probably did an analysis of the exif data on publicly posted images and concluded that almost no one uses the wide apertures anyway, while longer focal lengths predominate

Give customers a 18-50mm lens and see what happens in exif data of publicly posted images. 

[kye]

6 hours ago, Mokara said:

They probably did an analysis of the exif data on publicly posted images and concluded that almost no one uses the wide apertures anyway, while longer focal lengths predominate, so it was an acceptable compromise for the camera to optimize it in a way that would be more useful to the majority of users.

Before I switched to video I was a stills shooter, and I did this analysis on my photos, which were mostly taken on holiday.  What I found was:

• The most used focal length was the widest (24-28mm depending on camera), the second was the longest focal length of the lens, where you would have zoomed more but didn't have the reach
• The vast majority (maybe 80%) were in between 24mm and 80mm, even on cameras that had a super-zoom like 24-240 equivalent lens (kit lenses are well designed in this way)
• The most common single aperture of photos I took was the largest aperture - any time the sun goes down the camera will be struggling to balance ISO and shutter speed for hand-held photographs, but aperture doesn't have a penalty so they max it without hesitation
• The majority of photographs had an aperture in the f5.6-10 range, which is where the camera puts it for daylight shots on full-auto mode

The reason I did this was to research and buy a "good" camera for my next trip, because I got home and saw all my night shots were full of ISO noise and blur from shake and longer exposures, and got sick of fiddling with the panorama stitching software to glue together the 28mm photographs of the wonderful landscapes.

I ended up buying a Panasonic GF3, which was brand new at the time and was the best compromise because it came with the 28-84mm kit lens for during the day and a 28mm f2.5 pancake lens that made it pocketable and capable for night shots of going out to dinner etc.  I was planning to buy a longer zoom for it but when I finally got around to it I realised that it was cheaper to buy a Canon 700D with 18-55 and 55-250 zooms than buy a long zoom for m43!!  I also looked for super-wide angle lenses, but the panorama mode on my phone took over pano duties.

It was a good camera and it took many absolutely lovely images.

The other thing that I learned that is relevant here is that my top 50 images (from 10,000+ photos) contained at least one image from every camera I owned, including the mighty Coolpix L19, and my GoPro Hero 3 (yes, that's using the GoPro as a stills camera!).

Content > tech.....  So make the tech conform to the content.

2 hours ago, salim said:

Which shows how much further the mobile phone processor manufacturers  (Apple or Qualcomm) are that they can process 4k/60p and compress it like crazy without the phone melting in your hand. They've become very efficient and powerful. This makes me hopeful that you don't need to have a very large box around the processor to help with heat management, as long as you can make processor and its code more efficient and just do some creative heat sink design inside the camera around the processor you can have very capable yet compact systems. 

Yeah, I'm waiting for the sensors from a high-end cinema camera to be combined with the processing and power efficiency from smartphones to make a much smaller but capable camera.  We might be waiting a while though!!

[aldolega]

I really hope Panasonic has an incredible LX200 in the works, it seems there are multiple market niches it could fill if they get it right- vlogger cam, travel cam, small put-it-in-weird/tight-spots cam (like a GoPro but better lens and IQ), walkaround cam, etc.

[salim]

This video confirms my comment earlier. Sony's completion is the smart phones. Especially now with dual lens phones. So Sony had to go to a 200mm lens to really differentiate. 

Watch this video and see how multiple times they talk about the differentiation between smart phones and this camera and why everyones should use this over their phones. 

 

 

 

[kye]

2 hours ago, salim said:

This video confirms my comment earlier. Sony's completion is the smart phones. Especially now with dual lens phones. So Sony had to go to a 200mm lens to really differentiate. 

That makes total sense..  in a way the typical 24-70 can be thought of as a laymans scenery-to-portrait lens, so the only other shot left would be the telephoto, but thanks to the ~50mm equivalent second camera on many smartphones they're now covering off both scenery and portraits, so telephoto is the only one left.

Just wait until three or four lenses are common, the Light L16 has already solved the problem of how to get that variety of focal lengths into a thin body (the longer focal lengths go in sideways with a 90degree mirror):

 

[Andrew Reid]

9 hours ago, Eric Calabros said:

They said they cancelled it because they were not profitable as they expected at that price range. 

Even with your logic, stacked sensors are the bottleneck, since there is a processor AND a DRAM right behind them!

Give customers a 18-50mm lens and see what happens in exif data of publicly posted images. 

It was a bit odd and a shame that Nikon cancelled the DL cameras before they even had a chance. I would have bought one. A good range of lenses, better ergonomics and colour than Sony, plus better specs than the Panasonic 1" cameras.

If they are going to dump the fast aperture zoom and make it a consumer super zoom, at least call it RX200. Besides we are on version 6! RX100 VI looks confusingly similar to RX100 IV. Roman numerals get a bit silly after 5.

If you are interested in the RX100 6 for the very fast AF and clean 120fps + 240fps (albeit buffered) consider what more you could get for the same price. Panasonic G9 - nice 180fps with a much larger sensor, much larger EVF, better handling body and bigger battery, not to mention 4K 60fps on an interchangeable lens camera, which can take a 24-200mm equivalent as well as fast primes, so that is a better solution for sure, and much cheaper than a GH5 with nicer ergonomics, snappier AF, more responsive handling and better EVF.

Unless you absolutely must have a pocketable 24-200mm.

9 hours ago, aldolega said:

I really hope Panasonic has an incredible LX200 in the works, it seems there are multiple market niches it could fill if they get it right- vlogger cam, travel cam, small put-it-in-weird/tight-spots cam (like a GoPro but better lens and IQ), walkaround cam, etc.

I don't know why Panasonic has not already brought out an LX200 and put it in the hands of every high profile YouTube channel on the planet. Is it begging to sell like hot cakes.

What are they scared of?!

We know the compact market is in an incredible era of decline but the Instagram / YouTube camera market is the answer to pumping up sales of the higher-end compacts.

I don't even consider the consumer compact and the LX100 as the same thing... A high spec compact is really a mirrorless camera with a fixed lens. There will always be a space for a small high spec camera.

[Marcio Kabke Pinheiro]

19 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

If they are going to dump the fast aperture zoom and make it a consumer super zoom, at least call it RX200. Besides we are on version 6! RX100 VI looks confusingly similar to RX100 IV. Roman numerals get a bit silly after 5.

They are so scared of smarphones that the next will be RX100 X, with a notch on the rear lcd.

20 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

I don't know why Panasonic has not already brought out an LX200 and put it in the hands of every high profile YouTube channel on the planet. Is it begging to sell like hot cakes.

What are they scared of?!

Maybe to realize (which now should be obvious) that video CDAF will never get traction with vloggers...

[BTM_Pix]

47 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

RX100 VI looks confusingly similar to RX100 IV. Roman numerals get a bit silly after 5.

If I was a consumer walking into a shop, I'd think the "VI" part of the RX100 VI name meant it was some sort of VR variation. 

They'll have to stop after the mark 8 anyway because I think Canon probably still have a trademark on IX

47 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

What are they scared of?!

We know the compact market is in an incredible era of decline but the Instagram / YouTube camera market is the answer to pumping up sales of the higher-end compacts.

What are any of them scared of?

Its like they think putting a mic socket on them will open up a hole in the space time continuum.

For the life of me I don't know why they don't have an intelligent hotshoe add-on even for just a 3.5mm one on all these compacts for people who want the option. Its a technology that all of them have used on different models in the past (including this actual RX100 range !!) and still do on ones that fit their somewhat warped ideas of what people should actually be allowed to have access to.

It wouldn't go against the ethos of it being a compact cameras as a 3.5mm input could easily be housed in something the form factor of this flash trigger

 

The mad thing is that they could make a bastard fortune off them as well.

If Panasonic and Sony they had something like that for the LX100, GX80, LX10, RX100 etc for even £100 they'd have people biting their hands off for them.

Another bewildering thing about this situation is that they are all crying into their sake about people using their phones instead of compact cameras while conveniently turning a blind eye to the fact that I can have 2 channel XLR input with phantom power on my phone for £100 if I want to and they can't even allow people on an £1100 camera to have one measly 3.5mm mic input.

As I mentioned in the thread about people using smartphones for professional broadcasting, the audio is the governing factor.

Its all well and good the two people from Sony in the video above smugly saying anyone who shoots with a smartphone should be shot (I can't work out whether he said that as a terrible pun or not) but the lav mics they are both wearing tell me they wouldn't have been able to shoot it with the RX100 VI.....

[JurijTurnsek]

3 hours ago, kye said:

That makes total sense..  in a way the typical 24-70 can be thought of as a laymans scenery-to-portrait lens, so the only other shot left would be the telephoto, but thanks to the ~50mm equivalent second camera on many smartphones they're now covering off both scenery and portraits, so telephoto is the only one left.

Just wait until three or four lenses are common, the Light L16 has already solved the problem of how to get that variety of focal lengths into a thin body (the longer focal lengths go in sideways with a 90degree mirror):

Maybe that is why Sony smartphones are the last to have adopted a duel lens design .... Smartphone manufacturers are increasingly scared to innovate and instead churn out a million models that differ by just a few dollars. Meanwhile, a triple (or four) lens flagship could offer FF equivalent 18-24-50-75mm primes that zoom computationally ... or even put in a periscope zoom for some telephoto reach and cover the wide angle with a dedicated prime or two. Sensors are cheap, flagships are huge, there's space to squeeze some more in.

[Luke Mason]

3 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

It was a bit odd and a shame that Nikon cancelled the DL cameras before they even had a chance. I would have bought one. A good range of lenses, better ergonomics and colour than Sony, plus better specs than the Panasonic 1" cameras.

If they are going to dump the fast aperture zoom and make it a consumer super zoom, at least call it RX200. Besides we are on version 6! RX100 VI looks confusingly similar to RX100 IV. Roman numerals get a bit silly after 5.

If you are interested in the RX100 6 for the very fast AF and clean 120fps + 240fps (albeit buffered) consider what more you could get for the same price. Panasonic G9 - nice 180fps with a much larger sensor, much larger EVF, better handling body and bigger battery, not to mention 4K 60fps on an interchangeable lens camera, which can take a 24-200mm equivalent as well as fast primes, so that is a better solution for sure, and much cheaper than a GH5 with nicer ergonomics, snappier AF, more responsive handling and better EVF.

Unless you absolutely must have a pocketable 24-200mm.

I don't know why Panasonic has not already brought out an LX200 and put it in the hands of every high profile YouTube channel on the planet. Is it begging to sell like hot cakes.

What are they scared of?!

We know the compact market is in an incredible era of decline but the Instagram / YouTube camera market is the answer to pumping up sales of the higher-end compacts.

I don't even consider the consumer compact and the LX100 as the same thing... A high spec compact is really a mirrorless camera with a fixed lens. There will always be a space for a small high spec camera.

The 1" sensor in RX100 VI performs better than G9/GH5 due to more advanced architecture - BSI and stacking (Exmor Reverse Stacked)

[Andrew Reid]

The hotshoe 3.5mm input is a great idea and camera companies should be encouraging developers.

The problem is they have never got together and come up with any of the needed standards whatsoever.

They all should have a common standard smart hotshoe interface and USB C should replace HDMI.

The camera companies could do a lot for sales and innovation if they encouraged third party modules to be made that could all connect in the same way!

Canon, Nikon, Sony, Panasonic, they all need to have a chat. Common interface for battery grips, which can take a data feed through USB C, would enable really cool video recorders with raw capability in a battery grip on the base of the camera. Sending a video signal up through a common interface in the hotshoe would get rid of the wobbly HDMI cable up to a external monitor. All future cameras should have that common "smart shoe" and "smart arse hole" on the bottom... Ok I thought of those names in a rush

As for the RX100 M6, or as I like to call it... the IVIVIVIVIIVIIVVIIVIIVIVI.

When Nikon cancelled the DL cameras before a single one was sold and a Panasonic LX100 successor went missing for 4 years (and counting!) one must ponder the existence of the dodo, or as they call it in the camera industry "the compact camera". Star of the show for me has always been the Sony RX100 line (and Panasonic LX100) and star of that range for me has been the fast aperture lens.

If you go to the effort of a large 1" sensor in a compact body then you need the fast apertures to back it up otherwise you end up with a Canon G1X III type situation where an APS-C sensor looks smaller than the 1" sensor in the G7X II. You kiss goodbye as well to any improvement in low light and cinematic character.

The other problem I have with the RX100 M6 is that it is £1149. That puts it in the price range of a high-end mirrorless camera.

If you want to shoot 4K and have 120fps for slow-mo, along with 240fps cache record, for not much more money you could get a Panasonic G9 which is superior to the RX100 M6 in more areas than I can count. It does 180fps 1080p, 4K 60p, fast apertures, a huge EVF and fat battery.

The next problem I have with the RX100 M6 is that the man who designed the camera body fell asleep in 2012 and nobody has been able to wake him since despite making a lot of noise. What the RX100 series was crying out for more than everything else is a better form factor and better ergonomics. The LX100 is a pocket 4K camera done right ergonomically. Fuji X30 too. This isn't. It's as fiddly as the others were. The dreadful ergonomics haven't changed in 6 iterations.

If Sony are going to drop the fast F1.8 wide angle and give us 200mm instead, I suggest they do it with a separate line rather than spoiling the RX100. In fact they already had a separate super zoom line. With the RX100 getting a 24-200mm range it all feels very ominous for the future of the RX10 line doesn't it?! I don't think it had been mighty popular and maybe Sony decided to reduce things down to one more popular camera which tries to do everything. Needless to say the motivation to buy an RX10-type Sony just got chopped in half by the very company who make it!

Results from a small sensor looks even smaller with a slow aperture, so effectively the RX100 M6 no longer has the same look as the RX100 M5 between 24-70mm, the range most people use the most often, and low light just got 1 stop worse at both ends of the range for more money.

Canon shows with the G7X II that you can have a respectable 24-100mm range in the pocket with a wide F1.8-2.8 aperture and superb low light performance. You don't need to stop at 70mm like the more recent RX100 models which I admit is too short.

Sony could have put an equally compact 28-135mm F1.8-2.4 on this if they wanted to give us value for money.

They way things are, both on pricing and strategy this model makes zero sense.

[Don Kotlos]

Now with the new RX100VI, Panasonic should really bring the LX200 to the table in order to catch a segment of that market.

I would go as far to say that the sales would benefit greatly if they stuffed it with all the GH5 specs, without that really affecting any of the other lines since this is still considered a point & shoot.

That would be an instant buy for me even if it was more expensive than the RX100VI. 

[Mokara]

21 hours ago, salim said:

Which shows how much further the mobile phone processor manufacturers  (Apple or Qualcomm) are that they can process 4k/60p and compress it like crazy without the phone melting in your hand. They've become very efficient and powerful. This makes me hopeful that you don't need to have a very large box around the processor to help with heat management, as long as you can make processor and its code more efficient and just do some creative heat sink design inside the camera around the processor you can have very capable yet compact systems. 
 

The phone CPU manufacturers have a decided advantage due to economy of scale. They can afford to invest in cutting edge development of their processors because they sell so many of them. Most camera manufacturers sell far fewer so they cannot afford that sort of investment. Cell phone processors are always going to be more advanced as a result. Samsung was able to make a cutting edge camera that was more advanced than anyone else at the time purely because they could leverage the processor development through their cell phone business. Most other manufacturers can't do that, with the exceptions of Panasonic and to a lesser extent Sony, who can use other products to leverage processor development.

[Mokara]

19 hours ago, Eric Calabros said:

They said they cancelled it because they were not profitable as they expected at that price range. 

 

Even with your logic, stacked sensors are the bottleneck, since there is a processor AND a DRAM right behind them!

Give customers a 18-50mm lens and see what happens in exif data of publicly posted images. 

They can say what they like, but they announced them, showed prototypes with great fanfare, then failed to deliver. They would not go through with all of that if they thought it was not going to be profitable. There have been a number of other indications that Nikon have been having manufacturing issues, such as the delays in delivery of the D850, the extreme shortage (along with shoddy construction of many) of the P900, the failure to update the P900 even though it was probably the most in demand of all of their P&S models, the shuttering of manufacturing facilities in China which were supposed to be making the DL cameras at the same time they were having problems meeting supply demands of other products. All of that is indicative of serious supply chain issues within Nikon. I hope they get their act together, because they do make interesting cameras, but pretending that there is not a serious problem within Nikon when there clearly is IMO is foolish.

Processor capabilities are the bottleneck for all cameras. The sensor of every single model for every manufacturer currently on the market is more than capable of overwhelming the processor in them.

Marketing is going to be doing analysis on their products and how they are used based on information in the public domain, and guiding development of new products to meet those consumer needs. Why on earth do you guys think they would not do that? They are in business to sell products, and a big part of being successful is understanding what your customers want, how they are using your product, and satisfying that demand as best you can. Exif data is a gold mine of useful public user information and only an idiot would not mine that.

[sanveer]

I couldn't understand the purpose of having HLG on a point and shoot when the recording limit is 5 mins and it doesn't have a mic in.

It's difficult to understand how Sony feels this will compete with snartphones.

Most importantly Sony makes the biggest battery in a mirrorless cameras and yet bone of their MILC can still shoot 2 hours of video wihout overheating (the A7iii reviewrs are mixed and major youtubers seem to have become silent on overheating after they enjoyed the launch event so much). 

[Robert Collins]

I think some of the criticisms of this camera are missing the point.

The argument 'you can get a whole load more camera for a lot less' is obviously true but is also just really a statement that you dont want/need a truly pocketable camera.

The argument that it is small and fiddly amounts to very much the same thing.

Bottom line is that both Canon and Panasonic do have some competitors that get vaguely close at a lower price point but really no other camera offers so much in performance and features in such a diminutive form factor (whether you choose either the V or the VI.) And that is why the camera can justify its premium pricing.

Anyways where is that LX200?

[Andrew Reid]

4 minutes ago, Robert Collins said:

I think some of the criticisms of this camera are missing the point.

The argument 'you can get a whole load more camera for a lot less' is obviously true but is also just really a statement that you dont want/need a truly pocketable camera.

The argument that it is small and fiddly amounts to very much the same thing.

Bottom line is that both Canon and Panasonic do have some competitors that get vaguely close at a lower price point but really no other camera offers so much in performance and features in such a diminutive form factor (whether you choose either the V or the VI.) And that is why the camera can justify its premium pricing.

Anyways where is that LX200?

If the point is the 24-200mm range in your pocket then one has every reason to get one.

And shallow depth of field around 135mm for portraits would beat the old model.

But 135mm is rather long.

50mm and 85mm is portrait. Anything shorter than 100mm and you're better off with the Mark 4 or 5.

So what are we going to use that range for?

Wildlife? Sports maybe. OK maybe street photos but I doubt it.

I like pocket cameras. Nothing against them. Sony has the RX1 II as well, which is pretty unique... and on balance I feel superior to the Leica Q.

I do at least like that the RX100 M6 has Hybrid LOG Gamma.

Maybe it will also be EOSHD Pro Color compatible, I'll have to try that.

I just think that the RX100 M6 should have been an RX200.

They have basically discontinued the fast aperture model.

They haven't improved the form factor.

They are not close to competing with the LX100 for the look of the images. It is about 3 stops away from that camera when you take into account the smaller sensor AND slower aperture.

It is a bit like shooting at F11 on a full frame camera.

Meh.

Give me a 24-100mm F1.8-2.8 like the Canon GX7 II.... It's not like it is lacking in megapixels either to crop the long end to 150mm.

Also the Canon's colour profiles and better ergonomics is another win for the GX7 II.

The problem for Sony is photographers are going to get the Canon...it is a better stills camera than the RX100 M6 for £450 vs £1200.

Video is great on the RX100 M6 but for video, how many people absolutely NEED that pocket form factor? And no ND?

[eoslover]

Pretty much agree with Andrew except for the last sentence

There are still tens of thousands or even more of vloggers using RX100 or G7X as their main vlogging cameras. Having a much faster lens makes it a lot useful in low light environments. There are couple of shots already in dpreview samples showing how high the ISO (1000-2500) goes in a very well lit studio situation.

The decision of having no ND filter and losing one stop of light is quite a bad call in my opinion and should be renamed the camera as RX50 and continue to develop a better lens on RX100 like you said 24-100mm F1.8-2.8 or even 24-100 F2.

[Andrew Reid]

Indeed the main customer for this camera is surely vlogger/youtuber/street photographer and do they need a fast aperture or 200mm? Hmm. I'll let Sony figure it out.

[Don Kotlos]

"The Sony RX100 VI is a truly compact camera, baring nice features, like the 200mm ultra zoom and tilted screen. But with a price tag of $1200 and very limited audio capabilities, I cannot see many Vloggers using it."

https://***URL not allowed***/sony-rx100-vi-is-it-any-good-for-vloggers/