Sony RX10 M2 - first part of my review and a mini-comparison with the A7S and Canon 1D C

[sanveer]

​The warmest days in those places is only a few degrees warmer than the warmest days in NA and Europe.

Computer components get way hotter than that, 80C+ is not unusual. The issue with warmer days is that the temperature differential between the camera and the air is lower, so the efficiency of cooling is reduced. This is particularly a problem with cameras that have small compact bodies. A large camera has greater cooling capacity so it can run longer before experiencing overheating issues.

Not even close. The Hottest Temperature in London (I am taking large cities into account for the purpose of comparison) Ever recorded was apparently 37.4 °C (Degrees Centigrade). I was in Dubai for a bit, and while the government there doesn't accurately allow the temperature to be declared, the temperature on my friend's device was showing 54°C. A lot of places in the Middle East go above 50°C regularly, throughout the summer.

Even Australis goes well above 40°C. Melbourne hovers at times around 45°C during the summer.

[Guest Ebrahim Saadawi]

I am here in the middle east at summer (and even well into winter) temperature is around 50 degrees Celsius, meaning 122 degrees Fahrenheit. From the first days I started going into video shooting on Canon DSLRs (saadawi junior speaking here) to this moment 5 years later, I have never had a camera from any manufacturer fail on me due to heat, keeping in mind they were all used constantly under that heat. This includes, all Canon DSLRs (the only model that gave me a warning once was the 7D but even then it did nothing and kept shooting perfectly), to Nikon DSLRs (D90, D5100, D5300 and D7100 and D810), Panasonic GH4, and Sony A7s and a6000, all of these, every single one was used under this temprature, so I really find it illogical when I see so many posts about worries over overheating in very cold countries. It simply never happens here and I am pushing them to the extremist level. For example a camera that's specifically known for overheating now over the web is the a6000, people reporting cameras shutting at 5 minutes mark under european/US conditions while the one I shoot with under 50 degrees shoots until battery/memory runs out. Body gets hot like all devices but just normal, no issues. 

The only logical explanation I can find is that there's some kind of variation in cameras heat acceptance, maybe different firmware tweaks or something. 

 I was in Dubai for a bit, and while the government there doesn't accurately allow the temperature to be declared, the temperature on my friend's device was showing 54°C.​

That's true information, it's a political issue, as international law obligates countries not to allow workers to perform their duty under circumstances higher than 50 degrees for human safety reasons, so the government, not being able to coup with the loss of all workers during the entire summer, just declare weather at 49 degrees throughout the entire season. It's extremely depressing watching people working on the streets under 54 degrees weather covering their skull with sheets to hopelessly ''try'' avoiding a sunstroke. 

[JurijTurnsek]

^^ Overheating occurs when filming long clips without any cool-down time. Short clips allow for much heat dissipation.

[Joe Gunawan Fotosiamo]

I use the RX10 mkI exclusively to film the very popular tech channel JoanneTechLover, and while I do like the original a lot, one of my complaints with it (and just about every native Sony mirrorless lenses for my Sony a7S) is that the focusing ring speed is variable, meaning that if you rotate quickly for 1/4 of a turn, it won't land in the same focus as if you rotate that same 1/4 turn slowly.

That means that you can't rack focus consistently because the speed of your focus pull will change where your focusing will land.

Is that still a problem with the RX10 mkII?

[tugela]

Those temperature differences are minor compared to how hot electronic components can get. Generally you don't want the internal components to exceed ~80C, and that fact will determine the operational thermal envelop of your camera. Your camera will still work at higher ambient temperatures, but it will result in higher operating temperatures and consequent increased risk of failure. If you are operating a large camera body cooling is more efficient so you can run for longer periods before encountering problems. With a small body containing high performance electronics, such as that with the RX100, it is a much bigger issue. Manufacturers will put in cut offs to prevent you from reaching excessive temperatures in order to protect the electronics, since they don't want service returns, especially during the warranty period. The overtemperature warning is just the manufacturer telling you that you are stressing your equipment. If you do it too much you shorten the lifespan and run the risk of your electronics frying.

[tugela]

I use the RX10 mkI exclusively to film the very popular tech channel JoanneTechLover, and while I do like the original a lot, one of my complaints with it (and just about every native Sony mirrorless lenses for my Sony a7S) is that the focusing ring speed is variable, meaning that if you rotate quickly for 1/4 of a turn, it won't land in the same focus as if you rotate that same 1/4 turn slowly.

That means that you can't rack focus consistently because the speed of your focus pull will change where your focusing will land.

Is that still a problem with the RX10 mkII?

​If you were shooting manually as routine wouldn't it make more sense to use a manual lens?

[Guest Ebrahim Saadawi]

I use the RX10 mkI exclusively to film the very popular tech channel JoanneTechLover, and while I do like the original a lot, one of my complaints with it (and just about every native Sony mirrorless lenses for my Sony a7S) is that the focusing ring speed is variable, meaning that if you rotate quickly for 1/4 of a turn, it won't land in the same focus as if you rotate that same 1/4 turn slowly.

That means that you can't rack focus consistently because the speed of your focus pull will change where your focusing will land.

Is that still a problem with the RX10 mkII?

Yes if were in the RX10 then it's still an issue, in fact it's in ALL non-cinema Sony products, a ''feature'' sony calls ''focus by wire'' to help photographers get quicker or more precise focus, and it does work for photography but is a pain for us video shooters.

If you want new Sony lenses that have manual mechanical, linear focus for the a7s, the 28-105mm F4 cine lens (expensive but lovely) and the Zeiss Loxia line of lenses are the only native E mount lenses with mechanical linear focus. (the Zeiss Batis and all the other Sone FE lenses are focus by wire),

The other cheaper option is of course using old manual lenses with adapters on the a7s, like Canon FD lenses, Nikon Ai-S, M42s, etc,

[Guest Ebrahim Saadawi]

​If you were shooting manually as routine wouldn't it make more sense to use a manual lens?

You can't change lenses on the RX10, it's a fixed lens camera. 

[vaga]

Does the Samsung NX1 do the same "focus by wire"? I remember reading that the focus ring does not directly change the focus like it would on many other cameras but rather activates a motor-controlled focusing. 

[Mattias Burling]

Does the Samsung NX1 do the same "focus by wire"? I remember reading that the focus ring does not directly change the focus like it would on many other cameras but rather activates a motor-controlled focusing. 

There are focus by wire lenses for Canon, Sony, Samsung, Panasonic, Olympus. It's not specific to the camera, its dependent on the lens.

[Guest Ebrahim Saadawi]

Does the Samsung NX1 do the same "focus by wire"? I remember reading that the focus ring does not directly change the focus like it would on many other cameras but rather activates a motor-controlled focusing. 

As Mattias said it's dependent on the lens, if you put a manual focus lens that has linear mechanical focus on the nx1 focus will be manual and normal, but if you mean Samsung native NX lenses, yes they are all Fly-by-wire and all non-linear.

In fact all mirrorless lenses are fly-by-wire (with a few very rare couple of exceptions), while DSLR lenses from Nikon and Canon and Sony SLR a-mount are all linear manual focus (with the exception from Canons new few STM lenses). I think this is due to mirrorless being nee technology and Focus-by-wire is a new technology feature, while DSLR lenses and technology from Canon and Nikon are 60-70 years-old, Canon newest tech lenses like STM confirm that theory, new tech is tending to favour Fly-by-wire)

Note that Fly-by-wire means that the focus ring is not physically linked with the focusing lens elements, but sends a command to the focus motor and the focus motor moves the element/s electronically. Also note that not all focus-by-wire lenses have non-linear focus, some of them have linear, repeatable focus and act like natural mechanical lenses (Canons 85mm 1.2, 40mm STM, Olympus mirrorless lenses have a switch to go from non-linear to linear,  so non-linearity is the devil here actually not the fly-by-wire system.

It's a great feature for photography, really smart, but if I were a manufacturer I would find the benefit for photography is miniscule compared to the burden it puts for videography, it's one of those rare occasions where I believe technology advancement got it wrong. 

[vaga]

If it's any help, I ran the RX100M4, 4K, 60P, don't have card yet for 100mb. An sdxc uhs-1 U3 card is needed for 100mb/s, I used U1.

It saved video clip automatically after 5 minutes, I waited about 15 seconds between recording each clip. Managed 3 clips, last one 4m2s, giving a total of 14m2s. On third clip the temperature warning came up about half way through, I let it continue until it powered off, with warning message about temp.  The good thing is it saves last one before power off.

Ambient temp indoors was 21 degrees Centigrade. Not much movement in the test clips, fan and trees in wind, small bit of zooming.

What do you mean "4k, 60p"?

[agolex]

Just installed Capture One (which is pretty nice btw, might replace Lightroom for me) so I could give the RX10M2's RAWs a spin and I wouldn't be surprised if it's the 14 bit uncompressed people are talking about (http://blog.esgi.co.uk/2015/06/sony-7r-ii-rx10-ii-rx100-iv-still-lossy.html). The images grade extremely well (you can recover ridiculous amounts of detail via Capture One's High Dynamic Range feature (especially in the highlights) and except the poor high ISO performance (usable up to about 2500 ISO, I'd say), which is to be expected from such a small sensor, the quality is unlike anything I've seen from a camera this size. I'd even go as far as saying that it trumps the a7s (which I didn't like too much stills-wise) except regarding DoF and low light of course. Can't even say the Nikon D800 is much better all of the time (except high ISO again, the RX10M2 pretty much sucks here with color noise and whathaveyou), this little Sony sensor really seems to have some magic going on. If only it wasn't Sony with their idiotic policies, abysmal support and retarded software limitations.

First still as shot, second with stupendous amounts of whatnot. :p

[Andrew Reid]

That's a very good question, sorry,  I should have entered 4K, 60M.  The 2 available 4K XAVC S options are 25p 100M and 25p 60M, (PAL system).  So the test I did was with the lower bitrate because the higher bitrate requires an sdxc uhs-1 U3 card, which I don't have yet. The RX100 M4 simply won't do the 100M bitrate without the U3 card.

​Yes you need the U3 card for the 100Mbit/s bit rate settings.

These are cheap on Amazon, nothing special thankfully.

The RX100 M4 will only go to 5 minutes continuous for 4K before it has to stop and cool down. If you try and make it go again straight away you will only get another 2 minutes before it stops again. And from then on it may shut down altogether.

This is a heat limit of the little compact, it does get very hot, poor thing.

The RX10M2 doesn't have the same restriction so if you plan to do long interviews, YouTube selfies or live event filming you know which to choose.

[vulgatron]

I was tempted on replacing my GX7 + lenses for a Samsung NX1 or 500, but honestly this new RX10 II has pretty much all the things I want.

I'm feeling like the m4/3 systems is a bit stuck and I don't see much future there with all the new Sony and Samsung sensors, so maybe full frame or APS is the way to go, but again, if the lens of this RX10 II it's as good as I've read is worth considering in my case.

The only question I have is how well it behaves at ISO 1600/3200 is it comparable to let's say the GX7? That's quite good for me although my reference is with the Panaleica 25. I like shooting at night around the streets with only available light.

Maybe the S-Log helps shooting at night? I've never worked with S-LOG so I'm not sure if that might be an advantage on lowlight. 

Also there's the DOF which I guess I'll have to get used to shoot on the larger range of the lens, which I'm not used to. And I'll have to re-learn how to work with it, but all things considered this camera seems amazing.

[Mervyn]

Technically this looks like a fantastic camera.

Creatively what seems lacking is the small sensor size. All wide and normal shots will have a large depth of field. Giving a sports / news-like videolook instead of a cinematic look. Apart from the useful slow-mo, this would be a reason for me to skip this camera.

[Ur Ma]

Shallow DOF Test RX10 (old one)

 

[Ur Ma]

Please delete. 

[Ur Ma]

Please delete. 

[Mervyn]

Shallow DOF Test RX10 (old one)

 

Thanks for sharing!

It's interesting to see what shallow depth of field looks like with this camera. It's better then I imagined it would be. Though from the looks of it, it only works in situations where you've got the subject close to the lens. And in the example the bokeh seems a bit busy with the blueish outlines.

Though technically a great camera, I'm still not convinced about the shallow DoF. At least when compared to a larger sensor.