Tag Archives: cybershot

Sony RX100 V Has Extended Slowmo Mode!

Sony RX100 V Camera

Sony today announced the Sony Cyber-shot RX100 V portable 1″ sensor camera. It replaces last year’s excellent RX100 IV which is at #8 rank in our HSC Camera Guide for slow motion gear on a budget.   This next iteration is more robust in several aspects including HFR record time which is nearly doubled due to a larger and faster frame buffer. This makes it much more useful in Quality Priority mode offering up to 4 seconds 240fps NTSC or 250fps PAL at almost Full HD 1080p resolution.

The camera has also new tricks up it’s sleeve like oversampling the pixel area of the sensor by 1.7x to deliver a down-sampled artifact free 4k result using a larger area of the sensor plane to avoid the crop in previous models.  The sensor read out is also much faster according to Sony which should further reduce rolling shutter skew and aid in the slow motion capture aspects for better fidelity. → Continue Reading Full Post ←

Underwater Slow Motion with Sony RX100 IV!

Underwater Slow Motion Fantasea FRX100IV

Few have attempted filming slow motion underwater and the results are usually underwhelming due to the amount of light needed. The light kits alone can make the undersea wildlife exit in a fast way from apparent danger unless they lack eyes or photo sensors.  However with a little ingenuity and keeping frame rates slow but not overly so you can get very good looking footage under the ocean with what amounts to be an entry package.

Chase Darnell did a review for Dive Photo Guide where the Sony RX100 IV is used with the aid of a Fantasea FRX100 IV Underwater Housing. As a diver the review is geared for underwater shooting which is not common when it comes to slow motion.  He goes over the pros and cons of the kit and much more. → Continue Reading Full Post ←

Sony RX10 III Ships and Reviews Start to Show!

RX10III

The Sony RX10 III has been the talk of the town as of late with an impressive lens 24-600mm 35mm equivalent  or 25x from wide to telephoto.  For us the value lies in the High frame rate or HFR mode that has the same specs as last year’s darlings the Sony RX100 IV and RX10 II.

At first glance the quality seems to be the same in terms of sensor response as all of these cameras share the exact same stacked 1″ sensor with blazing fast memory attached.  While the stills quality will not win any awards compared to 4/3, APS C or Full Frame cameras; it is still a big step up compared to small sensor P&S cams or smartphones. → Continue Reading Full Post ←

Sony RX10 III Continues Slow Motion Features!

RX10III

Just announced is the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX10 III or Sony RX10 III for short.  It is no direct replacement for last year’s Sony RX10 II which at first glance looks very similar.  They are essentially the same camera featuring the same video recording features. The real change comes with the incorporation of a monster zoom lens made by Carl Zeiss with a 24 -600mm FF equivalent compared to the now paltry 24-200mm FF equivalent of the RX10 II.

The lens is impressive for a super zoom camera capable of 25x zoom range. Wide end of 24mm has an aperture of f2.4 with the Tele end closing to f4 which is still pretty respectable for such reach.  It has stabilization also which Sony claims 4.5 stops worth of handhold-ability which seems the best case scenario. → Continue Reading Full Post ←

Sony RX100 IV Philip Bloom Short Film!

RXBloom

Renowned filmmaker / DP and all around nice guy Philip Bloom has been having fun with both the Sony RX10 II and RX100 IV this past few days.  He has tested the slow motion and 4k modes extensively and has done a fantastic rundown of the usability, performance and pitfalls on using the cameras.  There are a lot of interesting tidbits that He discovered such as the 240fps NTSC and 250fps PAL modes are nearly HD in quality and extremely usable very close to what the much more expensive Sony FS700 camera achieves.

When recording the 2 second quality priority mode it records back to the SD card in Real time that means a 2 second video at 240fps will take 20 seconds if saved as 24p for the frame count of 480 frames duration.  At 480fps  for 2 seconds  of 960 frames it will take 40 seconds of write time to the SD card.  This is in line with most slow motion cameras and it is a point to be considered while using the HFR modes.  You will have to plan ahead as the camera will be unavailable for use for quite a long time before the next shot is ready to be taken. This is a normal thing in most high speed cameras. → Continue Reading Full Post ←

Sony RX10 II and RX100 IV New Footage Surfaces!

RXSonyCamsBlack

Over the past week some footage from Sony and other real world uses has been surfacing.  Many shows off the super slow motion modes and others tout the performance in 4k.  The quality is for the most part good but not great and shows a clear aliasing and moire resolution loss at 480fps and 960fps.  The codec at 50 Mbit is quite good and is not the weak link, the cameras suffer from line skipping as the readout frame rate increases to below 720p resolution in real terms while being saved on a 1080p wrapper.

We have compiled a series of footage samples found on the net for you to look at. Some are outright high speed samples and others are interface walk through samples. It should give a good idea of what quality we are talking about. → Continue Reading Full Post ←