Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX10 review

There are more goodies tucked away inside the camera. A three-stop neutral density (ND) filter reduces incoming light by a factor of eight, facilitating slower shutter speeds for creative effect. It also compensates for the relatively slow 1/1,600s maximum shutter speed at f/2.8, although this halves to a more rapid 1/3,200s at f/8 and above.

Wi-Fi is built in, complete with NFC for easy connection to compatible Android devices. It supports wireless transfers and remote shooting with iOS and Android devices. The ability to use a tablet as a remote monitor while recording video is particularly welcome, but this is only possible in fully automatic recording mode – the camera’s exposure controls are disabled.

SONY RX10 VIDEO

The video mode is otherwise extremely well specified, with 1080-25p, 1080-50i and 1080-50p recording in AVCHD format at up to 28Mbit/s. Our test footage looked phenomenal, with exceptionally sharp, smooth fine details and that matched the best 1080p cameras we’ve seen, such as the Panasonic GH3. ISO 3200 clips were just as detailed and only displayed a light fizz of noise in darker parts of the frame.

There’s full control over exposure settings, with priority and manual modes and live adjustment while recording. There’s even a switch on the lens barrel to change the aperture ring from stepped to smooth – and silent – adjustment. The HDMI socket transmits a clean, uncompressed output for monitoring on and recording to external devices. The microphone input gets a significant boost by the inclusion of a headphone output, so you can actually hear what you’re recording.

There’s all the ports that videographers could want and expect

The autofocus responded smoothly and decisively while recording, but it’s disappointing that the selected autofocus area was ignored as soon as recording commenced. Face detection continued to work, though. For precise control over focus, it’s best to switch to manual control – the large lens ring, focus peaking display (which highlights sharply focused parts of the frame) and high-resolution viewfinder make this one of the easiest cameras to focus manually with.

Autofocus performed well for photos, too, and helped the camera to capture a frame every half a second in normal use. That’s significantly quicker than the RX100 II, which only managed 0.9 seconds between frames. Continuous performance was blisteringly fast, delivering 25 shots at 10fps before settling into a 2.8fps canter. It performed well for RAW capture, too, capturing 10 frames at 6.5fps, slowing to 1.6fps. The only disappointing result was for continuous shooting with updated autofocus between each shot, which trundled along at 1.3fps – the single drive mode gave better results.