I’ve had my RX-100 for over a year now. I originally bought it as “carry everywhere” camera, the lack of which I felt after I got rid of my Panasonic Lumix LX-7.
First a word about the type of photography I incline to. I mostly take pictures of old buildings, old machines, landscapes, flowers etc. Occasionally I take pictures, usually at family events or social gatherings. What I don’t normally take pictures of are things which move quickly (e.g. sports, people in the street, kids running around etc.) so lightning fast focus isn’t really that important to me.
For my type of photography the RX-100 has done very well. I find the autofocus to be very accurate – much more so that that of my NEX 5N, which I usually shoot using manual focus because I don’t trust the autofocus. The pictures produced by the RX-100 are very sharp and it has done very well in low light situations where I’ve been shooting without a tripod. The colors are bright and contrasty. And of course the most important thing is that it’s so light and easy to carry around that I almost always have it with me. Because of this I now shoot more pictures and consequently have more “keepers”. Some of my favorite pictures have been taken with this camera (see a few below).
It’s not without its failings though. The thing that used to annoy me the most was that it was far too easy to accidentally press the video record button. I don’t shoot much video so I didn’t really even need the button. Fortunately a recent firmware upgrade eliminated this problem by disabling the button in still mode – thank you Sony. I also find that the lens flares a lot when pointed in the general direction of a strong light source. I suppose a lens hood would help, but I haven’t been able to find anything suitable. I miss having a viewfinder and a tilt screen (but then I knew that when I bought it so can’t really complain) and I find the manual focus to be so “fiddly” that I don’t use it, which is a pity since for my style of photography this would be my preferred option if it worked to my satisfaction.
Perhaps more significantly I find the pictures to be quite “clinical” – well focused, very sharp, bright and contrasty (maybe even a bit too contrasty) but somehow a little lacking in character. I shoot a lot with legacy lenses on my NEX 5N and even though some of them can be lacking in some of the above areas, they usually have a very definite “look”, which I like. I shoot in RAW and I find that with the RX-100 I have to tone down the contrast and the saturation and even soften the image a touch in order to get the look that I like.
Still, all gripes aside, it’s a wonderful camera and I would miss it greatly if it were to die on me – at least for the 10 seconds or so it would take me to decide to get a model III with the viewfinder and tilt screen I miss.
