Small Camera, Huge Sensor

Logged more time with Sony’s powerhouse of a compact camera this weekend. This thing is a serious imaging machine!

Do I love it? Yes. The image quality is absolutely stunning, as expected, and the camera’s build quality is top notch. But I only borrowed this thing to keep me occupied while I waited for my rangefinder to come out of repair. Once I get my M3 back, I doubt I’ll miss the RX1. =)

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All Images: Sony Cybershot DSC-RX1

Sony RX1

 Sony RX1 | ¹/30 sec, f/2, ISO 6400

Got my hands on a brand spanking new Sony RX1 this evening! Despite the high price and the little time I’ve actually spent with this camera so far, I can already tell the RX1 is going to make some waves. It’s basically a point and shoot, and in practice it operates just like you’d expect a compact camera to operate. The fact that it’s packing a 35mm film-sized sensor, however, is just crazy considering how incredibly small the camera actually is.

 Sony RX1 | ¹/50 sec, f/2, ISO 800

Built into the RX1 is a nice chunk of Zeiss glass, a 35mm f/2 Sonnar. You won’t be swapping lenses with this thing, which actually doesn’t bother me too much since I’ve been shooting with my fixed-lens Fuji x100 for such a long time.  What does bother me is that the RX1 costs more than double what I paid for the x100. Ouch.

Sony RX1 | ¹/80 sec, f/2, ISO 3200

 Sony RX1 | ¹/40 sec, f/2, ISO 6400

I’ll need to wait until Adobe releases RAW support for the RX1′s files before I can post process the camera’s output myself. For now, the images in this post are all camera-processed JPEGs.

These images where shot hand-held at very high ISO. Pretty impressive performance low-light performance, which is not too surprising considering the big fat sensor Sony stuffed into this thing. More impressions to come on the RX1 as I evaluate it over the next week. Stay tuned!

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Some Shots With The Nikon D600

I had a chance to shoot with the brand new Nikon D600 this weekend. It’s so new that I have no way to post process the camera’s RAW files on my computer, so the frames in this post are camera-processed JPEGs with a little oomph added to them in Lightroom.

The D600 feels just like using a slightly heavier, fatter D7000 with an FX format sensor. Typical of Nikon’s latest digital cameras, the image quality is quite fantastic, but a couple of things immediately bugged me with this camera. First of all, the AF system covers a very small center portion of the viewfinder compared to most other DSLRs, and in practice it seems a little silly selecting between the 39 AF points, all of which are sardined into that little center area.

The other thing? Maximum native flash sync on the D600 is 1/200 instead of the 1/250 I’m used to with Nikon bodies. The small flash lover in me goes “awwwwwwwwww.”

Of course, there’s a lot to like about the camera too. It’s relatively small and light weight for a full frame shooter, it’s packin’ an awesome sensor, and the price makes FX more accessible than ever before. But eh, I already have a compact full framer that I’m pretty happy with =)

Images: Nikon D600 + Nikkor 28mm f/1.8G / Nikkor 50mm f/1.8G

Life With The OM-D

I totally love the Olympus OM-D. The Pana-Leica 25mm, Olympus 12 and 45mm M. Zuiko primes, and the body itself all fit in my camera bag with plenty of room to spare, so I can take the entire kit wherever I go.

The OM-D checks a lot of the right boxes. Fast, responsive, quiet, well-built, small, light, good-looking. It’s weather-sealed, has a great tilt and swivel touch screen, an awesome EVF, plenty of physical control points, plenty of amazing lenses to choose from, and the new 5-axis stabilization works so well it’s scary.

Grainy-Filmy look brought to you by VSCO (Kodak Portra 800). Black and whites are out of camera. I’m really looking forward to logging more time with this system.

Olympus OM-D E-M5 | 12mm f/2 | 25mm f/1.4 | 45mm f/1.8