Sony RX10V (RX10 M5) Review | A Bridge to Success?

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It's been about 9 years since we saw the
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last iteration of the RX10 lineup from
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Sony, which is their fully featured,
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what we might call a bridge or
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all-in-one type camera. before I
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actually started shooting DSLRs and then
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obviously long before mirrorless, I
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actually used multiple bridge cameras
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from various companies. And so that was
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kind of my jumping off point as I really
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started to get into photography. And
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it's been a long time uh probably over
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15 years since I have shot with a camera
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like this. And so it's been an
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interesting return to it. And certainly
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this camera is vastly different from
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what I remember back in the last Canon
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model that I was shooting with. This
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obviously is a big step forward for this
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particular lineup as well in at least
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some ways. At the heart of the camera
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itself, we have a camera that looks
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largely the same, has the same lens, has
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mostly the same sensor. However, there
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has been some vast improvements to the
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autofocus, the battery life, the general
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handling and performance of the camera
1:13
itself, which now makes it a fully
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featured camera that can shoot up to 4K
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120, can shoot up to 30 frames per
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second in burst action, has great
1:24
autofocus, has familiar Sony menus, and
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even the same uh FZ100 battery that
1:31
we're accustomed to seeing in so many of
1:32
other Sony's other cameras. And so when
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it comes to the actual practical use of
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the camera, this is a vastly improved
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camera that is really able to tackle a
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pretty broad variety of subjects.
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Though, as always, when you get to
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smaller sensors like this, this is a
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1-in sensor. There are a bit of
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limitations, particularly in low light
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performance. I'm going to try to dive
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into all of those today and give you my
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feedback on the RX10 Mark 5. Now, before
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I jump into it, I do want to say a big
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thank you to Sony for sending me a
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review sample to borrow for this review.
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It will be going back to them. They have
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had zero input in my review itself and
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will not see it before you do. Caveats
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aside, let's jump in and let's take a
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look at the build and design of the
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camera. So, let's take a closer look
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here at the build and design here. As
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you look at the camera, it looks quite a
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bit like, you know, say the A7R Mark II
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with a fairly thick lens attached. But
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this of course is a fixed lens camera
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and so it's you cannot change off the
2:32
lens and so we've got a dedicated
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built-in lens that has a coverage from
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24 to 600 mm of full-frame equivalent.
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So we have two ways of controlling that
2:42
zoom. One of those is by this control
2:45
right here where often you would have
2:47
the on and off switch or toggle for a
2:50
Sony camera. And so instead there we
2:52
have the power zoom capability. You also
2:55
have the ability to control the zoom
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from this ring here. And while I don't
3:00
find it quite as intuitive or smooth as
3:02
using the power zoom, one thing it is a
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little bit better at is if you need to
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just kind of fine-tune a certain focal
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length, um there is a little bit of lag
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I find in the input here to what happens
3:13
with the actual motor that drives that.
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Front ring is a focus manual focus ring.
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And then we do actually have an
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incorporated aperture ring now. And one
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of the key things that's happened as far
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as the zoom lens itself is while the
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actual optical design of the lens has
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not changed, what we do now have is the
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modern Sony control for it all. And so
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that includes having an AFMS switch
3:38
here, a function button, and then a
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focus limiter switch here. And along
3:43
with that aperture ring, we do have the
3:45
ability now to either click or de-click
3:47
that ring. And so without clicks, you
3:49
have the ability to smoothly rack
3:51
through the aperture range. Put the
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clicks on and you have the ability then
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to have dedicated clicks at 1/3 stops.
3:59
Now, because of having the power zoom
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here, that does change the controls a
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little bit. Shutter is still here. And
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then you can see C1 and C2 buttons. The
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power button is here. So you can still
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do that with a one-handed operation.
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You're just going to have to learn the
4:12
muscle memory for there. As far as other
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top- mounted controls, we have the two
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layer dial here, which has the mode dial
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on top. And then the bottom layer of
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that, which is controlled from here,
4:23
will allow you to have separate setups
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for stills, for movies, and then for for
4:28
slow and quick. Three different
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positions there. And you can program the
4:32
camera with different menu settings and
4:34
button settings uh depending on that.
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One other thing to notice here on the
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top is the viewfinder stack here. The
4:41
viewfinder is a point or half inch.5 in
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uh viewfinder with 3.68 million dots of
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resolution. So definitely an improvement
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there. The shoe up top is upgraded from
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just a standard hot shoe to Sony's uh MI
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shoe or multi-inface shoe. The actual
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LCD screen here is a 3-in design with
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1.62 million dots. And a key upgrade for
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many of us is that now the menus have
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been upgraded to standard uh Sony um
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menu settings and it is full touch
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capabilities. And so all of that is a
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definite improvement over what was here
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before. As far as other basic controls,
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all these button positions are in the
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same spot you would expect them uh for
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Sony cameras. Menu button over here. Uh
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video record button. You can also record
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with the shutter if you enable that
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setting. We've got an A offon button
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here. We've got the standard joystick
5:37
which works well. We have a third wheel
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for controlling here and that goes along
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with the rear wheel. And then there is a
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lockable wheel here that by default is
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going to be for exposure compensation.
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This is typically going to work for
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either aperture or shutter um shutter
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speed control. And this is can either be
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can be set to whatever value you like. I
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actually like to set it to ISO. So I
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have a quick wheel to do that. It also
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can be a D-pad and you can control
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functions in each one of those positions
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with the okay button there in the
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middle. Function menu there and then
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we've got play and delete there at the
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bottom. Other controls here to note and
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that is on the side here. We've got the
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various ports, 3.5 mil uh mic in input,
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3.5 millimeter headphone jack, micro
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HDMI, USBC for uh charging and you can
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charge within the camera. And then we
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have a which is kind of the data uh port
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of um actually sending data out.
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A single um UHS2 rated SD card slot
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here. However, we do get an improvement
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when it comes to the battery. Now, we
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have the MPFZ100 battery that is in so
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many Sony cameras. So, there's a good
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chance you've got a battery if you're
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shooting Sony that will fit in here
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already. And and so that is great. And
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battery life is vastly improved. You can
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get as many as 630 shots on one charge
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if you're using the LCD, somewhat less
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if you're using the viewfinder, but
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that's the sea rating. It is not hard to
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exceed that, and I have found battery
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life to really be quite good. This
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camera feels good in the hand. The grip
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is actually a little bit thicker than
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what I find even from say my Alpha 1
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Mark II. Actually prefer it. It fits my,
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you know, somewhat bigger hand a little
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bit better. Your mileage may vary on
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that. Obviously, I love the fact that
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everything feels familiar and is in what
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I would consider the proper place for
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shooting a Sony camera. One big
7:31
difference being that we have a fixed
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lens here rather than the ability to
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change out the lens. So, let's talk
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about that lens for a moment. This is a
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lens with a mac maximum aperture between
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2.4 and f4 and so it's a variable
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aperture and it is an equivalent of 24
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to 600 mm. And they will show you that
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35mm format equivalent here on the
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barrel. But as you can see here, the
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actual zoom range for the optics
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themselves is 9.1 to 210 mm and that is
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multiplied by a 2.7 times crop factor.
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This is the same lens optically as the
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previous lens and so it's a varo sonar
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tar lens you know with some Zeiss
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badging on it. It has eight extra low
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dispersion elements, two aspherical ED
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elements and a precision AA or advanced
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aspherical element in the design and it
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works fairly well overall. And it helps
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of course that the sensor resolution is
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only 20 megapixels here and so I feel
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like the lens is a fairly good match for
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that sensor. Now, one of the things that
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has been improved is the macro focus
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distance. And so, you can focus down
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very very closely at the 24 millimeter
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end, uh, about 3 cmters away. And so,
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you're basically right on top of the
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subject. Far more practical is to shoot
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at the 600 millimeter end where you have
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much more working distance and can get a
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maximum magnification, which is nearly
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nearly as good at that. On the wide end,
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you can get as close as a 0.49 49 level
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of magnification which is obviously
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extremely high but very hard to get
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because your subject is going to be
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inside the lens hood as far as the
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distance here on the 600 millimeter end
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you can get a 0.42 for two times which
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is still very very useful. Detail is
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pretty impressive and overall that is
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one of the better aspects of the design.
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Obviously a lens like this is getting a
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lot of electronic assistance inside in
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terms of correction. If you turn off
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those corrections and you dive in, it
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takes a lot of work to find it. There's
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definitely some strong barrel distortion
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on the wide end, some pin cushion
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distortion as you go along, but all of
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that's to be expected. Results are
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really pretty decent. We have lensbased
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stabilization here that will be
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augmented by camerabased stabilization,
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but that's only a digital correction and
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that's pro primarily going to help you
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in video. I found the lens actually to
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be quite stable and that is helped by
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the very low shock from the leaf shutter
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inside. Overall, while this lens is not
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definitely not going to be the
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equivalent of a dedicated lens at any
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one of these focal lengths, it really
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provides pretty good image quality all
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throughout. sometimes surprising you
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with how good it is. Other times,
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depending on the situation, contrast
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suffers a bit. But in general, I think
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that most people, most of the time, are
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going to be satisfied with the lens
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results. So, let's talk autofocus,
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though. To get to that, we need to first
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take a moment to talk about the shutter.
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The uh RX10 Mark 5 uses a leaf shutter
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design, and so that comes with both some
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built-in strengths and some built-in
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weaknesses attached to it. So, first of
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all, on the kind of weakness side of
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things, the mechanical shutter has an
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upper limit of just 1/2,000th of a
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second. And in fact, in operation, I
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found that if I was shooting compressed,
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or I should say lossless compressed
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RAWs, I actually could only achieve a
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1,000th of a second. In fact, that
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tended to be my upper limit regardless
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of the electronic or mechanical shutter
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options. So, if you drop down into the
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compressed RAW option, which does come
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with at least some minor tradeoffs in
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image quality, you are able to unlock up
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to the 12,000th of a second mechanical
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shutter and all the way up on the
11:08
electronic shutter of 132,000th. And so,
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you got lots of speed there on the upper
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limit. Now, what's cool on the
11:14
mechanical side of things is that
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because of that leaf shutter design, you
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do get some advantages. First of those
11:19
being flash sync. Now, it doesn't seem
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to me when I mounted a flash on there
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that I could do any kind of flash
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syncing with the electronic shutter at
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all. However, with the mechanical
11:28
shutter enabled, I'm able to get sync,
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not high-speed sync, but just sync all
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the way up to the 1/2000th. And so, this
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shot, for example, was shot at 1/
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10,000th of a second. And uh again, it's
11:40
able to sync perfectly because of that
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leaf shutter. leaf shutter and you know
11:44
that being in the lens rather than in
11:46
the camera itself means that you also
11:48
get the advantage of having very very
11:51
quiet shutter operation and also very
11:54
very low vibration and so that does help
11:57
with the image stabilization as well.
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Truth of the matter is is that I didn't
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actually notice much of a difference
12:02
between the sound of the mechanical or
12:04
the electronic shutter here. The
12:06
electronic shutter does a good job of
12:08
imitating the sound in the mechanical
12:09
shutter and you have the option to go
12:11
fully silent on the electronic side as
12:13
well. And so you can unlock those faster
12:16
shutter capabilities uh when doing that.
12:18
The other advantage with that just leaf
12:20
shutter is that it basically eliminates
12:22
the rolling shutter issues. That means
12:24
it's better for panning, uh, tracking
12:26
action when you're you're shooting, uh,
12:29
stills, but then also when you're
12:30
shooting video, it helps to eliminate
12:32
the rolling shutter issues that often
12:33
plague a lot of other cameras that, you
12:36
know, could compete with a camera like
12:37
this. So, definitely some advantages and
12:40
a few disadvantages in the trade-off.
12:42
Now, when you're shooting electronic
12:44
shutter, you can shoot up to uh 30
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frames per second, which is obviously
12:49
very, very impressive. And you're doing
12:50
that with while still having full uh
12:53
full-time AF going on with 60 AF AE
12:57
calculations going on per second during
12:59
that time. So that can't compete with
13:01
the very best of Sony sports cameras,
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but it is the same kind of spec that I
13:05
saw recently from the A7R Mark III, for
13:08
example. And so very similar
13:10
specifications there. And if you're
13:11
shooting with the electronic shutter, it
13:12
means you're very likely going to have
13:14
to be shooting, at least from what I can
13:15
see in the firmware right now, at a
13:17
compressed RAW rather than a lossless
13:19
compressed RAW format. What I found when
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shooting at that compressed RAW format
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is that I was able to get about 113
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images, raw images before it the burst
13:30
rate slowed down. Now, one thing that I
13:33
did see on the negative side of things
13:34
is that this is not a super fast
13:36
pipeline. And remember, we're working
13:38
with uh UHS uh two rated SD card as our
13:42
storage medium. And so it can't, you
13:44
know, write or read as fast. And so that
13:46
means that it took longer to clear the
13:48
buffer. It kind of went back to I
13:50
basically remember this being pretty
13:52
similar to the A7R Mark III, for
13:54
example, where it was a it took a good
13:56
amount of time to clear that buffer. I
13:58
would say most of a minute it took to
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clear off 113 frames worth of images
14:02
from that. And while you're doing that,
14:04
you're pretty limited in what you can
14:06
do. I couldn't switch over and shoot
14:07
video, for example. You can shoot more
14:10
frames, but at a very low, you know,
14:12
maybe three to five frame burst rate.
14:14
And so those are your basic limits in
14:16
capturing images. However, on the plus
14:18
side here, when it comes to the actual
14:20
autofocus system, we have got a vastly
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improved autofocus over the previous
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generation of RX10. We have got now 557
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autofoc focus points that cover right
14:31
under 71% of the full frame of coverage.
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So that's obviously excellent. And we
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have now a dedicated AI chip that is
14:41
able to modernize the autofocus to
14:43
basically do all the kind of stuff you
14:45
would expect from a Sony camera at this
14:47
point. So you can uh the camera can
14:49
detect a wide variety of subjects,
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humans, animals, birds, insects, planes,
14:54
cars, trains, and I love the fact that
14:57
it does have the automatic subject
14:58
detection mode where it can, you know,
15:00
smartly choose what it is you're wanting
15:02
to focus on. And if that's not working,
15:04
you can then go to one of the more
15:05
specialized. And so, and it seems to
15:08
work really, really well. I, in this
15:10
shot, for example, um, this I'm shooting
15:11
at 30 frames per second tracking bees
15:13
going into the hive. I was pretty
15:15
impressed by how well it did here. And
15:18
as you can see, it is doing an pretty
15:20
impressive job of staying locked on what
15:22
is a very small and very fastm moving
15:25
subject with a lot of distractions in
15:26
the background. And so to me, that's
15:28
about as good a test as I could give it.
15:30
And even when I was shooting in less
15:32
than ideal conditions, and as we're
15:33
going to see when it comes to the
15:34
sensor, it doesn't like low light
15:36
particularly well. But even when as far
15:38
as the autofocus goes, even in those
15:39
conditions, I found that I was able to
15:42
really get pretty well focused results.
15:44
I did shoot some at ISO 3200 and as as
15:47
as high as ISO 6400, though I don't
15:50
recommend going there, but in an event
15:52
type setting, if I was careful to
15:54
minimize the movement of my subject,
15:56
because remember, you're working within
15:58
the limitations of a fixed lens here.
15:59
So, you can't attach a brighter lens to
16:02
help to freeze action. But if I was
16:04
careful, I was able to get pretty
16:06
reasonable results. But autofocus wasn't
16:08
really the problem. It was locking on.
16:10
It was tracking and delivered good
16:11
results in those settings. When you're
16:13
shooting towards the, you know, 600
16:15
millimeter end of the zoom range, you're
16:18
going to slow down a bit in terms of the
16:20
the overall thrust of the autofocus
16:22
motor in the lens itself. But in
16:25
general, it's obviously good enough to
16:27
keep up in a lot of situations. As long
16:29
as you're not making a really big focus
16:31
change, it's fast enough to be reactive
16:33
in those settings. So, in general, for a
16:35
camera like this, you know, autofocus is
16:37
pretty impressive. And that was true
16:40
whether I was shooting stills or whether
16:42
I was shooting video as well. This is an
16:45
area of maybe the most significant
16:47
upgrade to the performance of the RX10
16:50
system generally. So, arguably one of
16:53
the biggest areas of improvement to this
16:54
camera is on the video side of things.
16:57
We now have the ability to shoot up to
16:58
4K 60 with a nicely oversampled uh
17:02
footage and that is with zero crop and
17:05
up to 4K120. And as you can see here,
17:07
there is somewhat of a crop, though it's
17:09
not a massive amount. So that obviously
17:12
gives you a lot of versatility in your
17:14
ability to slow down the action and to
17:16
get that kind of smooth footage that can
17:18
be really useful in a wide variety of
17:20
situations. On top of that, we now have,
17:22
you know, all of the kind of typical
17:24
things that you would you would expect
17:25
at this point. Uh we can shoot um SLOG 3
17:28
on this. We have ability to shoot HLG
17:31
and things like that. We also now have
17:33
the ability to record uh two to four
17:36
channel digital audio through the what
17:38
they call the the the my shoe or the
17:41
multi-inface shoe on the top of the
17:42
camera along with the typical 3.5
17:45
millimeter input for audio and then 3.5
17:48
millimeter output for headphone
17:51
monitoring. And so on that sense, we've
17:53
got a lot of versatility. What's more, I
17:54
found that stabilization in the camera
17:56
was solid due to both having the lens
17:59
based stabilization and then also Sony's
18:01
uh active uh focus algorithms that apply
18:04
some digital correction into the mix
18:06
when shooting video. So, all of that
18:08
obviously very useful as well. The
18:11
ability to have that huge zoom ratio and
18:14
a power zoom to control it is obviously
18:17
going to be very very useful. And I did
18:19
find this to be a I think it would be a
18:21
fantastic run and gun if you're cap
18:23
capturing like live events for example
18:25
because you have a lot of ability while
18:27
shooting a clip to change your framing
18:29
even if you're limited in how you can
18:30
physically move around in the space. And
18:33
so I think that that's another area of
18:34
versatility for this as well. I find
18:37
that the footage looks good to me. Looks
18:39
really solid overall. nice detail and
18:42
and obviously the ability to have such a
18:44
huge amount of zoom range just means
18:47
that you have a lot of framing options,
18:49
a lot of, you know, compression to the
18:50
footage. And so, you know, when I'm
18:52
zoomed all the way in here, uh, as we
18:54
saw in that shot, the background is
18:56
pretty nicely blurred out and it looks
18:58
good. You've probably noticed on all
18:59
these outdoor segments that autofocus is
19:01
having no problem tracking me and
19:03
keeping locked on my face. So, just a
19:05
lot of good things that are happening on
19:07
the video side of things. nothing like
19:09
open gate or, you know, being able to
19:11
shoot like raw footage in camera. But,
19:14
uh, outside of that, you know, there's
19:16
really not a whole lot to complain about
19:17
in a jack-of alltrades type camera like
19:20
this. So, let's take a look at the
19:22
sensor. This is a 1 in sensor, and these
19:24
numbers are for the RX10 Mark IV, and
19:26
obviously numbers have not yet been
19:28
published because this camera is not yet
19:30
out. However, the it does have the same
19:32
sensor. I suspect these numbers will be
19:34
very mildly better in Sony fashion as
19:36
they tweak them and make them a little
19:37
bit better. But you can see if we look
19:39
at the max figure for dynamic range,
19:40
it's definitely falling below well below
19:43
even the cheapest of Sony's APS-C
19:46
cameras. And the big numbers as we're
19:47
going to see is when it comes to the low
19:49
light ISO. That's just a really bad
19:53
figure compared to what the APS-C
19:55
cameras are completing. These numbers
19:57
are courtesy of photons to photos, by
20:00
the way. Now, we have about 20
20:02
megapixels of resolution here. And at
20:04
its best, it can pro, you know, provide
20:07
nicely detailed images that really look
20:09
quite good. But I have to stress at its
20:12
best because when you get outside of the
20:14
comfort zone of this camera in terms of
20:15
the sensor, things aren't nearly as
20:17
good. A shot like this with fairly mild
20:20
dynamic range requirements, you can see
20:23
I'm pulling up nice detail there in the
20:25
trees. And then in the highlights here,
20:28
there wasn't a lot of sky to recover,
20:30
but you know, it's all controlled
20:32
relatively well. Here's a look at our
20:34
base ISO. And so ISO 100, everything
20:37
looks, you know, nice and clean here.
20:40
And uh so what happens if we start to
20:43
move up at ISO 800, if we punch in and
20:46
we look at a pixel level, we can see
20:48
that there's some noise that's starting
20:50
to develop, but overall still looks
20:52
good. Contrast is still good. Textures
20:54
still look pretty much the same. shadows
20:56
look largely the same. But if I move up
20:58
one more stop even to ISO 60600,
21:01
we're going to start to see a little bit
21:03
more image degradation. First of all,
21:05
you can see that already we're losing
21:07
some of the contrast. The textures just
21:09
are starting to look a little bit
21:10
muddier and you know there is a little
21:12
bit of smoothing that's taking place.
21:14
The noise pattern already is starting to
21:16
get a little bit rougher there. And so
21:18
even like the texture information here
21:20
compared to here, it's not quite as
21:22
much. Contrast is not as good in those
21:24
shadows. And already we can see here
21:25
just a little bit of almost what looks
21:28
like a a thermal haze on some of those
21:31
textures. Our retain 800 is a benchmark
21:34
for 3200, but you can see if we punch in
21:36
here that we're going really downhill
21:39
already. Contrast is really starting to
21:41
tank. And already at 3200, you can see
21:43
these little blotches of just some just
21:47
discoloration that are starting to show
21:48
up. And you can see it a bit here in
21:50
what should be a universal gray. And
21:53
then in general, just our details
21:54
starting to fall off. Everything's
21:56
starting to look a little bit blocky. By
21:58
6400, things are well, not great. We've
22:03
got lots of evidence of some
22:04
discoloration, not great contrast, not
22:07
great detail. And if you look in the
22:10
shadow information, it's starting to
22:11
look well, it's not black, it's blotchy.
22:14
And by the upper limit of 12,800, it's
22:16
just bad. The shadows are really, really
22:18
uneven. everything here just looks like,
22:22
you know, Vaseline's been smeared on
22:24
everything. It's it it's not pretty. So,
22:26
don't shoot up there. Now, when it comes
22:28
to highlight recovery, definitely not a
22:30
strength here. So, on the left, this is
22:32
overexposed by just one stop. And so,
22:35
this recovery is fairly solid. We can
22:38
see color swatches are back. You know,
22:39
textures are here. No real hot spots.
22:42
Color is even across the camera or the
22:44
timer face there. But unfortunately, all
22:46
it takes is not even to two stops before
22:50
things start to fall apart. And so, as
22:52
we can see here over on the right where
22:54
I've tried to recover that and dial back
22:55
the two stops, we've lost lots of
22:57
texture information. Some of these color
22:59
swatches are not fully recovered. You
23:02
can see they're just kind of outlined.
23:04
And then in this timer face, you can see
23:06
it is not even at all in the shadowed
23:08
area. There's a little bit more of the
23:10
correct color, but it's kind of blown
23:11
out here. So, that's unfortunate. And if
23:14
you have something really blown out,
23:15
three stops here, you can see it's just
23:17
a forget about it kind of a recovery
23:19
situation. Now, shadow recovery is a
23:22
better story. And so, we can see here
23:24
that um at two stops of underexposure,
23:28
I'm able to bring that back up. It looks
23:30
pretty natural, pretty good. No real
23:32
issues there that I can see. By three
23:36
stops, however, we have hit somewhat of
23:38
a limit in that already this image isn't
23:41
quite as bright. You can see it's we've
23:43
lost some detail here. Bit more noise in
23:47
this area. And in general, it's not
23:50
really recovering the full exposure
23:51
value. We're getting a bit of
23:53
discoloration back in here already. And
23:56
if we push that further, it's going to
23:58
get worse still. So here at four stops,
24:00
you can just see everything's starting
24:01
to look has that somewhat like kind of
24:04
pixelated, not really clean look to it.
24:06
You're starting to see some of that
24:07
color blotchiness that we saw at higher
24:10
ISO settings. It's just in general it's
24:12
it's not great. And so you can maybe
24:14
squeeze out three stops of shadow
24:16
recovery reasonably cleanly, but that's
24:18
about it. And no more than a little over
24:20
a stop of highlight recovery. So when it
24:22
comes to dynamic range, well, not great.
24:26
So if we're shooting in the optimal
24:27
zone, it can produce nice images, good
24:30
detail, good contrast, nice color. All
24:32
of that is good. Here's another shot of
24:34
some of my Blackberries that are coming
24:36
on. And again, that's nice. I love the,
24:37
you know, pseudo macro capabilities
24:40
here. There's nice pop to the image. All
24:42
of that's good. But if we start to
24:44
squeeze into higher ISO settings, this
24:46
is 3200, a shot of my friend at his
24:48
birthday party. You can just see that
24:51
it's just it's kind of blotchy looking
24:53
and it's trying to, you know, recover
24:55
the noise and trying to give us a
24:57
reasonable image, but it's it's very so.
25:01
And that is right there the limitations
25:03
of a small 1 in sensor. So, what's my
25:06
conclusion? This is a really interesting
25:08
camera. I don't think that this is
25:10
necessarily for everyone, but there are
25:12
people that are looking for just this
25:14
kind of camera. And as a I would say a
25:16
content creation type camera, it's
25:18
really really intriguing because I think
25:20
that for all of the things that does
25:22
well on the the photography side of
25:23
things, in some ways it's even more I
25:25
think attractive to me as a running gun
25:27
platform for getting video. And I can
25:29
see it really being useful for those
25:31
that are maybe shooting live events um
25:33
and you know getting clips here and
25:35
there. and the ability to have that
25:36
power zoom, the ability to actually
25:39
have, you know, fairly good video specs
25:41
here and to have all of that in a kind
25:43
of a self-contained package. It's
25:45
intriguing to me. And of course, as a
25:47
travel camera, this is it's very
25:50
intriguing because again, it's a contact
25:52
compact package that you can, you know,
25:54
store in a small part of your luggage.
25:56
And taking it along, you really can
25:58
capture pretty much everything so long
26:00
as the light is reasonably decent. And
26:03
the ability to even capture action at 30
26:05
frames per second and and all that comes
26:08
with that is it's very very intriguing.
26:10
This is a far cry from what I remember
26:13
bridge cameras being back in the day. Uh
26:15
it's just it's better image quality.
26:17
It's much better autofocus. It's far
26:20
better video. And the general
26:22
versatility here is really fantastic.
26:24
And I love the fact that they have
26:26
standardized everything to where it
26:28
aligns with Sony Alpha cameras
26:30
generally. And so if you go to the
26:32
menus, f familiar positions, the
26:34
controls, they all feel familiar there.
26:37
The way that the autofocus basically
26:38
works, all of that is familiar. And so
26:41
in general, it's an easy camera if you
26:43
have any Sony familiarity. It's easy
26:45
camera to pick up and to just start
26:48
using very quickly. And while I'm not a
26:51
fan of tiny sensors, and a one- inch
26:53
sensor, in my opinion, is, you know,
26:55
it's on the verge of being tiny, the
26:57
image quality really is quite good, so
26:59
long as you're working with decent
27:02
amount of light. And I keep coming back
27:03
to that because I would say the one area
27:05
that really kind of stood out to me in
27:07
the sensor performance is that the low
27:09
light performance, things start to get,
27:11
you know, ugly fairly quickly as you
27:13
have to boost that ISO. And certainly
27:16
when it comes to the dynamic range,
27:17
you're not going to have to be you're
27:18
not going to want to have to tweak your
27:20
images in any kind of significant way.
27:22
And so if you're coming from, you know,
27:24
a mirrorless system, particularly a
27:26
full-frame type camera like me, you're
27:28
going to be disappointed and feel a
27:29
little bit constrained by those things.
27:30
But as long as you're shooting in decent
27:32
amount of light, this camera is really,
27:34
really intriguing. It also has moved
27:38
upscale in terms of the pricing, which
27:40
seems to be the case for pretty much all
27:41
of Sony's cameras and all of their
27:43
lineups. And so now in the 2400 roughly
27:47
US range, we're looking at a camera that
27:49
is a, you know, significant outlay of
27:52
cash. And obviously you're going to have
27:54
to cross shop against, you know, the
27:56
reality that you could buy, say, an
27:58
APS-C camera and buy several lenses for
28:02
the same amount of money. And that may
28:04
end up being a route that you prefer to
28:05
go instead. But for those of you that
28:08
don't want to change lenses, you want to
28:10
have one camera that does everything at
28:12
least fairly well, well, the Sony RX10
28:16
Mark 5 is a pretty intriguing option. If
28:19
you want more information, feel free to
28:20
check out the full text review, which is
28:22
linked in the description down below.
28:23
There's also some buying links there. As
28:25
always, thanks for watching. Have a
28:27
great day and let the light in.

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