Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I ordered this from B&H the morning it was announced. Having it for a day and about 500 photos, I'm glad I bought it. After some very late night prints, I'm thrilled. Bottom line: the photo quality is great. Pros. Small Quick to focus and quick between shots Excellent lens with decent zoom range Good JPEGS and very good RAW files Nice controls and the front adjustment ring helps Well built Excellent manual controls The first pocket camera with good manual focus Cons Sony's menu's are a bit confusing Somewhat limited battery life, though par for the category No manual Slow aperture at full zoom No external batter charger Make no mistake, this is as good as current technology allows for a pocketable camera. It's about the same sizes as my Canon S95. It has a similar design, but IMO looks classier. Sony has made good use of the 20 megapixels. Low ISO files are excellent and as good as recent generation DSLRs. The larger sensor does make a difference. Is this worth the extra $200 over a S100 or LX7? That depends. If you print your photos larger than 11x14, the answer is an unqualified yes. Photos show more detail and better sharpness. If you mostly post your photos online, then the advantage lessens, especially if you shoot JPEG. What's the advantage of having 20 MP if your photo is displayed at 2 MP? Yes, the Canon and Panasonic cameras will output RAW files, but in practice, there is little advantage from doing so. You gain little if any dynamic range and all three cameras do a good job with white balance in most cases. If you shoot RAW, the RX-100 is the first pocketable camera that gives you a real advantage with RAW. There is a noticeable difference in dynamic range. Use RAW and there's more highlight headroom and you can pull more details out of the shadows. The bad news here is that Sony's RAW converter program is a bear to use. When Adobe comes out with support for this camera in the next month or so. Sony has copied Canon's front control ring, which is a great thing. It doesn't have the click stops that Canon's does. It has electronic clicks, which do nothing for me. Those can be turned off. Using the ring for exposure compensation, the lack of felt clicks is a negative. Using the ring for manual focus, it's a plus. Call it a draw. It's the manual focus feature that has me excited. Simply put, manual focus on other pocket point and shoots is marginal at best. With the focus peaking that Sony has included along with the front control ring, manual focus is precise and accurate. Some of Sony's extra shooting modes are very useful. This carries over the handheld twilight, in-camera HDR and sweep panorama features that I learned to like in my NEX-5n. There are plenty of other options, that somebody will like. Those are the ones I like. Photos at 100-200 ISO are terrific, and good up to 800. Above that, image quality drops off quickly. Compared to my Canon S95, there's not that much difference in quality with JPEGS. Shooting RAW then working the files a bit in PHotoshop, I'd say the there's a good stop to stop and a half advantage to the RX-100 Did I mention that the lens is very good? Is the camera worth $650? That's a tougher question. Sony sells more capable NEX cameras for $50 more and less. As light and compact as the NEX cameras are, they don't fit in a pocket. This camera will even fit in a shirt pocket, if you don't mind your shirt sagging. It's great for pants pockets or a jacket. While the camera has good manual controls it won't give the same versatility as a NEX or Micro 4/3 camera, let alone a DSLR, which you can get in the same price range. If you want to get serious about photography, I'd recommend getting one of those instead of the RX-100. Panasonic has announced the LX7 which has an insanely fast lens, that should make low light photos easier. Again, if I mostly posted photos online, I'd consider the less expensive but still very good alternatives to the Sony. If you want the best current small camera, especially as a second camera then the RX-100 is as good as it gets.