New Year... New Camera

I must have been a good boy last year as Santa was so kind to deliver me a Christmas present. That in the form of a new camera! I asked for a compact camera that fits in a pocket, but can still deliver on high-quality images. What I got was the Sony RX100 M3. Now whilst there are later models of this camera (M4 & M5), I was happy with the M3 as I primarily will be using it for images. The later models seem to deliver more for video with little gains on images, so I wasn't set for Santa to fork out the extra hefty $$$ for diminished returns on my part.

Now in the DSLR front, I'm a Canon user through and through and have always been, so I wasn't sure about Sony due to my little experience with them. But after much research and comments from other photographers, it appeared that this Sony camera was (and probably still is) the gold standard for a 'pocket' compact camera on the market. 

My DSLR will still have its purpose in the pro/studio game, but I wanted something that could still give me a level of quality I am happy with but without the bulk. Yes, my iPhone 6 is pretty good, but it still lacks some features and a level of quality that I was looking for. In particularly in low light conditions where the iPhone struggles. Even though most images will be used for online, screen and social media where the iPhone performs pretty ok, I still do prints, which is where the iPhone has let me down especially when enlarged.

Some of the features that appealed to me are:

  • Zeiss lens

  • Optical zoom

  • Decent sensor

  • RAW capability

  • HD Video (good enough for me, I don't need 4k especially as I don't do much video)

  • Semi-directional pop-up flash

  • Wi-Fi

  • Manual functions

  • Pop-up EVF. Cute, but haven't needed to use it that much yet.

  • Tilt screen ("woo-hoo"), but must say its been good for shooting off the hip and chasing the young one around, and above crowds.

  • Can fit in my pocket. This was one of the draw cards. All the features packed into somethings smaller (but yeah thicker) than an iPhone but with improved quality. No other camera could really claim this.

I'm still learning the finite intricacies of this Camera but, I must say I am very happy with how it is performing so far. Below are some pics I've taken with it.  

Note: these have been VSCO (app) post-processed, which is another feature I found that excelled over iPhone as the Sony files have more detail and information to render in post to create better, richer images.