Review: Sony Cyber-shot RX100 III

Sony's Cyber-shot RX series is just two years old, but it already has a strong heritage. When the first RX100 debuted in 2012, many reviewers heralded it as the best pocket camera ever made. The RX100 III is even better. It has a brighter lens, an eye-level viewfinder, better-looking video, and better low-light performance. It comes at a price, and that price is $800.

The big question is whether the RX100 III's extra features are worth a few hundred more dollars than its predecessors, which are now its main competitors. It really depends on your shooting style and your video needs. The new camera is more similar to the RX100 II, which has a similar tilting LCD screen, the same Wi-Fi/NFC capabilities, and the same low-light-optimized sensor. The RX100 II now costs $650, while the original RX100 sells for $500 or less. They're both top-shelf compact cameras, and they offer slightly different traits than this new one.

You’re starting with the same rock-solid foundation, though. As has always been the case with the RX compact cameras, the secret sauce is the sensor. This camera fits inside your pants pocket with ease, and its 1-inch-type sensor is massive within that context. Size matters here: The image quality for a pocket camera is mind-boggling, with very good performance in dark settings and shallow depth of field that rivals mirrorless and APS-C cameras.

Just like its forebears, the RX100 III has a fast F1.8 lens at its widest angle setting, manual exposure controls, a lens-barrel control ring, and—perhaps its most important trait—usability that will please both novices and more-experienced shooters. The RX100 III is quick to autofocus—fast enough to shoot at 3fps with AF enabled (or 10fps without)—and the control ring is a wonderful tool for manual focusing. If you've used any RX100 camera, you’ll feel at home behind the controls of the RX100 III.

From there, things venture outside of familiar territory for the RX100 series. For instance, the new camera has a shorter optical zoom—2.9X as compared to the 3.6X zoom of previous editions—but the lens gains ground in other ways. It has wider-angle coverage than its predecessors (24mm vs. 28mm), and its aperture stays wider through that zoom range. At 70mm telephoto, the maximum aperture is F2.8; at the same focal length, the maximum aperture was F4.0 in previous RX100 cameras. The extra speed is nice, but it comes at the expense of sawing off the best focal lengths for portraits.

The marquee addition is an eye-level OLED viewfinder with a resolution of 1.4 million dots. I receive a ton of emails lamenting the disappearance of eye-level viewfinders on compact cameras, so it will be a huge draw for some. In an impressive feat of engineering and/or magic, Sony added it without taking up any surface space. It does add bulk to the camera, however, as the RX100 III is a bit fatter and heavier than the previous generations. It also loses the hot shoe found in the RX100 II.

The viewfinder pops up out of the top left corner when you slide a switch on the side of the camera, and doing that also powers the camera on or off. After it pops up, you slide the eyepiece out so that it’s flush with the back of the camera. There’s a diopter-adjustment lever on top of the eyepiece, and a proximity sensor turns it on as you hold it to your eye. Once you move your eye from the EVF, the 3-inch LCD turns on.

It works very nicely for what it is, just as long as you don’t want to pop the EVF back into the camera without shutting everything off completely. You can leave the EVF up without draining battery due to its proximity sensor, but as soon as you click it back into the body, it powers the camera off. You’re also better off favoring your right eye. When you use your left eye, your nose can smudge up the RX100 III’s 3-inch display.

You can tilt that LCD to adjust it just like you could on the RX100 II, but there isn’t a position where it’s entirely out of your nose’s way when you use the EVF. The two-hinge LCD folds all the way up, facing forward if you need it for selfies. It also tilts downward at about a 45-degree angle to help with overhead shots.

Sony

In my tests, the extra display does seem to take a toll on battery life. The camera is rated for 320 shots per charge when you only use the LCD. Switching between the LCD and EVF regularly got me less mileage—between 250 and 300 shots per charge. You also have to charge the battery in the camera, which isn't all that convenient for charging up and carrying a spare battery.

Back to the good stuff. Sony’s new camera takes a big step up in the video department. The RX100 III is the latest Sony camera to use the XAVC S codec, which supports a much higher bitrate for video capture than AVCHD (50mbps vs. 28mbps). It’s normally used for 4K video, but here it allows the RX100 III to capture incredibly sharp 1080p video at 60fps. Just like in still mode, the RX100 III lets you tinker with manual exposure controls and manual focus while you’re recording. The zoom is impressively quiet in video mode, too. I also loved the new “Zebra” overlay that indicates when parts of the scene are overexposed (it’s available when you’re shooting stills, too).

The video quality is stunning for a pocket camera, but there’s a limitation with XAVC S: You can only record XAVC S video if you have a Class 10 SDXC card with a capacity of 64GB or more. If you’re using anything slower or lower-capacity, you’re limited to AVCHD or MP4 video. It’s only a minor annoyance if you don’t have a compatible card, because you can get a 64GB Class 10 SDXC card for $30 to $40 these days.

Another addition to the RX100 III is a built-in neutral density filter, which gives the camera a bit more flexibility in its manual exposure modes (you can’t use it in Auto or scene modes). It’s a handy tool for using slower shutter speeds without overexposing photos and capturing those milky flowing-water photos.

So in which cases should you buy the RX100 III, and in which cases should you opt for its cheaper siblings? The good news is that they all take great photos, with the RX100 III and RX100 II winning in the low-light department. If you’re serious about video, the RX100 III is the one to get. If you’ve been dying for an eye-level viewfinder, ditto: The best pocket camera out there now has one. Need a neutral density filter? Again, the RX100 III is for you. But if those three things don’t matter to you—and they are relatively niche benefits—the RX100 II should keep you happy for less.