Sony RX10 mkIII

[Noa Put]

Originally Posted by Dave Blackhurst

or did it just get buried in the menu system somewhere where it's nearly impossible to find?

Nope, cinema5d also confirmed the ND is gone, that's a bummer.

[Ken Ross]

I posted this in the other thread, but in case anyone is interested in the camera and its capabilities, here's a quick video I shot yesterday. Everything was hand-held and many shots were at or near the full 600mm reach of this superb lens. You can stream this in 4K by selecting the '4K' option or, preferably, download the original in 4K from the 'download' area on the page:

Sony RX10III 4K-Grist Mill Lake on Vimeo

[Dylan Couper]

Originally Posted by Greg Boston

To be fair Dylan, a lot of cameras drop the resolution when overcranking to avoid overheating the sensor. That, and the rest of the electronics being able to keep up with such high data rates would increase the cost if full resolution was in play.

I see from the product highlights that you have a choice of higher quality at 960fps for 2 seconds duration, or max time priority of 4 seconds at lower quality.

Still, with a frame rate that fast, one should be able to capture a really brief event, such as the time it takes YOU to down a shot of tequila. ;)

I'd take the 2 seconds with higher resolution... And a Cabo Wabo Reposado on the side!

[Wacharapong Chiowanich]

Originally Posted by Dylan Couper

Thought that was too good to be true. :)
What would you say would be the highest speed you could shoot at and still get get usable 1080? 240fps?

This is a little subjective. When I tried out the slow-mos on the RX100IV (exact same sensor, same IP and identical readout method) a few months ago I think 250fps (I'm in PAL area.) was good enough though some might say it was a little soft. Aliases started to be visible at 500fps and the footage looked noticeably soft. If you want a pixel-perfect slow-mo I guess you have to limit your shooting to 120fps (100fps on my unit).

The good thing about these 100fps and 120fps is you don't have to time your shooting within either a 2-second or 4-second window and wait for buffering. You just shoot until there's no space left on the card or the heat warning comes up. The IQ is also every bit as good as you get from the 1080/50p/60p or 1080/25p/30p/24p modes. I saw absolutely no drop-off on my 1080p monitor.

[Mark Rosenzweig]

Originally Posted by Wacharapong Chiowanich

This is a little subjective. When I tried out the slow-mos on the RX100IV (exact same sensor, same IP and identical readout method) a few months ago I think 250fps (I'm in PAL area.) was good enough though some might say it was a little soft. Aliases started to be visible at 500fps and the footage looked noticeably soft. If you want a pixel-perfect slow-mo I guess you have to limit your shooting to 120fps (100fps on my unit).

The good thing about these 100fps and 120fps is you don't have to time your shooting within either a 2-second or 4-second window and wait for buffering. You just shoot until there's no space left on the card or the heat warning comes up. The IQ is also every bit as good as you get from the 1080/50p/60p or 1080/25p/30p/24p modes. I saw absolutely no drop-off on my 1080p monitor.

I agree with this assessment. However, there is no need to be subjective. Here is a 1080 video with scenes shot at 120 fps and 240 fps using the RX100 IV, so you can see if the dropoff in resolution is acceptable:

Volleyball in Slo-mo and Super Slo-mo in Full HD: Sony RX100 IV on Vimeo

[Ken Ross]

Here is the YouTube version of the RX10iii 4K video I previously posted:

YouTube (Short URL)

[Noa Put]

It's not certain at what focal length each shot was but I do see the same kind of jitter I see in my rx10 mark 1, not sure what to think of it.

[Dave Blackhurst]

I saw some, but need to run this on a laptop that can properly handle 4K, I was running on my i5 based portable, and it does not do 4K without some jumping, and that's what it looked like to me.... will update after I've run it on an i7 machine that I know plays back smoothly....

[Ken Ross]

Guys, for hand-held shot at or near 600mm, this is pretty good IMO. I see some, but minimal jitter. Just as an example, posting YouTube 4K videos, when using my Sony 18-200mm OIS lens on my A6300, YouTube would always give me a prompt "some of your video is a bit shaky, would you like us to stabilize it" (or something to that effect).

That would happen on every video where I was at or near the 4K cropped focal length of 300mm with the A6300 while hand-holding. In this RX10III video, a number of these hand-held shots were at 600mm, double what I was shooting with the A6300, and for the first time YouTube gave me no such warning because the jitter was minimal.

With the A6300, I often software stabilized the longer shots in FCPX, but I haven't felt the need here thus far. Anyone expecting tripod stability with a hand-held, optically sharp 600mm, is bound to be disappointed. I've yet to see any camera that can perfectly stabilize, optically, shots anywhere near this focal length at this 4K resolution. If you need that kind of stability, there's only one answer, a tripod. :)

[Noa Put]

for hand-held shot at or near 600mm

Where all the shots in that video at 600mm? Like the ducks at 20sec?

I've yet to see any camera that can perfectly stabilize

Try the cx730, that one should be a benchmark how stabilization should look like :)

[Ken Ross]

Originally Posted by Noa Put

Where all the shots in that video at 600mm? Like the ducks at 20sec?

The ducks at 20 seconds were probably about 300-400mm.

Originally Posted by Noa Put

Try the cx730, that one should be a benchmark how stabilization should look like :)

And that's why I said at 'this resolution', meaning 4K. There is nothing like that, but if you make one, I'll buy it. ;)

[Noa Put]

Does the ax53 not have the boss stabilization in 4K?

[Ken Ross]

I believe it drops down to regular OIS for 4K. I don't believe there are any 4K, 5-axis stabilization systems, built in to any current camera, but I could be wrong...at least none that I'm interested in. :)

Edit: Looks like I was right. Here's the blurb from Sony's website for the 53. Notice the emphasis on "HD shooting mode":

"For extra-stable movie shooting from wide to telephoto. In HD shooting mode, 5-axis Intelligent Active mode further compensates for camera shake, even when shooting while running."

[Wacharapong Chiowanich]

FYI, on the AX53 it's still "BOSS" or the entire lens+sensor module floating on the gimbal but no 5-axis additional digital stabilization in 4K.

Still the best among all 4K money can buy, though, IMO.

[Dave Blackhurst]

The AX53 does still utilize the BOSS gimbal system in 4K, but not the additional active digital stabilization if I understand it correctly. I was having some intermittent "jiggle" issues on the one I tested. BUT it generally is VERY stable, even at long zooms....

THAT said, it was no where near as sharp as my RX's, or even the aging AX100 - in the end the trade off was not worth it to me, although it was a hard decision (and I may still pick up an AX53 again one of these days, but the RX10M3 is more what I'm looking for).

I rewatched the Vimeo and also que'd up the YT version.... this time on my i7 based quad core laptop.... first thing, it was MUCH smoother, and although there were some slightly shaky parts, they were clearly at the long end of the zoom, where some form of additional support (shoulder rig, monopod, bracket, etc.) would be needed to achieve anything much more stable.... it's livable, and I would always be using a bracket at the minimum (probably a big one I have laying around, since this cam is bigger and heavier than my others!). I'd gladly trade having to carry a "rig" of some moderate size for the sharper video!

One thing that was VERY noticeable - the Vimeo 4K was noticeably more stuttery/juddery than the YT version, so much so that I found the YT version much more watchable. Different algorithms for compression and playback I presume, but VERY noticeable, at least to me (the kids running in the Vimeo version looked like a series of stills, vs. a smoother video playback from YT, for instance). The YT video did stall and buffer though, so again, tradeoffs....

Oh the joys of the 4K "bleeding edge"!