Sony RX10 point-and-shoot camera

[Glen Vandermolen]

Sonyalpharumors states that Sony says the RX10 has less power consumption than the RX100MII, so it will have less overheating issues.

Actually, they linked to this article about Sony cameras:

http://www.imaging-resource.com/news...he-camera-game

[Simon Denny]

I have been away for a week shooting in the bush with no net coverage and just got out, has anyone bought the RX10? and if so please let me know how this camera is going so far.

Cheers

[Noa Put]

I got it, will be using it on a wedding next week, will let you know how it went.

[Simon Denny]

Fantastic mate, look forward to all the good and not so good opinions that you have with this camera.

[Darren Levine]

I've posted my rather lengthy write up of my thoughts after using the RX10 for about a week...

A truly first of it's kind bridge camera with a versatile lens and tons of good details

[Tom Roper]

Nice writeup. Looks like a great cam.

[Darren Levine]

thanks, there's also now plenty of videos to look at

https://vimeo.com/groups/219595

[Simon Denny]

Thanks Darren for that write up. Cheers

[Barry Goyette]

I think my main obstacle in this camera is the lack of 1080p30 output. It's just so odd that Sony includes 1080p60 (a non standard) and neglects a standard format like 30p... Forcing you toss half the data (in a challenged codec) to get it.

[Philip Lipetz]

My guess is that this camera is just a test bed for a camera that will incorporate the Full readout into 4K, and they just want to get feeback to fine tune the camera that will become their entry into mass market 4K.

[Darren Levine]

maybe for a consumer 4k product, but they already have their fs700 and beyond for the pro market 4k stuff.

considering theres now even phones shooting 4k, they have less and less of an excuse to put it off. Though i think if with the rx10 if they had even just done something like 2.5K, all other shortcomings would have been blown to the gutter and people would be raving about it

[Ron Evans]

As I have mentioned, my FDR-AX1 has a fan and gets hot. It is the encoder I am sure and not the sensor readout. I say this as my i7 3770, 16G RAM etc takes about 3 or 4 times realtime to encode to XAVCS !!!! A lot of compute power is needed to encode. An external 4K encoder/ recorder would be the answer and a body with a bottom connector much like a lot of DSLR external battery boxes would do the trick I think. This would provide a better performance than the 1/2.3" sensor in the FDR-AX1 I am sure. Maybe even an upgrade to the FDR-AX1 or the AE50 !!!

Ron Evans

[Dave Blackhurst]

This is where the performance of that Bionz X processor comes into review - supposedly it is already crunching 5K into 1080p, so at least the "front end" appears to already be in place. We know the HDMI is able to display 4K, at least for stills, one "frame" at a time...

I still think the memory is the bottleneck, and we will have to see either a faster spec MSPD or SDHC card or yet another "new" (meaning EXPENSIVE, thus not fit for consumers, at least initially) memory format - the 4K cameras so far seem to require an entirely new memory format ($$$).

The thermal question is of course part of this equation, but it does look like Sony made some breakthroughs with this sensor/processor to keep heat under control and still process the large data stream.

Rumor is that there will be a 4k Alphas announced soon, so it shouldn't be TOO long, and the RX series will undoubtedly be "upgraded" in due time - it seems to be their "cutting edge" in camera innovation to replace the niche once held by "P&S" cameras.

[Jim Giberti]

I got the new BMPCC on Friday and the RX10 arrives Monday.
I'll definitely have to find some time to shoot the two together when I'm setting them up.

[Ron Evans]

Memory is the cost bottleneck but the thermal issue is the encoder I am sure. Lowering the bitrate may help the cost but not the encoder as this will have an increasing task as bit rate goes down. Memory has a speed/cost issue when encoding rate goes up !!! You can see this with the spec differences between the PXW-Z100 using XAVC 10bit 4:2:2 codec and the FDR-AX1 XAVC-S 8bit 4:2:0 encoder. One has a max data rate of 600Mbps the other 150Mbps. A 64G card for the PXW-Z100 last about 12 mins and costs $320 the N series card for the FDR-AX1 lasts 56mins and costs $199. Data rate will be of the order of 5 to 7 times AVCHD realtime so something has to process this and this is not energy free !!! Still cameras already overheat shooting AVCHD, at 7 times the data rate they will not be cool for long !!! The FDR-AX1 will shoot 1920x1080 at 50Mbps I do not see much of a difference to the NX5U at 24Mbps though as I have not done a lot of testing.

Ron Evans