Gadgetory

for a variety of reasons I'd classify the sony cybershot DSC rx100 for as an advanced compact for video enthusiasts rather than a straight-up advanced compact like the m3 at least until the price drops a bit though it's more expensive and adds a plethora of video capabilities it pretty much delivers roughly the same photo quality and design I'm Lori Gruner for cnet and this is the sony cyber-shot rx100 for the m4 remains one of the most pocketable cameras of its type with it's still ingenious pop-up viewfinder the only change from the previous model is on the mode dial finally merges the three auto modes into a single auto to make room for the high frame rate option otherwise it has the same great design which includes the pop-up viewfinder a tiltable flash a flip up LCD and a control ring on the lens for adjusting selected settings on the other hand some of the negatives remain the grip less body is still slippery I don't like the small flat movie button and it lacks a hot shoe new for the rx100 line is 4k recording with tons of video friendly settings like framing markers control over zoom speed time coding user bit options and the ability to simultaneously record to card and send clean HDMI out to a recorder like the m3 it supports picture profiles which allow you to control tonal range rendering in movies and unlike previous models the m4 also supports tethered shooting via Sony's remote camera control software it also has a high frame rate mode for capturing two or four seconds to create short slow motion videos it's both a fun and frustrating feature and seems ill-suited to spur the moment recording camera has excellent single shot autofocus performance and decent continuous autofocus it's tested rate of five point seven frames per second for JPEGs and five frames per second for raw both for at least 30 shots and with autofocus very good for its class in the limited number of situations where you can forgo autofocus and auto exposure usually when people are standing on one place moving just parts of their bodies Sony's speed priority continuous do 10 frames per second with the mechanical shutter and 16 frames per second with electronic despite using a completely new but the same size and resolution sensor the images from the m4 look quite similar to those from the m3 it has slightly better noise performance in low light with more detail preserved in dark areas but there are no real obvious enhancements so the photo quality is quite good but still not best-in-class the video though looks excellent and the picture profiles give you significant control over the tonal range I still have trouble getting the highlights to keep from blowing out in bright light that's typical though if you're looking for the best pocket camera for video experimentation this is currently the best option but there are also cheaper choices which may suit those purposes as well for the full review hop on over to cnet com I'm Lori Audrina for cnet and this is the sony cybershot DSC rx100 for