Introduction The Sony Cyber-shot RX100 VII is, as the name suggests, the seventh completely new model in the company's pocketable large sensor zoom compact series. Like 2018's Mark VI, the VII is a 1" sensor pocket superzoom, with a lens that stretches from a wide-angle of 24mm equiv up to the telephoto realms of 200mm equiv at the long end.
Like its predecessor, it features a stacked CMOS sensor with DRAM storage built into the chip itself, allowing it to buffer the data it so quickly reads out from its sensor. But the main thing the latest camera brings is updated autofocus capability and usability, which could prove to be bigger steps forward than it might sound.
Through a familiar lens
The RX100 VII is built around the same 24-200mm equivalent F2. 8-4. 5 lens as its immediate predecessor and the Mark V (plotted above). It gives the camera immense flexibility when shooting in good light but its comparatively dark maximum aperture means it doesn't offer the low-light capability and control over depth-of-field that the 24-70mm equiv F1. 8-2. 8 lens offered on the RX100 Marks III to V. The lens crams so much into such a small space that it doesn't leave room for the built-in ND filter that we appreciated in those earlier models.
We were impressed by the quality of the lens when we saw it in the Mark VI. In terms of specifications, though, it sits somewhere between the range offered by the Panasonic DC-ZS200 and the brightness offered by the Canon G5 X II and G7 X III. Between these different models, there are some interesting options to choose between.
New autofocus system
The RX100 VII comes with Sony's latest autofocus implementation, which it calls Real-time Tracking (it includes Real-time Eye-AF, meaning you don't need to hold a separate button). Confusingly, you won't specifically find 'Real-time Tracking' anywhere in the menus, it's just the name Sony gives to the behavior you get whenever you select any of the 'Tracking' autofocus area options.
In essence, the RX100 VII allows you to place an autofocus area over a subject of your choosing - if it's simply an object, the camera will show a small green box over it and will tenaciously track it around the frame. If the subject is a person, the camera will transition to face and eye detection autofocus automatically. And if they turn away or move unpredictably (like, say, a toddler tends to), the camera will draw the same green box it uses for non-human objects over where that person's face or eye used to be.
In other words, the camera doesn't stop tracking just because it's lost your subject's face or eye momentarily, and it makes getting accurate focus for people photography drop-dead easy. The final party piece? The RX100 VII also has this real-time Eye-AF for animals as well. In our preliminary testing, it works impressively well on both dogs and cats.
Take a look at Real-time Tracking in action (taken from the a6400) here:
Blackout-free continuous shooting
Fast burst speeds mean you're that much more likely to capture the exact moment you want, and the RX100 VII has you covered in this regard. Although its 20fps burst rate is a bit lower than its predecessors' 24fps, there's an important difference: the Mark VII now shoots at 20fps with no blackout. Basically, as you shoot bursts, you continue to see a live feed exactly as you would if you were just framing up your shots, though the camera will show little bracket marks around the corners of the screen to indicate that you are indeed shooting, and that you're filling up your memory card very quickly.
Older RX100-series models (and indeed most other cameras) have some degree of 'blackout' while shooting bursts. Previously, even at 24fps on the RX100 VI, all you could get was a slideshow of existing images: granted, it was a slideshow showing 24 photos every second, but it still looked a bit 'choppy' and delayed. With the Mark VII, you now simply see the live feed as you normally would, making that much easier for you to follow the action as you shoot.
Single bursts
Another high-speed feature of the RX100 VII is a 'Single Burst' shooting mode. This fires off seven shots with a single button press, and can be used to capture any combination of JPEGs and Raws. It relies on you to anticipate the key moment (as in all photography) but grabs multiple frames (at 90, 60 or 30 frames per second) immediately after you fully press the shutter.
Autofocus is locked at the first frame and there's no pre-buffering function, so it doesn't preempt the key moment. Think of it instead as a single shot mode with a tiny bit of a tiny bit of post-press leeway.
You can't hold the shutter button down to shoot more images, but you can immediately release and re-press to capture another seven shots.
Video specs
The RX100 VII's core video specs are essentially unchanged compared to those of the Mark VI: UHD 4K capture at up to 30p, 1080 video at up to 120p or upscaled lower-res video clips at up to 100fps.
It has all the usual Sony video goodies: focus peaking, adjustable zebra exposure warnings and a selection of response profiles, including S-Log2, S-Log3 and 'HLG. ' All the camera's footage is 8-bit, though, even if you use an external recorder.
4K capture is limited to 5 minutes in the standard temperature protection mode, but will extend beyond this (for a duration that depends on the ambient temperature) if you disable this feature. Sony recommends using a tripod if you plan to do this, as the camera body risks becoming uncomfortably hot.
The Mark VII's autofocus improvements spill over into video, with an enhanced tap-to-track feature and Eye-AF. We'll be testing this soon, but it promises a comparatively straight-forward way of getting the camera to follow the action.
Video enhancements
Somehow Sony has found room within the camera's tiny, feature-packed body to include a mic socket. This opens up the option of using much better microphones than the built-in ones. There's no hotshoe to mount a mic on, nor headphone socket for audio monitoring, but there are plenty of mount-brackets available that will screw into the tripod socket if you want to have a mic riding shotgun.
The RX100 VII's additional processing power allows it to provide 'Active SteadyShot' mode, even in 4K shooting. This combines digital stabilization, which uses a moving crop of the sensor to compensate for large camera movements, with optical stabilization. This imposes a crop on the video but means it can provide smooth footage even if you walk with the camera.
In keeping with its selfie and vlogging-friendly flip-up screen, the RX100 VII offers the ability to shoot portrait-orientation video. Not ideal for playback on TVs but increasingly popular for viewing on smartphones via social media.
Existing features
There's no denying that Sony's left a lot of the RX100 VII alone, relative to its predecessor. That's not entirely bad, either: we still have the nifty pop-up electronic viewfinder that fully deploys with only a single button press.
A touch-sensitive rear LCD that folds up 180 degrees for vlogging and down 90 degrees for shooting at high angles, and an incredible capacity for button and interface customization.
But there are some carryovers that we're less thrilled with: for one, the touchscreen is still a bit of a laggy affair, and you're limited to using it for focus point placement and playback (you cannot interact with the regular or function menus with the touchscreen). The battery is still minuscule, with a rating of 260 shots per charge (per CIPA: expect more though, when shooting those 20-90fps bursts).
Lastly, despite all the emphasis on burst speed, the RX100 VII retains a UHS-I card slot, instead of taking advantage of much faster write times that UHS-II cards can bring. This isn't a problem for video: a U3-rated card is more than enough for the camera's 100mbps (12. 5MB/s) maximum bitrate, but options such as drive mode are still inaccessible while the camera empties its buffer after a burst of images, so you will notice the bottleneck of the elderly UHS-I interface.
Summary
The RX100 VII is a subtle yet significant update to the RX100 VI. It's expensive in a way that cutting-edge tech tends to be, but it does offer distinct performance and usability benefits over its more conventional peers to try to justify that cost.
We've been really impressed by Sony's latest tracking system (even if we're not sure publicizing names like 'Real-time Tracking and Real-Time Eye AF' are useful, if they're not called that in the device). Not so much because of its performance - thought that's been very good in the implementations we've used - but because of its combination of performance and usability.
The RX100 VII promises to be a pocket superzoom with the image quality of a 1" sensor but with a powerful, easy-to-use AF system and the ability to shoot at 20 frames per second with a preview that lets you actually follow the action. And that's before we get to its hand-holdable 4K video shooting.
It's the combination of these elements that makes it so promising, even if its price tag comes as a reminder that good things don't come for free. That said, fast reliable AF tracking and >10fps shooting used to be things that only existed in pro-sports cameras, not something you can fit in your pocket.
Of course, our next job is to test whether the RX100 VI lives up to the promises made by its specifications. . .
. dpreview.com2019-7-29 16:00
