Sony has recently launched the RX100 VI (model DSC-RX100M6) camera in Saudi Arabia under its popular Cyber-Shot RX100 series of premium compact cameras.
I tried my hands on this new compact camera by Sony for awhile and in this article, I am going to share a detailed review of Sony RX100 VI covering all of its pro and cons.
This review is divided in multiple sections, covering pros and cons of each in it. If you are looking forward to buy a new compact camera, hope you will find this Sony RX100 VI camera review useful for you.
Sony RX100 VI comes in a small retail box stuffed with lots of things. Inside the retail box you will find Sony RX100 VI camera, charger, USB cable, a rechargeable battery, wrist strap, strap adapter and many user guides in different languages.
Sony RX100 VI is a compact but premium camera, so Sony tried to provide as much features as possible in smallest possible size. It is just 42.8 mm thick and weighs only 300 grams including the battery and memory card in it.
The body of Sony RX100 VI comes with matte finish that looks beautiful and also provides a good grip to the camera. The build quality is nice and the product looks solid and durable in looks and also in hands. On the front side, there is Sony and Zeiss branding and nearly the whole front is occupied by the lens module.
On the back, there is a touchscreen electronic viewfinder along with various buttons and controls. At the top, there are flash, power button, viewfinder, mode control rotatory dial, button to pop out the flash module and the zoom controls. The zoom lever operation can be customized for different zoom speeds from the camera settings.
On the left side, there is button provided to pop out the electronic viewfinder. Once used, the flash and viewfinder can be placed back to the slot and the fitting is so perfect that once placed back in the slot, it is hard to say that there was any object there before.
On the right side of camera, multipurpose port and HDMI port provided. At the bottom, there is battery slot, memory card slot and a standard screw connectivity option provided to connect the camera with tripods etc.
The touchscreen viewfinder is a high-contrast 2.35 million dot XGA OLED Tru-Finder™ display with ZEISS® T* Coating. The electronic viewfinder can be set to retract itself in and out of the camera body automatically based on user preference. The touchscreen of RX100 VI allows user to activate the touch shutter by tapping the back LCD screen.
The touchscreen viewfinder is detachable and the LCD that can be rotated 180 degrees upward or 90 degrees downward. So, it can be used as a self portrait screen to take images and record videos. This is really helpful for vloggers as they can see themselves in real time while making content.
Overall, the design of Sony RX100 VI is nice and serves the purpose in every way. It is compact, lightweight, durable and designed for a better user experience.
Sony RX100 VI is the first camera under the RX100 series that comes with the ZEISS® Vario-Sonnar T* 24-200mmi F2.8 – F4.5 - a high magnification zoom lens. It features one-inch stacked 20.1 MP Exmor RS™ CMOS image sensor with DRAM chip and an upgraded BIONZ X™ image processor with a front-end Large-Scale Integrated (LSI) chip that maximizes processing speed and optimizes image quality in all shooting environments. For connectivity, it comes with Wi-Fi®, NFC™ and Bluetooth®.
Sony RX100 VI features a fast Hybrid AF system with 315-point Phase-Detection AF points on the sensor that cover approximately 65 per cent of the sensor and contrast-detection AF to provide the super fast focus speed of 0.03 seconds, the world’s fastest AF acquisition time for 1.0-type sensor cameras. Other than the specs sheet, the performance is impressive in real life too. The autofocus speed was superfast and correct each time.
It is capable of shooting at up to 24 fps at full resolution with continuous AF/AE tracking providing buffer limit of up to 233 images and can record 4K resolution HDR videos with full pixel readout and no pixel binning. It is also capable of recording Super Slow Motion video at either 240fps, 480 fps or 960 fps . It would be better if it was capable of recording 4K videos at 60fps as it is getting pretty common even in smartphones.
The RX100 VI comes with two ED (Extra-low Dispersion) aspherical glass elements, eight aspherical lens elements and four AA (Advanced Aspherical) lenses that contributes in the imaging by high powered zoom lens of both 24-70mm and 70-200mmi focal lengths. There is an electronic shutter and a mechanical shutter mode, both are provided and user can select the one they would like to use.
The lens also features built-in Optical SteadyShotTM image stabilization that is equivalent to a 4.0-stop faster shutter speed and contributes in shake-free imaging and removes blurriness even in a low-light condition or while zooming in. I tried some handheld shots while using the maximum zoom available and the stabilization was super impressive and captured shake-free images each time perfectly.
Sony RX100 VI is also the first ever camera in Sony’s RX100 series to feature Sony’s advanced High-density Tracking AF technology, which concentrates AF points around a subject to improve tracking and focus accuracy.
The popular Eye AF technology is also available with approximately 2x the tracking performance of the current RX100 series model and it works perfectly by tracking the eyes of the subject to provide great quality portrait shots.
RX100 VI also comes with the LCD touch focusing and touchpad focus point control that let users drag their fingers to select the ideal focus points of their choice. But the function of the touchscreen is limited to this only and for all other things and controlling the camera, you will have to use the physical controls provided to perform any task.
When it comes to performance, Sony RX100 VI excels in nearly everything. The imaging quality is brilliant and pictures come with lots of details too.
Images captured in plenty of light show good amount of detail and the color reproduction is close to the real life, not over-saturated or less. The sharpness is a bit low but it can always be fixed later. While taking portrait pictures, the depth of field is nice and create good bokeh effect in the image while perfectly outlining the edges. Also the depth estimation is very accurate bringing negligible artifacts in the image as you can see in the below image.
The zooming capability is impressive and the stabilization works really well to provide shake-free images even when captured at the maximum zoom level. Obviously, the image loses the quality when zoomed in but still the performance is better than many other cameras out there in the same segment.
When doing macro photography, Sony RX100 VI impresses as well. The focus on the objects come perfect and provide great amount of detail.
The low light imaging capability of the camera is nice and captures great quality images with slightest amount of noise. Even while capturing low-light images on full zoom level, the output came totally shake-free and with no noise. So the noise reduction in Sony RX100 VI is very impressive for sure.
The dynamic range is good if not great and serves the purpose. But the HDR in the video somehow changes the composition that ends up output look a bit unnatural in color and contrast.
The video recording quality is good and the recorded videos comes with good amount of details with solid bitrate. The audio recording in the video is of very nice quality as well. It is capable of recording 4K HDR videos but as mentioned above, the HDR video looks a bit unnatural in composition.
It can record slow-motion videos at 240fps, 480 fps or 960 fps in good quality. But for that it needs sufficient amount of light. Specifically I was not able to record anything indoors in artificial light at 960fps as the output was nearly black screen only.
Sony RX100 VI comes with lots of features and you can access all of them from the camera settings and various menus. You can perform lots of task like selecting various shooting modes like Intelligent Auto, Superior Auto, Aperture Priority,Shutter Speed Priority, Memory Recall, Movie Mode, HFR Mode etc.
There is also option provided to select various scene modeslike Portrait,Sports Action,Macro,Landscape,Sunset,Night Scene,Handheld Twilight,Night Portrait,Anti Motion Blur,Pet Mode,Gourmet,Fireworks and High Sensitivity to capture the perfect shot in the easiest way possible.
You can also select the picture profile, picture effect, creative effects and much more. Literally you can change every single parameter of your camera settings and use various preset on Sony RX100 VI.
It also comes with a dedicated smartphone app that you can use to control the camera remotely from your smartphone. Setup is easy and once connected, you can capture an image, change the settings, zoom in/out on the object, turn on/off the flash, select the picture mode and perform lots of task on your Sony RX100 VI right from your smartphone.
Sony RX100 VI is an excellent compact camera that is designed for content creators in mind. The design is beautiful, built quality is nice and it brings lots of feature and powerful hardware in a very small body.
The performance is great and it delivers perfectly in nearly every condition. Video quality is brilliant but the slow-motion is not so great in low-light conditions. It comes with lots of features and options that will serve nearly every kind of user.
If you are looking for a feature rich compact camera with nice performance then, Sony RX100 VI is a nice option for you.
I tried my hands on this new compact camera by Sony for awhile and in this article, I am going to share a detailed review of Sony RX100 VI covering all of its pro and cons.
This review is divided in multiple sections, covering pros and cons of each in it. If you are looking forward to buy a new compact camera, hope you will find this Sony RX100 VI camera review useful for you.
Sony RX100 VI - Detailed Hands-on Review
Inside the Retail Box
Sony RX100 VI comes in a small retail box stuffed with lots of things. Inside the retail box you will find Sony RX100 VI camera, charger, USB cable, a rechargeable battery, wrist strap, strap adapter and many user guides in different languages.
Design
Sony RX100 VI is a compact but premium camera, so Sony tried to provide as much features as possible in smallest possible size. It is just 42.8 mm thick and weighs only 300 grams including the battery and memory card in it.
The body of Sony RX100 VI comes with matte finish that looks beautiful and also provides a good grip to the camera. The build quality is nice and the product looks solid and durable in looks and also in hands. On the front side, there is Sony and Zeiss branding and nearly the whole front is occupied by the lens module.
On the back, there is a touchscreen electronic viewfinder along with various buttons and controls. At the top, there are flash, power button, viewfinder, mode control rotatory dial, button to pop out the flash module and the zoom controls. The zoom lever operation can be customized for different zoom speeds from the camera settings.
On the left side, there is button provided to pop out the electronic viewfinder. Once used, the flash and viewfinder can be placed back to the slot and the fitting is so perfect that once placed back in the slot, it is hard to say that there was any object there before.
On the right side of camera, multipurpose port and HDMI port provided. At the bottom, there is battery slot, memory card slot and a standard screw connectivity option provided to connect the camera with tripods etc.
The touchscreen viewfinder is a high-contrast 2.35 million dot XGA OLED Tru-Finder™ display with ZEISS® T* Coating. The electronic viewfinder can be set to retract itself in and out of the camera body automatically based on user preference. The touchscreen of RX100 VI allows user to activate the touch shutter by tapping the back LCD screen.
The touchscreen viewfinder is detachable and the LCD that can be rotated 180 degrees upward or 90 degrees downward. So, it can be used as a self portrait screen to take images and record videos. This is really helpful for vloggers as they can see themselves in real time while making content.
Overall, the design of Sony RX100 VI is nice and serves the purpose in every way. It is compact, lightweight, durable and designed for a better user experience.
Hardware Specs
Sony RX100 VI is the first camera under the RX100 series that comes with the ZEISS® Vario-Sonnar T* 24-200mmi F2.8 – F4.5 - a high magnification zoom lens. It features one-inch stacked 20.1 MP Exmor RS™ CMOS image sensor with DRAM chip and an upgraded BIONZ X™ image processor with a front-end Large-Scale Integrated (LSI) chip that maximizes processing speed and optimizes image quality in all shooting environments. For connectivity, it comes with Wi-Fi®, NFC™ and Bluetooth®.
Sony RX100 VI features a fast Hybrid AF system with 315-point Phase-Detection AF points on the sensor that cover approximately 65 per cent of the sensor and contrast-detection AF to provide the super fast focus speed of 0.03 seconds, the world’s fastest AF acquisition time for 1.0-type sensor cameras. Other than the specs sheet, the performance is impressive in real life too. The autofocus speed was superfast and correct each time.
It is capable of shooting at up to 24 fps at full resolution with continuous AF/AE tracking providing buffer limit of up to 233 images and can record 4K resolution HDR videos with full pixel readout and no pixel binning. It is also capable of recording Super Slow Motion video at either 240fps, 480 fps or 960 fps . It would be better if it was capable of recording 4K videos at 60fps as it is getting pretty common even in smartphones.
The RX100 VI comes with two ED (Extra-low Dispersion) aspherical glass elements, eight aspherical lens elements and four AA (Advanced Aspherical) lenses that contributes in the imaging by high powered zoom lens of both 24-70mm and 70-200mmi focal lengths. There is an electronic shutter and a mechanical shutter mode, both are provided and user can select the one they would like to use.
The lens also features built-in Optical SteadyShotTM image stabilization that is equivalent to a 4.0-stop faster shutter speed and contributes in shake-free imaging and removes blurriness even in a low-light condition or while zooming in. I tried some handheld shots while using the maximum zoom available and the stabilization was super impressive and captured shake-free images each time perfectly.
Sony RX100 VI is also the first ever camera in Sony’s RX100 series to feature Sony’s advanced High-density Tracking AF technology, which concentrates AF points around a subject to improve tracking and focus accuracy.
The popular Eye AF technology is also available with approximately 2x the tracking performance of the current RX100 series model and it works perfectly by tracking the eyes of the subject to provide great quality portrait shots.
RX100 VI also comes with the LCD touch focusing and touchpad focus point control that let users drag their fingers to select the ideal focus points of their choice. But the function of the touchscreen is limited to this only and for all other things and controlling the camera, you will have to use the physical controls provided to perform any task.
Performance and Imaging Quality
When it comes to performance, Sony RX100 VI excels in nearly everything. The imaging quality is brilliant and pictures come with lots of details too.
Images captured in plenty of light show good amount of detail and the color reproduction is close to the real life, not over-saturated or less. The sharpness is a bit low but it can always be fixed later. While taking portrait pictures, the depth of field is nice and create good bokeh effect in the image while perfectly outlining the edges. Also the depth estimation is very accurate bringing negligible artifacts in the image as you can see in the below image.
The zooming capability is impressive and the stabilization works really well to provide shake-free images even when captured at the maximum zoom level. Obviously, the image loses the quality when zoomed in but still the performance is better than many other cameras out there in the same segment.
When doing macro photography, Sony RX100 VI impresses as well. The focus on the objects come perfect and provide great amount of detail.
The low light imaging capability of the camera is nice and captures great quality images with slightest amount of noise. Even while capturing low-light images on full zoom level, the output came totally shake-free and with no noise. So the noise reduction in Sony RX100 VI is very impressive for sure.
The dynamic range is good if not great and serves the purpose. But the HDR in the video somehow changes the composition that ends up output look a bit unnatural in color and contrast.
The video recording quality is good and the recorded videos comes with good amount of details with solid bitrate. The audio recording in the video is of very nice quality as well. It is capable of recording 4K HDR videos but as mentioned above, the HDR video looks a bit unnatural in composition.
It can record slow-motion videos at 240fps, 480 fps or 960 fps in good quality. But for that it needs sufficient amount of light. Specifically I was not able to record anything indoors in artificial light at 960fps as the output was nearly black screen only.
Features and Smartphone App
Sony RX100 VI comes with lots of features and you can access all of them from the camera settings and various menus. You can perform lots of task like selecting various shooting modes like Intelligent Auto, Superior Auto, Aperture Priority,Shutter Speed Priority, Memory Recall, Movie Mode, HFR Mode etc.
There is also option provided to select various scene modeslike Portrait,Sports Action,Macro,Landscape,Sunset,Night Scene,Handheld Twilight,Night Portrait,Anti Motion Blur,Pet Mode,Gourmet,Fireworks and High Sensitivity to capture the perfect shot in the easiest way possible.
You can also select the picture profile, picture effect, creative effects and much more. Literally you can change every single parameter of your camera settings and use various preset on Sony RX100 VI.
It also comes with a dedicated smartphone app that you can use to control the camera remotely from your smartphone. Setup is easy and once connected, you can capture an image, change the settings, zoom in/out on the object, turn on/off the flash, select the picture mode and perform lots of task on your Sony RX100 VI right from your smartphone.
Conclusion
Sony RX100 VI is an excellent compact camera that is designed for content creators in mind. The design is beautiful, built quality is nice and it brings lots of feature and powerful hardware in a very small body.
The performance is great and it delivers perfectly in nearly every condition. Video quality is brilliant but the slow-motion is not so great in low-light conditions. It comes with lots of features and options that will serve nearly every kind of user.
If you are looking for a feature rich compact camera with nice performance then, Sony RX100 VI is a nice option for you.