docbert

So it turns out I wasn't "Just sayin'", and I actually picked up one of these a few weeks ago.

I haven't had a good chance to use it yet, but I did take it up to Yosemite National Park last weekend and took it hiking with me.

I've hiked with all of my cameras before, from my DSLR (Canon 70D, normally with a 17-40 or 28-135), to my Mirrorless (Nikon 1 S1) and down to a compact (most recently Nikon Coolpix S8200). Each of course has it's advantages, and each it's disadvantages.

The RX100M6 made a great compromise between everything else. The size was such that I could keep it in one of the water-bottle holders on the side of my daypack (where I normally keep my compact - the bigger ones don't fit), which meant that it was always at hand - unlike the bigger cameras. The zoom range is better than any of my other cameras with a single lens (My DSLR goes from 17-400, but only if I want to take 3 lenses). The image quality easily beats the compact, is probably similar to the mirrorless, and close enough to the SDLR for the types of shots I was taking.

But the feature I ended up liking the most was the viewfinder. Even with a nice bright LCD screen, when you're outside on a bight and sunny day, standing on a massive slab of granite which is reflecting the sun back at you, it's always difficult to get a clear idea of what you're photographing. The viewfinder solves that completely. It took a few shots to get used to it being a screen (rather than an SLR viewfinder), but once I had it was just so natural to use.

The only real disadvantage I came across, which is one I knew I was going to hit, was the lack of a polariser. I use C-PL filters fairly regularly on my DSLR/Mirrorless, especially on outdoor shots, but the RX100M6 doesn't have a filter ring. There are hacks to give it one, but at this stage I'll just have to live with attempting to simulate one in Photoshop after the fact.

The panorama feature... well.. it failed miserably in many shots - although I'll put that down to what I was photographing and it likely won't be the same for other locations. See the image below for an example - notice the massively repeated patterns where it's messed up the joins.

All up, after only a little use I'm more than happy with my US$1K investment. (Purchased in Australia for US$1100, with a $100 GST refund on the way out of the country).

100% crop of a climber repelling down (a dry) Yosemite Falls, taken from half-way up the Yosemite Falls Trail @200mm. I'm not going to claim this is a brilliant photo, but the simple fact is that with any other camera I wouldn't have had a 200mm lens with me, so I wouldn't have been able to get this shot. Like they say, the best cameras is the one you have with you, and I can see myself having this one with me a lot more than my bigger ones :




100% crop from a failed pano :