Exactly why my RX100 m3 hasn't been out of its drawer for over 2 years now. Amazing IQ for its size but living with it is the pits.
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Early Impressions: Panasonic Lumix ZS200
- Thread starter OldMacs4Me
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My Sony RX100 M7 is quick enough both in terms of startup/shutdown and responsiveness, and I like that it has a somewhat longer zoom range than the original first two or three in the series.
Battery
So far I haven't talked about battery life. That's because I haven't really given the camera that heavy of a workout. I can say it comes with a 1 amp USB charger which connects via a 2' cable to the camera. The battery had to be charged before I could test out the camera, that took almost 5 hours.
Early daze I was doing a lot of menu diving as I learned some of the ins and outs. And extensive menu diving does eat into battery life. Recharging seems to take about two and half hours, but I haven't let it drop much lower than half. Can't say how close I would get to the claimed 250 images, starting fully charged and taking a lot of shots. Without reviewing them and not using the EVF. Claimed life is closer to 150 images when using the EVF.
As a general rule I have found that Li-Ion batteries will suffer as they age. My recommendation is a spare battery or two. I was able to get a pair for $25. You can swap out the battery without losing settings. Better yet get a pair with separate charger.
I am going to show a bit of ignorance here. I know the battery is ~7.2-Volts and that USB output is 5-Volts. So somehow the USB voltage is stepped up in the camera. I have no idea how robust that circuitry is, but if I were buying a replacement USB converter or one that works from the cars cigar lighter, I would confirm the output matches the original at 1.0 Amp.
So far I haven't talked about battery life. That's because I haven't really given the camera that heavy of a workout. I can say it comes with a 1 amp USB charger which connects via a 2' cable to the camera. The battery had to be charged before I could test out the camera, that took almost 5 hours.
Early daze I was doing a lot of menu diving as I learned some of the ins and outs. And extensive menu diving does eat into battery life. Recharging seems to take about two and half hours, but I haven't let it drop much lower than half. Can't say how close I would get to the claimed 250 images, starting fully charged and taking a lot of shots. Without reviewing them and not using the EVF. Claimed life is closer to 150 images when using the EVF.
As a general rule I have found that Li-Ion batteries will suffer as they age. My recommendation is a spare battery or two. I was able to get a pair for $25. You can swap out the battery without losing settings. Better yet get a pair with separate charger.
I am going to show a bit of ignorance here. I know the battery is ~7.2-Volts and that USB output is 5-Volts. So somehow the USB voltage is stepped up in the camera. I have no idea how robust that circuitry is, but if I were buying a replacement USB converter or one that works from the cars cigar lighter, I would confirm the output matches the original at 1.0 Amp.
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So was experimenting with Christmas lighting, bracketed. The -1.33, -.67, N, and + .67 EBVs were all usable providing different effects. This was -2/3rds EBV. Other than resizing and sharpening in Preview, it's as the JPEG came from the camera. Camera grabbed an ISO of 1600 at 1/40th of a second. Nice to have a fence to prop my elbows on. Next go round will try setting the ISO at 3200 or even 6400. Suspect both would work with this kind of scene. Will also remember to reset aspect ratio to 3:2.
Yes I know the framing could have been better and that I should have focused a bit deeper than I did. I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly it grabbed and held the focus.
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Anyways that pretty much covers everything I had to say about this camera. The 1 inch sensor is nearly quadruple the sensor area of the teeny weenie sensors found on iPhones, Mr. Powershot and my Fuji waterproof camera.
The actual focal length of the lens varies from 8.8 to 132mm or equivalent to 24-360mm on a full frame camera.
Depth of field depends on three things; actual focal length of the lens, distance to the point of focus, and aperture. The 1 inch sensor allows for great depth of field out to about a 100mm equivalent while providing much better detail capture than cameras with the tiny sensors.
However if you want to put a subject in focus and blur everything else you will need to work out towards the long end of the lens and be fairly close to your subject.
The first image is from several blocks away with the lens zoomed in all the way to the 360mm equivalent. Even so almost everything is in focus. The raven however was about 12 feet away, again at 360mm equivalent but the closer focus point allowed for much more selective focusing. Even so going with something closer to a full frame sensor is highly advisable if bokeh or selective focus are what you are looking for.
The actual focal length of the lens varies from 8.8 to 132mm or equivalent to 24-360mm on a full frame camera.
Depth of field depends on three things; actual focal length of the lens, distance to the point of focus, and aperture. The 1 inch sensor allows for great depth of field out to about a 100mm equivalent while providing much better detail capture than cameras with the tiny sensors.
However if you want to put a subject in focus and blur everything else you will need to work out towards the long end of the lens and be fairly close to your subject.
The first image is from several blocks away with the lens zoomed in all the way to the 360mm equivalent. Even so almost everything is in focus. The raven however was about 12 feet away, again at 360mm equivalent but the closer focus point allowed for much more selective focusing. Even so going with something closer to a full frame sensor is highly advisable if bokeh or selective focus are what you are looking for.
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That's changing quickly though (on the iPhone side). I'll still use the P&S over the phone every time I need the extra reach or ergonomics, but the 1" sensor isn't that much bigger than an iPhone sensor anymore. I've got an iPhone 12 Pro, which has a 24mm^2 sensor compared to the 116mm^2 of a 1" sensor (so 5x bigger). But the iPhone 13 Pro is 44mm^2, so only 2.5x bigger now! And the rumors are that the iPhone 14 Pro (and current Galaxy S21 Ultra) is 70mm^2, which puts the 1" sensor at only 1.7x bigger! That coupled with the computational photography and much faster lens in the phone makes them better at low light, something that would've sounded crazy a few years ago.
If you want to shoot at 26mm, that is. For any longer focal lengths the sensors are tiny (12mm^2 on the iPhone 13 Pro, so almost 10x smaller than the Lumix), so that's where the P&S really shines.
All I really want is a camera the size of an RX100 with a full frame sensor and 16-200mm lens. Is that really so much to ask for? Oh and also it should be f/1.4 of course.
In the meantime this camera fits the bill for me or more specifically for my wife as she will be the main user.
A bit of an edit on battery life. Was out prowling the neighbourhood shooting Christmas lights in -5°C temps. Shot 100 frames (20 batches of 5). Back home I spent considerable viewing time, deleting individual shots and some entire batches. Battery had not been charged in the past three weeks before I started, and is still showing full charge in the indicator. Out of all that I found an approach to Christmas Lights that works well for me. Also discovered that an ISO of 6400 is definitely usable with this kind of subject.
BTW All I really want is a 500 to 600MP 4x5 Graflok digital camera-back/view-screen for my old Linhof. Oh and please keep it under $5000.
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