Image Quality

All of the sample images in this Review were taken using the 20 megapixel JPEG setting, which gives an average image size of around 5Mb.

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 produced images of outstanding quality during the review period. This camera handled noise well, not becoming obvious until ISO 1600, and then becoming progressively worse at the faster settings of ISO 3200 and 6400, an excellent performance for a small image sensor with such a high pixel count.

Chromatic aberrations were in evidence but were well-controlled, with some limited purple fringing effects appearing in high contrast situations. The images were a little soft straight out of the camera at the default setting and require some further sharpening in an application like Adobe Photoshop, or you can increase the in-camera sharpening level.

Macro performance is good, allowing you to focus as close as 5cms away from the subject. The built-in flash worked well indoors, with no red-eye and good overall exposure. The maximum shutter speed of 30 seconds allows the cameras to capture enough light for most after-dark situations. The Steadyshot anti-shake system works well when hand-holding the camera at slower shutter speeds.

The effective Dynamic Range Optimizer function extracts more detail from the shadow and highlight areas in an image, without introducing any unwanted noise or other artifacts. The High Dynamic Range mode combines two shots taken at different exposures to produce one image with greater dynamic range than a single image would produce. It only works for JPEGs and for still subjects, but does produce some very effective results. Sony's now tried-and-trusted Sweep Panorama is still a joy to use. The Picture Effects quickly produce special looks that would otherwise require you to spend a lot of time in the digital darkroom, while the Creative Styles provide a quick and easy way to tweak the camera's JPEG images.

Noise

There are 9 ISO settings available on the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100. Here are some 100% crops which show the noise levels for each ISO setting for both JPEG and Raw formats.

JPEG	Raw
ISO 80 (100% Crop)	ISO 80 (100% Crop)
ISO 100 (100% Crop)	ISO 100 (100% Crop)
ISO 125 (100% Crop)	ISO 125 (100% Crop)
ISO 200 (100% Crop)	ISO 200 (100% Crop)
ISO 400 (100% Crop)	ISO 400 (100% Crop)
ISO 800 (100% Crop)	ISO 800 (100% Crop)
ISO 1600 (100% Crop)	ISO 1600 (100% Crop)
ISO 3200 (100% Crop)	ISO 3200 (100% Crop)
ISO 6400 (100% Crop)	ISO 6400 (100% Crop)

Focal Range

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100's 3.6x zoom lens offers a fairly versatile focal range, as illustrated by these examples:

28mm	100mm

Sharpening

Here are two 100% crops which have been Saved as Web - Quality 50 in Photoshop. The right-hand image has had some sharpening applied in Photoshop. The out-of-the camera images are just a little soft and ideally benefit from some further sharpening in a program like Adobe Photoshop. Alternatively you can change the in-camera sharpening level.

Original (100% Crop)	Sharpened (100% Crop)

File Quality

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 has 2 different image quality settings available, with Fine being the highest quality option. Here are some 100% crops which show the quality of the various options, with the file size shown in brackets.

Fine (5.41Mb) (100% Crop)	Standard (3.73Mb) (100% Crop)
RAW (19.7Mb) (100% Crop)

Chromatic Aberrations

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 handled chromatic aberrations well during the review, with some purple fringing present around the edges of objects in high-contrast situations, as shown in the examples below.

Example 1 (100% Crop)	Example 2 (100% Crop)

Macro

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 allows you to focus on a subject that is 5cms away from the camera when the lens is set to wide-angle. The first image shows how close you can get to the subject (in this case a compact flash card). The second image is a 100% crop.

Macro Shot	100% Crop

Flash

The flash settings on the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 are Auto, Forced Flash, Slow Syncro, No Flash, with a Red-eye Reduction option in the Main menu. These shots of a white coloured wall were taken at a distance of 1.5m.

Suppressed Flash - Wide Angle (28mm)	Forced Flash - Wide Angle (28mm)
Suppressed Flash - Telephoto (100mm)	Forced Flash - Telephoto (100mm)

And here are some portrait shots. As you can see, neither the Forced Flash setting or the Red-Eye Correction option caused any amount of red-eye.

Forced Flash	Forced Flash (100% Crop)
Red-eye Reduction	Red-eye Reduction (100% Crop)

Night Shot

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100's maximum shutter speed is 30 seconds in the Manual mode, which is great news if you're seriously interested in night photography. The shot below was taken using a shutter speed of 10 seconds at ISO 125. I've included a 100% crop of the image to show what the quality is like.

Night Shot	Night Shot (100% Crop)

Steadyshot

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 has an antishake mechanism which allows you to take sharp photos at slower shutter speeds than other digital cameras. To test this, I took 2 handheld shots of the same subject with the same settings. The first shot was taken with Shake Reduction turned off, the second with it turned on. Here is a 100% crop of the image to show the results. As you can see, with Shake Reduction turned on, the images are sharper than when it's turned off.

Shutter Speed / Focal Length	Shake Reduction Off (100% Crop)	Shake Reduction On (100% Crop)
1/4th / 28mm
1/6th / 100mm

Dynamic Range Optimizer

D-Range Optimiser (DRO) is Sony's solution to improve shadow detail in photos taken in contrasty light.

Off	LV1
LV2	LV3
LV4	LV5

High Dynamic Range

High Dynamic Range Optimiser (HDR) is Sony's solution for capturing more contrast than a single exposure can handle by combining two exposures into one image.

Off	1.0EV
2.0EV	3.0EV
4.0EV	5.0EV
6.0EV

Creative Styles

There are 6 Creative Style preset effects that you can use to change the look of your images.

Standard	Vivid
Portrait	Landscape
B/W	Sunset

Picture Effects

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 offers an extensive range of thirteen creative Picture Effects.

Off	Toy Camera
Pop Color	Posterization
Retro	Soft High-key
Partial Color (Red)	High Contrast Mono
Soft Focus	HDR Painting
Rich-tone Mono	Miniature
Watercolor	Illustration

Sweep Panorama

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 allows you to take panoramic images very easily, by 'sweeping' with the camera while keeping the shutter release depressed. The camera does all the processing and stitching and even successfully compensates for moving subjects.

Standard

Wide

Sample Images

This is a selection of sample images from the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 camera, which were all taken using the 20 megapixel Fine JPEG setting. The thumbnails below link to the full-sized versions, which have not been altered in any way.

Sample RAW Images

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 enables users to capture RAW and JPEG format files. We've provided some Sony RAW (ARW) samples for you to download (thumbnail images shown below are not 100% representative).

Sample Movie & Video

As of February 2025, we are no longer providing full size sample images or videos for download.

Please contact us if you have any feedback on our new policy.

Product Images

Front of the Camera

Front of the Camera / Lens Extended

Front of the Camera / Flash Raised

Isometric View

Isometric View

Isometric View

Isometric View

Rear of the Camera

Rear of the Camera / Image Displayed

Rear of the Camera / Turned On

Rear of the Camera / Function Menu

Rear of the Camera / Main Menu

Rear of the Camera / Help Menu

Top of the Camera

Bottom of the Camera

Side of the Camera

Side of the Camera

Front of the Camera

Front of the Camera

Memory Card Slot

Battery Compartment

Conclusion

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 takes a clear shot at the popular Canon PowerShot S-series and in most ways clearly beats it, resulting in the best pocket camera that avid photographers can currently buy.

Sony have obviously been "inspired" by the Canon S100 and its forebears, with the RX100 mimicking its main rival's twin control rings and button layout, so much so that they look like long-lost twins at first glance. Where the RX100 gains significant ground, though, is with the inclusion of a much larger sensor, previously seen on Nikon's 1 compact system camera series. We think it makes much more sense in a small camera like the RX100, though, with the ability to achieve DSLR-like effects and image quality a real surprise given the camera's small size and light weight. The RX100 now proves that you don't necessarily have to buy and lug around a larger camera to get excellent results - it really does hit the sweet spot between portability and image quality.

The 20.2 megapixel sensor provides excellent results from ISO 100-1600, with only the faster settings of 3200 and 6400 suffering from a little too much noise and smearing of fine detail. Chromatic aberrations are well controlled and colours a little dull but largely accurate, and the fast 3.6x lens is great for achieving that shallow DSLR-like depth-of-field and using the camera in low-light conditions. The headline grabbing F1.8 maximum aperture soon slows down as the zoom increases, but it's still perfectly possible to throw the background out of focus throughout the range.

As the RX100 is a Sony camera, it boasts a long list of other stand-out features, particularly excelling in the speed department. Auto-focusing is very quick and reliable, shutter lag only notable by its apparent absence, and image processing times thankfully non-intrusive, even for the large Raw files that the RX100 produces. This camera really does deliver DSLR-like performance and image quality in a pocketable format, music to the ears of most enthusiasts.

Flies in the ointment are few and far between. In attempting to appeal to beginners, pros and everyone in between, the RX100's wealth of options is initially intimidating and at worse downright confusing, although we suspect that once you've turned off or ignored the features that don't suit you, it will prove more pliant. We don't like the in-camera battery charging as it essentially forces you to buy a second battery, while the pop-up flash though clever in design takes ages to recharge and is underpowered when finally ready. Still, these are fairly minor gripes for what is otherwise an undeniably excellent camera.

Sony have not only blurred the lines between compact and compact system in terms of the RX100's features, performance and image quality, but somewhat inevitably perhaps also in terms of its price. $650/£550 is more than many mirrorless cameras and even some DSLRs too, but on the other hand this is no humble compact. The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 is the first truly pocketable camera to offer a DSLR experience, and in that regard it could almost be seen as something of a bargain - it's certainly deserving of our highest Essential! accolade.

Ratings (out of 5)
Design	5
Features	5
Ease-of-use	4.5
Image quality	5
Value for money	4

Review Roundup

Reviews of the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 from around the web.

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