For the first time in a long time, I took a camera with me on my recent business trip to Dubai. I knew I had some time in the evenings after my meetings to walk around downtown Dubai. Unfortunately I was disappointed with most of the photos I took during that trip using our four-year old compact camera. I resolved to look into a better one to complement my DSLR gear. There have been a lot of developments recently in enthusiast-level compact cameras that give more options over the camera controls and shooting formats including RAW. The Sony DSC RX-100 is one such model that has received strong reviews. I also looked at the Canon PowerShot S110 but decided to go for the Sony because of the many reports of its better image quality.
I’m very happy with my initial results from the camera. Note that I process all of my photography through Adobe Lightroom so I use the RAW format files. Getting a copy of the online manual is critical to understanding the various controls. Over the first two weeks of owning it, I took a variety of photographs, indoor and outdoor, wide angle to macro, and found the camera produced good results across all.
Examples
Here’s an outdoor photograph where I was able to bring out detail in the shadowed water supports using Adobe Lightroom:
Here’s another photograph under completely different conditions: indoor with a mix of lighting sources and close focusing:
The Sony DSC RX-100 is a great little camera for times when I do not want to bring my full DSLR kit. I no longer have an excuse for not having a camera with me on a regular basis.
