Sony RX10 III Field Test: It’s fast, fun and zooms clean into next week, but is it worth its hefty pricetag?
posted Friday, July 8, 2016 at 6:59 AM EDT
It's official: I have a new favorite long-zoom camera, and it's the spectacular Sony RX10 III! This mighty ultrazoom packs in plenty of performance, a high-res 20.1-megapixel image sensor, really intuitive Wi-Fi sharing and plenty else besides -- much of it inherited from the earlier RX10 II, which we awarded as our 2015 Enthusiast Zoom Camera of the Year -- but if there's one feature that's the standout, it has to be that incredible zoom lens.
Sure, the new camera's updated optic lacks the constant f/2.8 aperture of the lenses found in both its earlier siblings, the RX10 and RX10 II, but with a 24 to 600mm-equivalent range and f/2.4-4 variable aperture, the Sony RX10 III's powerful new zoom is still plenty bright while being a whole heck of a lot more far-reaching. In fact, it even bests the earlier constant-aperture lens in terms of brightness at wide angle, and yet it brings distant subjects so close you feel that you could just about touch them.
The RX10 III offers an extremely intriguing alternative to an interchangeable-lens camera with two or three consumer-grade zoom lenses, but it comes with a pricetag to match. Make no mistake: You'll be paying a good bit more for the Sony RX10 III than its nearest rivals, and the same money could net you a full SLR kit with lenses covering a pretty similar focal range.
So which is the better buy, and as much as I love this camera, do I love it quite as much when bearing in mind its US$1,500 price tag? Find out all this and a whole lot more besides in my just-published Sony RX10 III Field Test, complete with an extensive real-world gallery shot day and night, and across the sensitivity range!
