Do you want to carry one camera that is excellent at almost every kind of photography, including portraits, landscapes, children running around, wildlife (including birds in flight), macro, etc?
The Sony RX10 IV does it all
The lens is sharp at all focal lengths and all f stops. Quite incredible.
Summary (see below for more details):
- Has an incredible 24-600 mm equivalent lens
- The lens has a very bright aperture range of f2.4-4
- The lens is very sharp throughout its zoom range
- The camera is super versatile: landscapes, portraits, wildlife, fast action...
- No changing lenses
- Has great 4K video
- Has a built-in flash
- Has very fast autofocus (with tracking)
- Is water resistant
- Shoots RAW files, which provide a much better image quality than jpegs
- No need to use the menu for anything (this is really an amazing, underappreciated, and misunderstood feature)
- Can shoot 24 frames per second, which is crazy
More details:
- This camera is great for all situations: kids, animals, travel, etc. The only situations it's not great at are poorly lit action scenes, such as a dark concert (you can still take good photos, but not necessarily catch "the moment").
- The key feature is the amazing 24-600 mm equivalent lens. Equivalent means that it has the same field of view that a full frame digital camera would have at these focal lengths.
- The lens
produces very sharp photos across the entire zoom range. Simply amazing. If you need a wider angle of view, take a series of vertical shots (with the same exposure setting in M mode) and stitch as a panorama. You can get crazy high resolution photos.
- The lens' widest aperture is 2.4-4, depending on the focal length. This is the actual aperture, calculated as the focal length divided by the diameter of the front pupil. However, because the actual focal length is much smaller than the 24-600 equivalent, the depth of field at these apertures is much greater than the same apertures on full frame lenses. This is great if you want many parts of the photo in sharp focus. This is bad if you want to isolate an object or a face, and throw everything else out of focus. If you want the narrowest depth of field, shoot at 600mm f4. Portraits come out very well.
- Very quick handling and instant auto focus.
- You can shoot completely silently, which is great for many occasions, especially on travel.
- You can shoot up to 24 frames per second, which is too fast for most situations. You can select medium and low speeds as well.
- At 600mm, it is amazing for wildlife and candid street photography.
- At 24mm, it is great for landscapes.
- 20 megapixel sensor has plenty resolution to display gorgeous photos on very large screens. We display our photos on a 75" 4K screen, and they look incredible.
- The sensor is 1", bigger and better than on most point&shoot cameras, and way larger than on smart phones.
- Buy a clear UV filter (high quality, of course), keep the lens hood on, and get a small camera case. No lens cap needed. The camera is ready to shoot any time.
- Set up its many buttons (including custom ones) so that the only time you ever need to hit the menu button is if you want to format the card. This is simply an awesome feature. I hate going through menus.
- Keep the aperture ring at f4 and shoot aperture priority with an auto-ISO and minimum shutter speed easily adjustable (I keep it at 1/500th by default, but change it as needed).
Drawbacks:
- It's a bit large and heavy compared to other point&shoot cameras, but that's because it's far more capable and has a much better image quality. It is much much smaller than a dSLR with the equivalent focal lengths, plus you would have to change the lenses.
- Its images are not as clean at high ISO as in dSLRs. However, ISO
6400 is clean for all my use cases, including a display on a large
screen TV.
- Pricey, but not when you take into account the lens reach. Just the
lenses that cover this range for a dSLR will cost far more than this
camera.
Below are some example photos
A 24 mm, single RAW photo inside an ice cave. The camera can capture a wide dynamic range; the cave was very dark compared to the outside.
Aerial photo from 2500 feet above ground, without disturbing the
wildlife or hikers. Taking a sharp photo at 600 mm equivalent from a
small airplane is very cool.
The macro mode on the camera is incredible. Anna's hummingbird on our feeder, handheld at 600mm f4.
My photography background:
- I was a semi-pro for 10 years
- I shot with Canon dSLRs and many lenses (I do not miss them)