Frances
Friday, February 22nd, 2013
Los Angeles, California. Having lunch with my 97 year old mother the other day and figured it might be a good time for a quick portrait with the rented Sony RX1.
Here’s an example of where a fixed 35mm lens can be a problem. I’m trying to get the camera close enough to her so her face fills the frame and had I been using a viewfinder (EVF or otherwise) I’d have knocked over my coffee. So, the LCD was fine here but it was tough to see at a distance so I was unsure of where the camera was focusing. The only solution here would have been a longer (fast) lens.
All in all I very much enjoyed using this camera although the potentially better portraits I took of her in lower light at dinner were failures because the AF never locked on. The AF on the Sony RX100 was locking in better than the RX1 at dinner.
The RX1 is exactly the kind of camera I want though: very high quality, full frame, small enough to fit in a small shoulder bag, fast high quality lens. Had I taken the ice shots I took recently with the RX1 I think they’d have been out of this world and all of that extra resolution would have made better prints.
Oh, and the silent leaf shutter on the RX1 was pleasing to my mother who can’t hear much anymore anyway but doesn’t like to hear me clicking away taking pictures. Sony got a lot right with this camera.
Very beautiful portrait of Frances.
Do you feel that the AF is problematic in low light with RX1? High IQ is great if you can take the shot. I read from a review that focus peaking is not working in full screen mode (only in magnified mode) effectively. That would make MF unusable in low light if you need to use it fast.
Jonne: My eyes and hands aren’t good enough for manual focusing of any of these cameras so I’ve not used focus peaking on my RX100 and while I tried it on the RX1, it didn’t do me a lot of good.
That said, the AF on the RX1 is much better than the RX100 in low light or any light. I did not get to play with its various adjustments enough to reach a judgement about it and while I mentioned it in the post, it was really a comment on why this was my only passable portrait of my mother that I got with the camera. The light in the dinner restaurant was quite nice as were the backgrounds (would have been some nice round light bokeh balls) but I just could not get her into sharp focus.
The other variable is me, it might have been that I was just having an off night with that camera. No doubt this is a piece of it.
I am seriously considering buying the RX1. My friend Mamen Saura is renting one this week out in Palo Alto where she lives and she and I will talk during her rental about what she thinks of it. She’s an excellent photographer who does a lot of work with people so she’ll have comments that will be meaningful to you.
As I hear her comments I’ll certainly pass them on to you, either here or on your blog. By the way, I don’t have an email for you outside of flickr. I think you might know mine but if not its rwanderman at gmail.com.