DxOmark tests the RX100 (beats all Nikon 1 cameras!)
DxOmark (Click here) posted the full Sony RX100 sensor analysis. And the results are impressive! It easily beats the Nikon 1 sensor which has the same size but by no means the same quality. And not only that, it also beats all Micro Four Thirds sensor even if they are consideable larger (Check here for example). Again, an amazing result!
RX100 links roundup:
RX100 price search links: Amazon, B&H, Adorama, J&R, eBay.
Cases: Official Sony LCJ-RXA case, Gariz case, more leather case.
Batteries: NP-BX1 Battery.
Special stuff: Multi-Coated LENS ARMOR UV. Magfilter at Amazon (Click here). RX100 filter adapter on eBay (Click here)
Charles
9 months ago |care to elaborate? I try to stand away from bias and own rx100 but thinking about getting on-d. I have seen the comparison and it was clear win for Olympus, even with average kit lens.
for me the biggest drawback of rx100 is control wheel, it needs two Big impulses to change value, say exp. comp., first just displays the info on LCD. bummer!!
Esa Tuunanen
9 months ago |Scientifically consistent method doesn’t mean no bias.
And DxO’s method, while consistent, has bias for not seeing effect of noisier lower signal quality pixels.
First of all they don’t measure noise using image with real content but completely flat, detailless, batches of various luminosity.
While excellent for easy dynamic range measuring it has serious drawback:
It doesn’t show in any way destructive effects higher noise has to content of image!
(Hands up everyone who shoots only flat white/gray walls!)
And clean and simple theoretical averaging of “random” noise away by downscaling image doesn’t work so easily in real world because noise isn’t random from pixel to pixel.
During demosaicing every pixel has two of its colour values interpolated using surrounding that colour sensing pixels of sensor.
So higher noise/lower signal quality in single pixel of sensor affects to surrounding pixels of image lowering also quality of those and increasing noise grain size bigger than pixel.
More complex demosaicing algorithms look even farther than immediately surrounding pixels when interpolating missing colours so noise probably has tiny effect up to two pixel radius.
As consequence downscaling factor needed for certain level of noise decrease is higher than in theory.
If you want to find out how well averaging noise by downscaling works in real pictures following test wastes less time than reading DxO’s theoretical jargon about how you can make party cake out of sh*t if you just have enough of it.
Go to Imaging Resource’s site and open reviews of both Canon Powershot G10 which had 15MP marketroid sensor and its successor G11 with 10MP sensor.
Then download ISO1600 still life shots of both. While G11′s image isn’t exactly clean it’s lot better than G10′s heavily NR blurred but still noisy picture.
Now simply downscale both images heavily (download zipped XnConvert for trying different algorithms) to 1600×1200 to see G10′s image being still clearly uglier.
Esa Tuunanen
9 months ago |So why don’t you stop spewing that BS around so that other’s don’t have to swallow it…
Dpreview has excellent, very easy to use RAW comparison tool and in overall E-M5 has nothing to shame to APS-C cameras. (winning Canons)
Again Imaging Resource checks how big prints can be made from various ISO photos, and got similar results.
And Olympus didn’t have different 12MP sensors but just same old mediocre already in 2008 design. Improving read out speed for faster contrast AF did in no way improve photosite/pixel noise performance. Same for slapping lighter AA filter in front of sensor.
Darryl
9 months ago |Different markets. The EM-5 achieves 90% of the IQ of comparable APS-C format cameras for about 50% of the size/weight (but also 90% of the cost, alas). I think most fans of the m43 format are well aware of the compromise it offers, and it has its place particularly for travellers who bring 3+ lenses. For IQ, medium format > 135 (FX) > APS-C > m43 > CX > compact, and that comparatve ranking has always applied.
The EM-5 hasn’t been tested by DxO yet but it will likely be a bit better than the best m43 results to date. I suspect it will likely place around first generation NEX sensors but well below the NEX-C3, 5n or 7, perhaps around 850-900 on DxOmark’s low-light ISO score:
Best APS-C tested by DxOmark: Nikon D7000 @ 1167 ISO
Best m43: GH1 @ 767
Best compact: RX100 @ 390 ISO
As there’s much greater parity between the best representatives of formats in DxO’s dynamic range and color depth ratings, the basic assessment camera buyers have to make in sensor format selection is really how much low-light ISO and DoF subject isolation they are willing to pay for and lug around. The RX100 really destroys the case for the Nikon CX format, but doesn’t touch upon those two reasons for going still larger.
hq40
9 months ago |Rick, the real figures on the E-M5 RAW files do not even match those of the D7000.K5 etc. You Olympus guys need to stop swallowing BS and actually look at real tests. It is less than a stop better than the Panasonic GH2. After having numerous versions of the 12mp sensor the fact that they got a competitive sensor really has went to the heads of the fan boy tribe.Lets think about it logically { i know this is difficult for an Olympus fan}let’s say that the Sony sensor is as good as the one in the D7000 then reduce it to mFT size why would it possibly be better ?
ui888
9 months ago |I think that DXO has found out that the RAW files of the E-M5 are super cooked and they know that there will be a huge outcry when the Olympus crybabies see the result.The delusional BS claims from the faithful about the E-M5 are laughable or they would be if the idiots didn’t believe it. Have a quick look at the mFT forum on DPreview to see some of the maddest wildest BS found on any forum on the net
ui888
9 months ago |Yes that would be a major winner for Olympus there must be 10 maybe 11 users of Olympus DSLRs left by now. Olympus are in financial trouble if they have any sense they have to chase the market and the market is mFT
tut66u
9 months ago |I thought Canon had a wide selection of lenses available lol its one of the joys of interchangeable lens cameras. Joking aside I think that as sensor development advances the 1 inch sensor could in the future provide an excellent truly compact option. The lenses could be made very small indeed and it could be a genuinely pocketable set up. I hope Nikon move to the Sony sensors in their next 1 system camera. The Nikon delivers good results regarding speed of use, AF etc combine this with the Sony sensor and you could make a very attractive set up. As a Nikon D800 user it is amazing how far Sony have moved against the other sensor makers, Canon in particular seem to be struggling a bit .
There you go...
9 months ago |How did the A99 did against D800/D800E, let me know how that goes…
AG
9 months ago |The DxOMark scores are okay, but not the whole picture. For instance, the NEX-5N gets a higher score than the A57, but they are very different type of cameras, with the latter providing much more consistent results to me.
The RX100 sensor is matched very well with the lens that makes it a great little camera. The shots look natural rather than posed, perhaps the advantage of being so small. Initially, I was really against the RX because it treads on the established NEX brand.
kirk fuk
9 months ago |Here, I show it to you
http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/Cameras/Compare-Camera-Sensors/Compare-cameras-side-by-side/(appareil1)/812%7C0/(brand)/Sony/(appareil2)/677%7C0/(brand2)/Panasonic
Not only on DR, but the color depth too yo.
And yes, that’s GH2 VS RX100
Sell your m43 system while it still has the value. M43 is dying!
kirk fuk
9 months ago |It beats all m43 sensors for sure!!
peevee
9 months ago |Well, it is easy – if you don’t count a lens (see Sony NEX-C3).
Or the lens does not have any zoom (see Sigma DP1M).
peevee
9 months ago |“The low light score also seems wacky, unless DXO reformatted their scoring – the RX100 is fantastic in low light.”
The thing is they measure it at some constant ISO, without any regard to lenses available. So if RX100 at 1.8 is 390, you would need T4i at 1600 to match it with the kit f/3.5 (at WA) zoom.
Carneiro
9 months ago |66 is the same score of my A700… so at this point we’re even…
Spoon
9 months ago |The sensor size and thus the amount of light differentiates them.
Spoon
9 months ago |No problem, hope it helps!
Chad
9 months ago |Spoon – that is a fair and correct explanation. While I shoot RAW on everything else, I haven’t flipped the switch on the RX100 files yet – simply haven’t had the time to shoot with it.
And yes, as a concert shooter, I was quite familiar with that banding on the 5D!
And thanks for the metering tip.
Renato S.
9 months ago |I keep thinking what if this camera had less MP…
But I think that Sony did that so the RX100 and the NEX-F3 would differentiate themselves.
dk
9 months ago |Hey Ken, how u doing?
Rick
9 months ago |Where’s the OMD EM5 test? The RX100 came out long after the EM5 was released. IMHO, with the RX100 scoring so well, the EM5 likely would beat most – if not all APS-c cameras – hence the delay. Sony’s sensors are head and shoulders above everyone else. Hopefully Panasonic wised up and went Sony for the GH3.
Bart
9 months ago |I like this part of the conclusion on the RX100, at the DXOMark’s website: the words between brackets I mean
It’s true I.M.O.
. . . . . . . . . all more bulky and an entire generation behind this new sensor designed by Sony engineers (who are obviously the most inspired in the entire industry).
B.R.
Catalin
9 months ago |I bought an RX100 two days ago to replace my former NEX-5n (which was too big for me). The RX100 is acceptable at high ISO, but I think the ISO noise difference is about 2 stops between the sensors. However if you use the kit lens on both, you can shoot at ISO400 or ISO800 with the RX100 when you would have to use ISO3200 with the NEX-5n. Overall I take better pictures with the RX100 in the same light as I did with the NEX-5n. I am very pleased.
Kylberg
9 months ago |Yes, larger sensor is always better, I agree! But with how much?
About just 28mm on the wide side: Would have liked 24mm – but the IQ @28mm by the RX100 is really amazing.
tomm
9 months ago |..does DXO now make gthe PR for CaNiSo??? where is the “test” of the e-m 5?
silly ..
Bart
9 months ago |Wow!
The RX100 score is equal to my old A700, I have both the RX100 and the A700.
Both have an overall score of 66, ranked 54 and 55 resp.
A700 only better on LowLight ISO: 581 vs. 390.
On the rest, the RX100 outperforms the A700.
Again, wow!
B.R. Bart
Sky_walker
9 months ago |well, not really, but sometimes it’s fun to read how someone makes total idiot from himself.
zzvisual
9 months ago |@Admin
“And not only that, it also beats all Micro Four Thirds sensor even if they are consideable larger (Check here for example).”
That’s a bit exaggeration: RX beats m43 only on the DR front, what is not surprise, at the ISO front even GF3 is better, not to say GH2. Esp. if you compare 1:1 (not 8MP crop).
Frank
9 months ago |Kick ass at what? Or is your only concern high ISO? Idiot.
emopunk
9 months ago |-6 days and still no photos of A99. Sony is resisting hard this time around, isn’t it?
Weakling
9 months ago |And if he does comment, do we care?
Sky_walker
9 months ago |door is that way photocopier ->
Sky_walker
9 months ago |Well, Nikon J1 got 10 MPx sensor and it’s NOT BETTER then the RX100 (and that’s not only according to DXO, but also real-life samples). So I wouldn’t complain much
And it’s hardly a fail – rather: One of the best cameras of the year. And it’ll surely sell well cause it’s simply: amazing. Both in terms of size and picture quality (even for a fact that it outclasses loads, loads of mirrorless cameras while, unlike them, it’s really portable, not just “claimed” to be so).
lol
9 months ago |unfortunatly d800 is first and canon 1dx will kick your a99 ass hoho … shh playstation
will
9 months ago |Dxomark scales all of their photos to 8 megapixels to level out the playing field. It then takes the read out from there. High pixel count has no effect on total camera noise. So if you scale all your files to 10 megapixels they would come out slightly better. I can take workable shots from the internet at 6400 iso, for larger stuff i would go past 1600.
Calistoga Tony
9 months ago |If this sensor had been 10MP instead of what it is, I might have purchased it because it would make a truly amazing pocket camera. Too many pixels, and the high ISO score is low despite the high pixel count. The Nikon D800 scores higher in high ISO vs the D4, but the D4 is actually cleaner at high ISO, so this has me wondering, has DxOmark changed the score they publish to be more realistic and not effected by high pixel counts?
Either way, that score is nice against small image sensor compacts, but way too low in and of itself for that much cash. My 5 year old Sony A700 scores just under 600 for high ISO. I’ll end up getting the NEX 5R or 6 after I can download actual RAW files. Another fail for Sony, but I’m sure the camera is selling like hot cakes anyway.
Will
9 months ago |Dxo hasnt tested the em-5. I think admin got a little trigger happy when writing and forgot that little part.
Will
9 months ago |Yes, now we just need a pocket friendly aps-c camera the same size as the rx100.
Spoon
9 months ago |You’re probably confusing DR with camera metering. The RX100 meters pretty high compared to middle grey, which shifts the available DR mostly to the shadows and relatively reduces the highlight headroom. This is why you see complaints about highlight clipping, but this also means less noise in many conditions. For RAW shooters the simple solution to the former point is to underexpose a little compared to the camera’s metering to unlock that DR and shift it more towards the highlights.
But be sure there’s tons of DR at low ISO. I’ve seen RAW files successfully pushed up to 4 stops, which is crazy for a compact and something even every 5D version including the mk3 would seriously struggle with, exaggerated by pattern noise such as banding, which isn’t even accounted for in the DXO numbers.
E
9 months ago |Robert,
Yes the tests are 100% scientific, I don’t think many doubts that.
But when setting score to the results of the tests, there are always judgement calls to be made.
How much of the total score shall be based on resolution? how much is DR worth etc.
Kylberg
9 months ago |Interesting reading for the large group of photographers claiming that: fewer pixels = better image quality.
Does DXO tell us the full truth? Not sure about that. They have at least a consistent way of measure and analyse – that’s more than can be said about many reviewers. On the other hand figures cannot tell us all about image quality. It takes photos and a qualitative analyse made by unbiased people, peopåle you have learned to trust.
What I can say is that my RX100 produces images close or equal to my Panasonic G3 – but no wat near what I get from my Nikon D800. The RX100 is the best “always with you camera” ever! (A m43 or Nikon 1 is not pocketable)
adam
9 months ago |no comment from Mr Ken Rockwell??
Carl
9 months ago |Conversely, though, there are people who argue that less mp can result in images that are better in some particular metric, again without necessarily being better quality images. Imaging is a more complicated field than can be quickly surmised with a simple bar graph.
To DxO’s credit, their articles do delve deeper than just the simple scores that Andrea linked to, it’s just that internet pundits don’t find their detailed writeups as useful for their strawmen arguments and tend to ignore the existence of them.
passer-by
9 months ago |For the same noise level, more MP is better.
Sky_walker
9 months ago |Nah, it’s not that simple. Higher MPx isn’t a win-win in DXO – read the rules of their tests. What I personally have most trouble with are colors and artifacts, such as a rolling shutter (which happens to be obvious on some photographs, good old CCDs never got any problems with it) – DxO doesn’t truly test any of these.
Sky_walker
9 months ago |True about 28mm. But I prefer a good lens with 28mm WA over average one with 24mm WA.
Vlad3D
9 months ago |“it also beats all Micro Four Thirds sensor”
Hmm… according to dpreview comparison tool Olympus OM-D has less noise on ISO 6400
ageha
9 months ago |When will be able to buy the 5R?
Robert Bell
9 months ago |The 28mm is putting me off too. Maybe the rx101 will have something like a 24-90 with a EVF.
LEdgars
9 months ago |DxO measures RAW performance, not JPEG engine.
Wow
9 months ago |I’m sure they don’t intend any brand bias but their testing method means more mp can result in higher scores without necessarily being better quality images. That’s why you hear it a lot. Of course, people getting their knickers in a bunch about a lab test is absurd. If you like the image quality and enjoy using the camera, that’s what matters right ?
Wow
9 months ago |Take a look at this comparison – RX100 vs GH2 vs D5100. Bear in mind a new GH3 is on the way with “high dynamic range” sensor and you see the game is still the same. Bigger sensors are better.
http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/Cameras/Compare-Camera-Sensors/Compare-cameras-side-by-side/(appareil1)/812%7C0/(brand)/Sony/(appareil2)/698%7C0/(brand2)/Nikon/(appareil3)/677%7C0/(brand3)/Panasonic
I’d get an RX100 but 28mm is never quite wide enough for me – if it had a 24-90 or 25-100 then I’d be out buying it now. Great camera though, no question.
ayan
9 months ago |Looking for NEX5R
Robert Bell
9 months ago |I hear this a lot about dxo is bias about this or that. They’re are a scientific lab in the business of making lens testing and correction solutions not fobbing off bias lab results.
Robert Bell
9 months ago |I should imagine it will be, there are in the OM-D
Chad
9 months ago |Bull! I have the RX100 and DR is its greatest weakness – worse than my old Canon 5D for sure. The low light score also seems wacky, unless DXO reformatted their scoring – the RX100 is fantastic in low light.
ChenAlan
9 months ago |+1
Nikon V1/J1s are too low quality; this comes as no surprise.
If it can take on a M4/3s, now we’re on to something!
vinh
9 months ago |the next generation of NEX should be fantastic
Wow
9 months ago |DxO’s results tend to be biased towards more MP = better, and most people know that isn’t always the case, but it is still an impressive camera, and I hope it makes the others pick up their game.
TBH bettering the Nikon 1 is hardly something to be proud of. It was slated when it was released over a year ago. It’s gotta be the loser of the csc pack. Nikon had better do a DX-M and fast or they are gonna lose in that sector.
M43 is still better at high iso, as you’d expect, and DxO doesn’t have results for the EM-5 yet.
KID
9 months ago |OK, NOW let’s get Sony to make a sensor for the NEW Olympus E-7!
Carl G
9 months ago |Never doubted the sensor, Sony makes the best in the business overall. Just a couple of different things and I’d consider one, but both of those things are missing from its design and unfortunately they are big ones for me.
Pretty impressive results from a smaller sensor for sure. Canon has probably been sweating Sony’s semiconductor division for some time now (ever since Nikon made that big push).
-Carl
Miika
9 months ago |It also has better dynamic range than any Canon DSLR camera, including 5D3