The Sony RX10 V shows how far cameras have come in the past decade

The Sony RX10 V is an update to the company’s long-zoom large-sensor compact. It’s built around a 20MP stacked Type 1 (116mm²) sensor and a 24-600mm equiv, F2.8-4.0 stabilized zoom.

It’s a long-zoom ‘compact’ whose newfound processing power means it can shoot a range of subjects from landscapes to wildlife and maybe even a little sport. We’d be tempted to make the comparison to a Swiss Army knife, only the RX10 is far from pocketable.

Key specifications

• 20MP Type-1 (116mm²) stacked CMOS sensor
• 24-600mm equiv. F2.4-4.0 lens
• Up to 30fps shooting
• 4K up to 120p with crop (60p full width) in 10-bit
• 3.68M dot EVF
• 1.62M dot tilting rear LCD
• UHS-II SD card slot
• 630 shot/charge battery life rating

The RX10 V will be available in early August with a recommended price of $2,300. This is exactly in line with the US consumer price index inflation rate applied to the $1700 launch price of the RX10 IV, nine years ago. To use a different benchmark, it’s cheaper, relative to the a7 V and that camera’s peers, than the Mark IV was, relative to its contemporary a7 model.

Index

• What’s new
• Body and handling
• In use
• Video
• Sample gallery
• Specifications
• Press release

What’s new

It’s been eight years since the RX10 IV and Sony has made big steps forward in both technology and ergonomics in the meantime: the RX10 V benefits from both.

On the technology side, the RX10 V gains the Bionz XR processor and “AI processing unit” from the previous generation of Alpha cameras. This brings the full range of subject recognition modes, including birds, animals, cars, planes and the “human pose estimation” system that is designed to recognise people-shaped things in the scene, even when the face or eyes aren’t visible, to help the camera continue to track the same subject.

The added processing power allows the RX10 V to shoot at up to 30 frames per second with a blackout free viewfinder. You also gain the Speed boost function that lets you temporarily engage a faster (or slower) shooting mode, when you hold a customized button down, but you don’t gain the pre-capture function.

Autofocus has come a long way in the nine years since the previous RX10 was released, and the new model feels like a thoroughly modern camera. The other area of significant improvement over the same period is video, and the RX10 V is a bit step forward in that regard, too, with a host of Sony’s latest options including, significantly, the ability to capture 10-bit and H.265 footage, both of which make it more pleasant to work with.

Sony says it’s the same lens as on the RX10 IV but CIPA standards for reporting focal length have apparently changed in the meantime, meaning it’s quoted as a 9.1-210mm zoom, rather than the 8.8-220mm figures printed on the side of the previous two models. We suspect the figures now quoted are the literal focal lengths, rather than the effective focal lengths after corrections has been applied. The end result is the same, though: a 24-600mm equiv range with an F2.4-4.0 maximum aperture and in-lens stabilization.

It’s hard to get your head round just how much flexibility a 24-600mm lens gives you until you use it. There are cameras that offer even more range, but all of them are based on much smaller sensors, so you pay a price in terms of image quality, if any survives the heat haze.

The lens has a built-in shutter which can go as fast as 1/1000th of a second at wide apertures, and 1/2000 sec at F8 and slower. This is great for flash, as you can sync up to those maximum speeds but quickly becomes limiting in bright light. You can switch the camera to e-shutter mode which, with a rolling shutter rate of 15.7ms (1/64sec) is still pretty fast, but this requires you to switch to the lossy compressed Raw format. There’s no auto mode to let you use mechanical shutter up to its limit, then e-shutter beyond that.

Body and handling

The RX10 V is a substantial camera but that’s to be expected for something trying to deliver a 24-600mm equivalent zoom range. It’s been a long time since we handled an RX10 IV but the grip shape seems improved, offering a sturdy grip on the dense, polycarbonate body.

There’s no front dial, the logic presumably being that you’ll use your index finger for operating the zoom rocker. This means the two command dials on the rear shoulder are both operated with your thumb. There’s also a rather fiddly dial on the rear plate of the camera but thankfully, with the provision of two customizable command dials and an aperture ring, there’s rarely need to use it (it’s not used in photo mode, by default).

Unlike recent Sony cameras, the RX10 V has a 10Gbps USB-C socket for fast data transfer but then retains the USB Micro B ‘Multi’ socket for attaching external accessories. This can no longer be used for charging the camera, reducing its usefulness to being an accessory port.

The RX10 V still uses a single SD card but the interface now uses the slightly newer UHS-II standard, rather than the UHS-I slot on the previous model. This is quick enough to accommodate the 600Mbps (75MB/s) data rate required for 4K/60 video capture with All-I compression.

Viewfinder

The viewfinde gets an upgrade to 3.68M dots (1280 x 960px), which is a decent step up from its predecessor. The resolution drops a little if you engage the high refresh rate mode, and battery life drops, too, but whichever mode you choose, the resolution is maintained, even when using C-AF, so you don’t get the potentially distracting drop in detail when you half-press the shutter.

Screen

The screen is also refreshed, with the Mark V using a 1.62M dot (900 x 600px) screen that matches the sensor’s aspect ratio, rather than the 4:3, 800 x 600px panel on the previous model. The screen is still mounted on a tilt up/down cradle, which gives a decent level of flexibility but isn’t well suited to portrait orientation shooting.

Battery

Other than the improved autofocus, perhaps the biggest change on the Mark V is the move to the much larger NP-FZ100 battery. This is the 16.4Wh battery that has powered the various a7 models for the past nine years. It has a capacity more than twice that of the FW50 battery used in previous RX10 cameras, giving much better battery life in a way that seems appropriate for a camera so likely to be used for travel and long shoots outdoors.

In use

When you first start up the camera, you’re confronted with a very simple, compact-camera display, with five large touchscreen buttons arrayed down both sides of the screen. This ends up feeling somewhat nostalgic, having not encountered a mainstream point-and-shoot for some time, and rather at odds with the more Alpha-styled controls and main menu.

Anyone not wanting to use touchscreen buttons, or wanting a less cluttered display can remove them (the option to do so is under Touch Operation / Touch Panel Settings, rather than with the display options in Operation Customize).

With this done, the RX10 V feels a lot like an Alpha-series camera, with the new menus representing a big improvement over the ones in the previous models. It’s not without its foibles but for the most part it’s well grouped and organized, and with a little customization of the Fn menu and custom buttons, you can minimize your need to visit it.

The RX10 V has the same issue as other Sony cameras in terms of a couple of incompatible settings: you’ll need to disengage Raw and switch to HEIF format before you can engage the camera’s HLG Stills mode to shoot true HDR images, and you’ll have to switch your Raw format if you want to engage the electronic shutter mode. All of which leaves the risk that you forget to switch back.

Also, somewhat disappointingly for such a travel-friendly camera, Sony remains the only major brand not to offer some kind of in-camera Raw conversion. So if you take a nice shot but want to tweak the white balance, color mode or DRO level before sharing it, tough luck, you’ll just have to messily hack the JPEG around on your phone.

There’s a lot to like, though. The dials and joystick give a good sense of direct control, letting you feel you have direct command over the camera’s really rather impressive capabilities. It has its limits, though: it will try to keep focusing if you zoom with the ring around the lens (you can’t use the zoom rocker), but it definitely struggles, which can limit some sports or action shooting. But the ability to quicky zoom with the rocker under your index finger and fine-tune the framing with the lens ring helps keep the power zoom feeling pretty engaging.

Video

The previous RX10 V’s video topped-out at 4K/30, despite the use of a fast, stacked CMOS sensor. The Mark V pushes way beyond this, with the option to shoot 4K/120 with a significant 1.38x crop or oversampled 4K/60 from the full width of the sensor. As you’d expect from a modern camera, this can all be done in 10-bit, making Log, and in particular, the more ambitious S-Log3 curve, much more usable.

But video improvements over the past nearly decade go further than speed. The RX10 V lets you shoot in the attractive, S-Cinetone color mode and it lets you upload LUTs for previewing your preferred color grade, or to burn directly into the footage. It has Sony’s Auto Framing mode that identifies a subject, punches in and follows them around, upscaling the footage and giving a camera operator dynamism to what are actually locked-off shots. There’s also the Active Mode IS that corrects a wider range of movement, available at up to 4K/60.

Then, on the audio side of things, the RX10 V can capture up to four-channel audio, if you attach an accessory to its multi-interface connectors in the hotshoe. A 72mm filter thread allows you to attach ND filters as needed.

Above all of this, though, the RX10 V’s video also benefits from its improved autofocus system, which is much more tenacious and dependable in terms of subject tracking, especially if your subject is of a type the camera has been trained to recognize.

Initial impressions

Richard Butler

It’s been nine years since the last RX10 model was released and, although things have been pretty quiet on the compact front, the rest of camera technology and performance have continued to make advances. Much like watching a young relative you rarely get to see grow up through a series of infrequent visits, the prolonged gap really makes you notice how much has changed in the meantime.

The RX10 V is a dramatically more advanced camera than its predecessor: faster to focus and much more dependable at subject tracking. The menus and ergonomics have come a long way, too, and its video capabilities are leagues ahead of where the RX10 IV had brought us to.

I’m not generally a fan of long-zoom cameras, as I’d usually prioritize compactness over that additional reach that I rarely find myself wanting to use. But the enhanced AF performance and speed capture add a lot to what was already a camera with a strong following. They vastly expand what the RX10 V can do, and the changes to the controls and battery are significant benefits, too.

Unlike the recent L10, that doubling of battery capacity hasn’t led to much of a change in body size, and it wouldn’t have made much difference anyway, on a body so dominated by that vast lens.

There can be a few delays, here and there, waiting for the lens to initialize, and it was disappointing to have to swap shutter modes (and Raw filetype) or stop down when hitting the 1/1000 sec limit of the mechanical shutter. But overall I’ve found the RX10 V to be a pleasant travel companion whose lens constantly challenged me to think of photos that I couldn’t otherwise take.

Whether that makes it worth $2300 is for each individual to decide, but it’s striking to get to see what nearly a decade’s worth of improvements, delivered all in one go, look like.

Sample gallery

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Sony DSC-RX10 V specifications