With its rugged GoPro-esque layout, it is smooth to look why Sony describes the RX0 II as a ‘tiny difficult’ camera – and why so many vicinities it in the action digital camera circle of relatives. After all, it’s burly, honestly designed for survival and features its personal tackle digital photograph stabilization (EIS), plus a few alternatively nifty imaging hardware.
Plucky motion cameras like the modern-day category leaders – GoPro’s Hero7 Black and DJI’s Osmo Action – are designed to enroll in you for the ride, whether or not you’re ziplining or scuba diving; they’re always primed to shoot and produce silky easy pictures way to gimbal-like electronic image stabilization (EIS).
But the RX0 II’s a ways-more involved operation method it’s less appropriate for shooting impromptu bursts of motion and extra apt for supercharging your vlogs and outside and journey images. Let’s take a more in-depth appearance…
The RX0 II represents a great replace to the authentic RX0. While the general layout is much the same, a hanging new addition is the one hundred eighty-degree tiltable 1.5-inch rear display. This enables users to seize cool angles, even as averting direct sunlight when framing a shot.
Flip the screen one hundred eighty-levels upward and you’ve got a display for recording vlogs or taking selfies. It’s now not as nifty as the incorporated the front screen on the DJI Osmo Action, but it’s a useful function.
Getting up and going for walks with the digital camera gives little drama, however, it’s while you begin delving into settings that your patience is tested. Prodding fiddly buttons to navigate almost 30 menu pages at the tiny display screen appears misjudged in an international where the touchscreen is king.
For example, navigating a GoPro’s contact interface is simplistic but intuitive and receives the task finished brief and speedy. While Sony gives ways deeper manage over digital camera settings, which may attraction to greater experienced photographers, it’s surely no longer prepared to quickly point and shoot while the ones off-the-cuff moments arise.
The RX0 II is comparable in length, weight and build to the likes of a GoPro and DJI, and you could even choose the Sony’s clever ribbed duraluminium body – this component is difficult! Despite that, it weighs just a contact heavier than each the GoPro (116g) and DJI (124g) at 132g.
It’s additionally waterproof to 10m, dustproof, weigh down-proof and drop-evidence from 6.Five ft. It’s absolutely designed for movement, even though the reality is less white knuckle and more scenic walk…
Like the authentic RX0, this 2nd era capabilities a powerful 1.0-kind sensor, that is around 4 times the dimensions of these crammed into flagship action cameras. There’s additionally a low-distortion ZEISS Tessar T lens and BIONZ X picture-processing engine in the blend, which combines to provide a huge dynamic range, reduced noise and virtually incredible element from each still and movies.
Recording 4K video on the RX0 required an external recorder. There’s no such faff right here, as now you could shoot 4K30 natively, bag Full HD as much as 120fps and extraordinary slo-mo as much as 960fps. The RX0 II additionally shoots video at a better bitrate than other cameras of this ilk, that means there’s manner extra detail packed into every frame.
Overall, video is amazing, producing exceptionally sharp snap shots, bright shade reproduction, and extensive dynamic variety, in particular when filming gradual or fixed shots. It’s additionally impressively confident when shifting among mild and dark scenes.
DJI and GoPro each pioneered their own extremely-clean stabilization generation (referred to as RockSteady and HyperSmooth respectively). Sony’s new ‘tiny difficult’ also capabilities digital image stabilization, which it’s calling SteadyShot.
It’s a welcome improve to the sooner version, but performance isn’t a patch on its competition. Sony is a whole lot greater at home mounted to a tripod or sat on a hard and fast floor. The Sony VCT-SGR1 Shooting Grip could be a sensible investment if you’re planning on capturing handheld.