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SONY RX0 V GOPRO HERO6 REVIEW
reality is that you’ll need an ND filter to avoid having to use very high shutter speeds. Sony sells a cover that lets you attach 30.5mm ND filters but this costs an additional £180/$150. And with the lens being fixed at f/4, it’s not the brightest when light levels drop so you have to increase the ISO which affects image quality. PRO FEATURES There are lots of other pro features including a mic port and audio levels that you control manually. The mic input, along with the micro HDMI and USB ports as well as micro SD card slot, is covered by a plastic protector. Taking this off to use a mic means all weather sealing goes; and chances are so will the cover as it’s so small and easy to lose. Other niggles involve the screen which automatically dims after around a minute, and the battery life. We ran down a fully-charged battery in around 25 minutes, so you will need to buy and carry spares for continuous use. And the camera has no image stabilisation at all, unlike most action cameras.
has settled on the GoPro mount as standard, a simple converter is available very cheaply which allows the use of the hundreds of mounting accessories on sale. Where action cameras usually feature all-automatic modes, the Sony offers control of most settings, such as shutter speed, ISO and focus, as well as picture controls, and even gamma and knee – just like its bigger cameras. It’s quite a shock to see such useful features as zebra, peaking and a histogram on a camera of this size. To set focus, you dial in the distance you want between half a metre to infinity. There is also a two- position option which is set to Near or Far as there is no autofocus. Near works up to around 1m/3.3ft, and the Far setting is from this distance to infinity. Most action cameras are fixed focus but as the Sony uses a large sensor and correspondingly longer focal length lens, it’s more critical to get the focus right. The lens is fixed at f/4, which does become an issue in bright light especially if you shoot in S-Log2 which sets the ISO to 1600. The
ABOVE The new SONY RX0 is more expensive than the GoPro Hero 6, but maybe that’s a good thing.
THE RXO CAN BE CONTROLLED VIA SONY’S SMARTPHONE APP
While the RX0 is capable of shooting 15.3-megapixel stills in Raw and JPEG at up to 16fps, it’s the video spec that’s interesting but frustrating. The Sony uses its well-proven XAVC-S codec but internally can only record in HD. To record 4K in 10-bit 4:2:2, you need to use the clean HDMI output and add on an external recorder like an Atomos Ninja Flame. That certainly takes it out of the action camera market. When some other small cameras now offer 4K at 60p recorded internally, this could be a deal-breaker. What you are left with is HD quality if you stick to recording
internally, and the quality is not as good as the full-size RX
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MARCH 2018 DEFINITION
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