Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX1 review – Dynamic range
With a full-frame DSLR sensor, you would expect an impressive dynamic range from the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX1 and it doesn’t disappoint. While perhaps not the best performance we have seen, it is certainly on a par with most DSLRs. Although we were unable to compare the two cameras, I would also suspect that the RX1 performs slightly better than the Alpha 99 because it does not have a translucent mirror in front of the sensor. We have previously seen this when the same Sony sensors have been used in the company’s Alpha single lens translucent and NEX compact system camera models.
In real terms, the RX1 does a good job in overcast scenes, exposing the foreground nicely while still leaving detail in the sky. Conversely, there is an impressive amount of shadow detail, even in JPEG images. Using Photoshop to brighten an image can reveal detail that previously looked like a black void, although obviously this does introduce noise. It really does deliver DSLR performance in a compact camera.
Image: Taken at ISO 6400, there appears to be a lot of blown-out detail in the JPEG file that can actually be fully recovered in the raw images, thanks to the fairly good dynamic range of the RX1
