Gone a bit quiet here. Anyone else bought this camera? I finally managed to pick one up for myself. Was a long wait because of the recall and even now when production has resumed, stocks seem to be super limited for this camera in singapore.
Some further initial impressions and information I found following from my demo review which i posted a few pages back in this thread:
This camera absolutely demands good technique to get sharp shots thanks to the 42mp. Even with minimum shutter speed set at 1/125 i can easily get camera shake when holding the camera at arms length and composing thru the LCD. In poor light, i strongly recommend using the finder to compose and keep things more steady unless you are willing to bump up the ISO to keep the shutter speed fast
I was a bit concerned that the same lens from the first gen rx1 would be outresolved by the vastly superior new sensor. My concerns were unfounded: the image is super super sharp all the way to 100%. This sonnar lens continues to deliver amazing peformance, just watch out for camera shake!
The battery life has definitely taken a hit compared to the old version. I'd say it runs flat about 20-30% quicker, the way I use the camera. You will need plenty of spares, especially if shooting in cold weather. The good news is that sony now bundles 2 batteries together with the camera and I LOVE the little standalone battery charger that is also included. Its tiny, and barely larger than the battery itself, charges the battery thru micro usb just like the camera. Its a clever little design that works well and because its so small, you'll never forget to take it with you.
I'm very impressed with the continuous AF and Eye AF function. My only gripe is that I wish the selection of single shot, continuous, D-MF or MF was selectable from within the menus also rather than from the fiddly hardware switch on the front. Having a hardware switch instead of software setting also means that the Memory modes 1,2,3 will not remember whether you selected C,S, DMF or MF either, it all has to be controlled from the hardware switch. So if i want to map continuous AF to memory 1 and single shot AF to memory 2 for example, i cant do it, which would have been a nice thing to be able to do
AF speed as I mentioned before is much faster than the old version. The first gen RX1 also had a habit of giving up trying to focus in difficult light (lens focus would jitter and not lock on). This almost never happens on the new version, even in the most difficult lighting. It just takes a little longer to lock, but almost never gives up. Accuracy is a lot better too. I get a feeling that the AF speed is now limited by the ability of the lens AF motor rather than the AF software in the camera. I suppose when they release the RX3, they will have to update the lens to keep up.
I wasnt so impressed with the high ISO performance on my earlier in-store demo. But i was slightly mistaken, the high ISO performance is much better than I initially thought...I can easily use 12800, something i would never do on the first rx1 (even 6400 i felt was pushing it). I reckon about a 1.5 stop advantage on the new camera, and this with almost double the pixels!!
Two thumbs up for the articulating LCD, you dont realise how fantastic it is to have one until you start using it. I almost never use the finder anymore now (even though the new finder is also excellent)
I dont bother with the low pass filter control. I have it off and never plan to turn it on. IMO for most people this thing is just a gimmick, i have never had issues with moire with either the old or new rx1
Some other stuff I found:
Some people try to preserve battery life by keeping airplane mode on. This is not necessary, people online have tested battery drain with airplane mode off and found no meaningful difference in battery life. Keeping it off will also allow you to easily send pictures to your smartphone thru wifi as and when, a feature i really love on this new rx1. Note, when selecting to shoot in RAW only, you can still send a jpg to your smartphone, but it will be a very small, low rez image. If you want to send a full quality jpg, shoow in raw + jpg and the full rez jpg will be sent instead
I also really like the redesigned camera strap, its longer so the camera can be hung across your chest and yet still be used to shoot with, and it looks much nicer
Inside the camera menu, there is a strange sounding menu option called Priority Set in AF-S and Priority Set in AF-C. By default, they are set to Balanced Emphasis. I would suggest setting both to 'AF', this will maximise focus accuracy from the camera.
Remember also to turn all in-camera noise reduction off to maintain sharpness
Currently DXO Optics Pro 10 (my editing software) still does not support the RAW files from the RX1R II. As far as I know only LR and Capture One does I think