janvangastel
Well-known member
Today I compared (digiscoping) my Panasonic DMC G3 with a Sony RX100 from someone living not far away from me. We tested with my Swarovski ATM 80HD and his Swarovski 95 (don't know the exact name, but it is a new type angled 95 mm Swarovski). We took shots on real birds (tits, sparrows, finch and a pigeon), on black on white text and on a fixed bird feather about 15 meter away from us. I photographed through my own scope and through the 95 mm scope and on different tripods. In all cases and no matter which one of us did the focusing (manually and auto), the Panasonic performed much worse then the Sony. Contrast was less but especially image sharpness was less with the Panasonic. The images of the Sony could be magnified 8 times and more, almost without noticable loss in sharpness, while the image quality of the Panasonic already started to break down noticable at a 4 x magnification. At first I thought the problem was in my tripod (more prone to vibration), but this turned out not to be the case.
Before the test I had already noticed, that the views with my Panasonic setup were nice and sharp when looking through the view finder right after focusing. After taking a photograph, the image is visible in the view finder for 3 seconds and the image is than noticably blurred as compared to the view through the view finder before taking the shot. After 3 seconds the image 'pops' away and the image of the live focused object is sharp again. Also on my computer the images are not sharp. When I don't need to crop some images are OK, but the more I need to crop, the less sharp they become. Which is not ore (very) much less the case with the Sony. I used a Panasonic 20 mm pancake lens and a Sigma 30 mm lens on my Panasonic. There was not much difference in image quality. The 20 mm Panasonic is a little better color corrected, but the Sigma showed a little more contrat.
So now I am thinking about buying a new camera. I think I prefer the Sony RX100 II to the RX 100, because it has a rotatable screen and the possibility of using a remote control. I read that the Sony RX 100 II has another sensor then the older RX 100, so I don't know irf the RX 100 II is as good a performer as the RX 100. If anyone on the list has tried both, I would apreciate his/her comments very much. Also other comments are welcome.
Thanks for reading this long story.
Before the test I had already noticed, that the views with my Panasonic setup were nice and sharp when looking through the view finder right after focusing. After taking a photograph, the image is visible in the view finder for 3 seconds and the image is than noticably blurred as compared to the view through the view finder before taking the shot. After 3 seconds the image 'pops' away and the image of the live focused object is sharp again. Also on my computer the images are not sharp. When I don't need to crop some images are OK, but the more I need to crop, the less sharp they become. Which is not ore (very) much less the case with the Sony. I used a Panasonic 20 mm pancake lens and a Sigma 30 mm lens on my Panasonic. There was not much difference in image quality. The 20 mm Panasonic is a little better color corrected, but the Sigma showed a little more contrat.
So now I am thinking about buying a new camera. I think I prefer the Sony RX100 II to the RX 100, because it has a rotatable screen and the possibility of using a remote control. I read that the Sony RX 100 II has another sensor then the older RX 100, so I don't know irf the RX 100 II is as good a performer as the RX 100. If anyone on the list has tried both, I would apreciate his/her comments very much. Also other comments are welcome.
Thanks for reading this long story.