Sony RX100 or Fuji X20

Qarik · June 24, 2013

Okay I am trying to decide between these 2 premium compacts. The Sony is a true pocket camera with a huge 20M sensor but slow lens. The Fuji is physically bigger, smaller but bigger than average 12M sensor, has waay better styling, very fast lens, and optical viewfinder. IQ seem reasonable on both, zoom ranges are similar, both have manual control and all that. The sony is $650ish and the Fuji is $600.

I plan to use as general purpose walk around when I don't want to bring SLR.

Anything I am missing or if folks want to chime in if they own one/other?

To be honest I am leaning towards the Fuji...why? because of the retro styling (all else being fairly equal). :rofl

Aristophanes · June 24, 2013

Hardly a slow ones on the RX100.

Sensor size has an impact on lens iris and maximum aperture, so for any given ISO the RX100 will be much faster than the Fuji.

This is zoomed out, wide 28mm equivalent. At the zoom end it is slower,obviating the sensor size advantage.

I have looked at both as well, and the Ricoh GR, and the RX100 wins hands down for me. Thos extra pixels give so much headroom it is well worth the price.

OVF is about the only thing I would miss, but anOVF on anything that small is a squint anyway.

Qarik wrote: »

Okay I am trying to decide between these 2 premium compacts. The Sony is a true pocket camera with a huge 20M sensor but slow lens. The Fuji is physically bigger, smaller but bigger than average 12M sensor, has waay better styling, very fast lens, and optical viewfinder. IQ seem reasonable on both, zoom ranges are similar, both have manual control and all that. The sony is $650ish and the Fuji is $600.

I plan to use as general purpose walk around when I don't want to bring SLR.

Anything I am missing or if folks want to chime in if they own one/other?

To be honest I am leaning towards the Fuji...why? because of the retro styling (all else being fairly equal).

ziggy53 · June 24, 2013

I would truly like the Fujifilm X20 viewfinder as an option to the LCD, but the Sony RX100 is considerably better when you really need a high-ISO (either JPG or RAW). Hot shoe on the Fujifilm X20 could allow more flexible lighting options than the built-in only flash of the Sony RX100.

If you use telephoto much the much faster aperture at 112 mm and f2.8 of the Fujifilm X20 handily beats the 100 mm and F4.9 of the Sony RX100.

The Fujifilm X20 has a more advanced AF than the Sony RX100, but I don't see too many complaints of the Sony AF in practical use.

For me, the combination of a hot shoe and optical viewfinder on the Fujifilm X20 would probably be deciding features in its favor.

jmphotocraft · June 25, 2013

If you want a pocket camera, it's gotta be the RX100 or Oly XZ-2. If you want a retro DSLR replacement camera that can fit in a loose pocket, save up for the X100S, you won't regret it. I love mine.

Qarik · June 25, 2013

I considered the X100S for about 10 sec..it's sexy for sure, but it's just too expensive

Qarik · June 25, 2013

Aristophanes wrote: »

Hardly a slow ones on the RX100.

Sensor size has an impact on lens iris and maximum aperture, so for any given ISO the RX100 will be much faster than the Fuji.

This is zoomed out, wide 28mm equivalent. At the zoom end it is slower,obviating the sensor size advantage.

I have looked at both as well, and the Ricoh GR, and the RX100 wins hands down for me. Thos extra pixels give so much headroom it is well worth the price.

OVF is about the only thing I would miss, but anOVF on anything that small is a squint anyway.

frankly the 20M pixels is a turn off for the kind of casual shooting I would do. I think the RX100 probably has an advantage in IQ overall..but again not really interested at that level for the casual stuff.

jmphotocraft · June 25, 2013

Qarik wrote: »

I considered the X100S for about 10 sec..it's sexy for sure, but it's just too expensive

This statement looks funny right above your signature. ;-)

If you think of buying it instead of a 35/1.4, it can make sense.

Qarik · June 25, 2013

jmphotocraft wrote: »

This statement looks funny right above your signature. ;-)

If you think of buying it instead of a 35/1.4, it can make sense.

touche!

Qarik · June 25, 2013

pulled the trigger on silver X20

jmphotocraft · June 25, 2013

Qarik wrote: »

pulled the trigger on silver X20

Nothing like new toys, enjoy. I shoot my X-Trans sensor like I shoot film - jpeg only. Get it right in the camera and don't worry about the raws. The jpegs are very often spot on and worry free. Post some examples.

Aristophanes · June 25, 2013

ziggy53 wrote: »

I would truly like the Fujifilm X20 viewfinder as an option to the LCD, but the Sony RX100 is considerably better when you really need a high-ISO (either JPG or RAW). Hot shoe on the Fujifilm X20 could allow more flexible lighting options than the built-in only flash of the Sony RX100.

If you use telephoto much the much faster aperture at 112 mm and f2.8 of the Fujifilm X20 handily beats the 100 mm and F4.9 of the Sony RX100.

If the combination of iris and sensor size = total photons then...no. The RX100 still wins handily at the long end. f/2.8 on the Fuji sensor at an equivalent FL = about f4.5-5.6 when compared to the Sony's sensor advantage. Even zoomed the Sony's bigger sensor still gets more photons (signal). And with 20 MP's,it can do far more with them in terms of DR and resolution. The big + for the RX100 compared to the Fuji's much smaller sensor is noise reduction. It's at least 1 and much closer to 2 stops superior, and again those extra MP's are horses at getting a more accurate picture.

You pay for all this with the Sony, no doubt.

Qarik · June 25, 2013

jmphotocraft wrote: »

Nothing like new toys, enjoy. I shoot my X-Trans sensor like I shoot film - jpeg only. Get it right in the camera and don't worry about the raws. The jpegs are very often spot on and worry free. Post some examples.

funny you should mention this..this is exactly how I intend to use it. no hassle

ziggy53 · June 25, 2013

Aristophanes wrote: »

If the combination of iris and sensor size = total photons then...no. The RX100 still wins handily at the long end. f/2.8 on the Fuji sensor at an equivalent FL = about f4.5-5.6 when compared to the Sony's sensor advantage. Even zoomed the Sony's bigger sensor still gets more photons (signal). And with 20 MP's,it can do far more with them in terms of DR and resolution. The big + for the RX100 compared to the Fuji's much smaller sensor is noise reduction. It's at least 1 and much closer to 2 stops superior, and again those extra MP's are horses at getting a more accurate picture.

You pay for all this with the Sony, no doubt.

The Fujifilm X20 has a 8.8 x 6.6 mm sensor, equalling 58.08 square mm.
The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 has a 13.2 × 8.8mm sensor, equalling 116.16 square mm.

Conveniently, this means that the Sony sensor is "exactly" twice as large as the Fujifilm, in this case. This should give the Sony sensor an advantage of exactly 1 - f-stop, assuming that both sensors have the same sensitivity and efficiency in converting light (which they do not, but their respective sensitivity and conversion efficiency is not known.)

At the long end of the zooms of these cameras, the Fujifilm X20 lens has a rating of f2.8, while the Sony RX100 lens has a rating of f4.9. By sensor size alone the Sony would have to have a lens aperture rating of f4 to have equivalence to the f2.8 of the Fujifilm.

If, as you say, the Sony has a

Aristophanes wrote: »

... noise reduction [that is] at least 1 and much closer to 2 stops superior ...

, then your claim may be true, but I haven't seen any published figures that corroborate your claim. Please tell us where to find these figures.

Indeed, at the DPReview site (specifically this page: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sony-cybershot-dsc-rx100/14), looking at just the green and blue patches* and at ISO 1600 for both cameras:

... I don't see any clear advantage to the Sony sensor in terms of noise.

But, you and I agree that the Sony sensor is twice as large, so it "should" be better just by virtue of its size, so the "fair" test should be when the Sony ISO is set to twice that of the Fuji ISO:

I think that I'll stay with my claim that, "If you use telephoto much the much faster aperture at 112 mm and f2.8 of the Fujifilm X20 handily beats the 100 mm and F4.9 of the Sony RX100."

With that out of the way I do like the Sony high-ISO images and I would bet that, with proper noise reduction in post-production, one could achieve a very nice result from the Sony images, which explains my previous statement, "... the Sony RX100 is considerably better when you really need a high-ISO (either JPG or RAW)."

The detail in the Fujifilm X20 gets considerably reduced for both their high-ISO JPGs and high-ISO RAWs. (Fuji is obviously doing some in-camera, high-ISO noise reduction inclusive of their RAW files.)

*(I purposely chose the green and blue patches because the Green channel of both cameras should be lowest noise since that channel has twice as many photosites representing that color, and the Blue channel is often where you find the greatest noise.)

Sony RX100 or Fuji X20

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