Sony announces RX100 VI with 24-200mm lens

Sony has announced the newest member of the popular RX100 series of camera. Called the RX100 VI unsurprisingly, the new model continues the trend of few but important changes across the board to keep things fresh and interesting in what is now a six-year old series.

The main change in RX100 VI is a new lens. The new model includes a 24-200mm lens, making it the highest focal length lens in the series so far, giving it some serious magnification that RX100 cameras have lacked so far. Despite the increased focal length the camera packs an impressive f2.8-4.5 aperture range, which although slower at the wide end compared to previous models (f1.8-2.8) is still reasonably fast at the tele end. The new lens assembly uses 15 elements in 12 groups for sharper image quality across the frame.

The RX100 VI also improves the optical stabilization performance. Sony claims an improvement equivalent to 4.0 stop increase in shutter speed at 200mm.

The new model also improved 4K video output. The camera is now capable of recording in S-Log 3 as well, providing wider dynamic range for more flexible color grading work in post. The camera also supports HLG picture profiles. Together, they can be used to create an HDR video workflow, which is a first for a Cyber-shot camera.

The rest of the camera is largely identical to the RX100 V. It has the same 20.1MP 1.0-type DRAM stacked sensor, BIONZ X processor, 315 point AF system with 0.03 seconds focusing speed, 1080p video at 240/480/960fps slow motion and 24fps burst capture. The display is now touch screen but only used for focusing and has lower resolution (921k dots) compared to previous models (1228k dots). The electronic viewfinder remains the same. The battery is also the same although Sony claims a few extra shots this time.

The Sony RX100 VI will be available in July 2018 for $1200. As usual, the price keeps increasing over the previous models as Sony keeps selling them alongside the new one. Not sure how much sense that makes considering how old the first few models are at this point and also how the new ones keep getting out of reach for its target audience.

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