[With Sample Photos] The Original Full-Frame in Your Pocket: SONY Cyber-shot RX1R

Hello!

The camera we're featuring this time is the SONY Cyber-shot RX1R!

As the title says, this is a fixed-lens camera that houses a full-frame sensor, a true monster of a compact. The RX1R featured here has an R at the end of its name, which marks it as the model without an optical low-pass filter. The original RX1 was released in 2012, and the RX1R followed a year later in 2013. The difference is that omitting the low-pass filter pursues even greater resolving power.

Here is the first shot.

The overwhelming background blur of a full-frame sensor combined with the rendering of the ZEISS Sonnar T*. You can easily and casually take photos you would never guess came from a fixed-lens camera.

I once heard from an optical designer that it is easier to achieve high performance with a fixed-lens camera than when making an interchangeable lens of the same specification. Why is that? An ordinary camera lens is designed to deliver the most stable rendering across all kinds of cameras (image sensors). In other words, it is designed to score a high average overall. A fixed-lens camera, on the other hand, has its image sensor determined from the very beginning. That allows the lens to be designed around the sensor's characteristics and compatibility. This is apparently very effective for suppressing vignetting and various aberrations, and for making the whole unit smaller.

That got a little long.

Here is the second sample.

You can see that even each individual leaf of the plants on the opposite bank of the river is resolved crisply. In terms of three-dimensionality and tonal gradation as well, I feel this camera firmly carries on the ZEISS lens trait of capturing even the air itself. The RX1 series has since steadily improved in specs, with the RX1RII (2016) and RX1RIII (2025) arriving as new models. However, prices have tended to rise accordingly, and many people still keep using the original or second-generation models. Why not pick one up and try it yourself, as a classic that has lost none of its appeal?

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