Announced in June 2018, the RX100 VI is the latest iteration of the Sony’s RX100 series of pocketable high-end compact cameras. The last few years haven’t been kind on point-and-shoot cameras with smartphone cameras now the tool of choice for most casual photographic situations. This has nearly eradicated the point-and-shoot camera market, but one niche segment remains seemingly unscathed: advanced bridge cameras like the Sony RX100 VI. With its large 20.1-megapixel stacked 1-inch imaging sensor, the RX100 VI captures more detailed images and video than any smartphone. In times past, the powerful sensor was enough of a selling point, but over time, Sony has had to continually add new features to make the RX100 series more competitive. On the RX100 V, that meant increasing the burst rate to 24fps and adding advanced focus features. With the new RX100 VI, Sony has gone with an 8.3x optical zoom range with a f/2.8-4.5 variable aperture 24-200mm equivalent lens. That gives the Mark VI noticeably greater reach than the 24-70mm equivalent lens of its predecessor. However, there is a tradeoff as the new lens’s maximum aperture settings of f/2.8-4.5 are a lot narrower than the f/1.8-2.8 range on the 24-70mm lens of the Mark V. This not only means that you’ll be losing the shallow depth of field capabilities of previous RX100 offerings, but it also means noisier images and videos in low-light settings.
