Bank Holiday Monday and a trip to the British Rallycross meeting at Lydden Hill. As it was a day off I left my camera bag at home and popped the diminutive Sony RX100V in my pocket.
They say the best camera is the one you have with you. Very true but it is all about knowing the camera inside out and understanding its limitations. I therefore had a couple of problems the first being that I really don't know how to use the RX100. Sure I can do the basics but I struggle! As a bit of background I purchased the Sony to record some slow motion video clips for a web project and have never really used it as a general walk about camera.
The obvious limitation of this camera for motor sport is lack of reach the 24-70 equivalent is clearly a handicap. The other issue for me was finding my way through the menu in the sunshine - this is where a level of familiarity would have helped significantly.
I realised to get anything half decent we would need to be close to the action, fortunately this is easy at Lydden!
I started of with a few high shutter speed shots, the autofocus seemed to cope well although I couldn't tell from the review screen if the shots were in focus or not. I now realise that you can check using the EVF but I still struggle.
Then I tried some panning playing with the shutter speed at between 1/20th and 1/50th. The good thing about the Sony RX100 is that it has a built in ND filter and I could even find that in the menu!
The other bonus of course is the 30fps continuous shooting which is just crazy and meant that out of 30 I was likely to get at least one frame in focus!
The 24mm equivalent was nice for a landscape too.
The reason I bought the RX100 was for its slowmo capabilities so here is a little example. This is shot at 250fps and is unedited.
And for completeness here is some normal video footage...
Finally my favourite shot at 1/50th second.
I am sure that I could have got much better shots with this little camera but for me this was a day off not a camera club outing. What it has taught me is that I need to spend some time and practice to get the results it deserves.
Overall it is a fantastically capable piece of kit