Sony RX10 V Review

The RX10 V arrives nine years after the Mark IV and keeps the parts that made the line famous: a 20.1 megapixel 1-inch stacked sensor behind a 24-600mm equivalent f/2.4-4 zoom with optical stabilization, in a weather sealed body. Around them, a newer processor brings the subject recognition autofocus from Sony's Alpha cameras, the controls gain a joystick and an Alpha style layout, the viewfinder is larger and sharper, and video now runs to oversampled 4K at 60p, cropped 4K at 120p and 10-bit recording with S-Log3.

Autofocus is the big win. It finds birds, animals, aircraft and people across that enormous focal range, the 30 frames per second burst has a deep buffer, and one body replaces a bag of lenses for travel, wildlife and sports.

The faults are the old ones plus the price. A 1-inch sensor gets noisy quickly in low light, the powered zoom is slow, the rear screen only tilts, start up is sluggish and focus cannot hold while you zoom. Most reviews still call it the best bridge camera on sale, though nearly all of them flag the 2299 dollar price for a camera that keeps its predecessor's sensor and lens, and one prominent review found its low light results too weak to justify the money. For anyone who wants maximum reach in one self contained body nothing else on sale does it as well, but the price and the small sensor make it a specialist's buy rather than an easy recommendation.