Overview

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 IV digital camera

This blog is a guide to the operation of the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 IV digital camera. It contains some of the same information as my complete book, Photographer’s Guide - Get The Most From Your Sony DSC-RX100 IV. It has been revised with new illustrations and text in many chapters to cover the new and enhanced features of this camera..

The RX100 IV camera continues in the tradition of the RX100 III and earlier models with great portability, excellent image quality, and advanced features for taking stills and videos. It adds several enhancements, foremost of which is a new type of image sensor, called the Exmor RS, a 1-inch type backside-illuminated sensor with stacked layers. The new design for the sensor gives it much greater speed than the sensors on previous RX100 models. As a result, the RX100 IV can shoot bursts of still images at speeds up to 16 frames per second and can shoot slow-motion video at a frame rate of 960 frames per second. The new sensor also lets the camera record video clips with 4K resolution (greater than HD), though only up to about 5 minutes at a time. The enhanced sensor also enables the use of an electronic shutter with speeds up to 1/32000 second.

Another new capability provided for the RX100 IV is tethered shooting. With Sony’s Remote Camera Control software, which you can download from Sony’s site, you can control the camera from your computer when the camera is connected to the computer with its USB cable.

The RX100 IV retains advanced features from the previous model, including a pop-up electronic viewfinder with an improved resolution of 2.3 million dots. The lens has a wide-angle setting of 24mm, a bright f/1.8 aperture at the wide-angle end, and an f/2.8 aperture at the telephoto end. The camera has a tilting LCD screen, a built-in neutral density filter, and the ability to download camera apps that can add features and functions. Besides the ability to take short bursts of super-slow-motion video, the RX100 IV comes with several features oriented to professional video production, including picture profiles with adjustments for gamma curve, knee, black level, and other settings, making this model suitable for use as a second or backup camera for serious videographers.

Despite the addition of several advanced features for still and video photography, the RX100 IV retains the small size of the earlier RX100 models, which leaves the new model as possibly the greatest value available in a camera that can fit into just about any pocket.

My goal on this blog is to provide a complete guide to the camera’s features, explaining how they work and when you might want to use them. The book is aimed largely at beginning and intermediate photographers who are not satisfied with the official documentation and prefer a more user-friendly explanation of the camera’s controls and menus. For those seeking more advanced information, I discuss some topics that go beyond the basics, and I include in the appendices information about additional resources. You can request for free updates and other information by contacting me.

PRELIMINARY SETUP

When you purchase your Sony DSC-RX100 IV, the box should contain the camera itself, battery, charger, wrist strap, two adapters for attaching a shoulder strap (though no shoulder strap is supplied), micro USB cable, and several brief instruction pamphlets. There is no CD with software or user’s guide; the software programs supplied by Sony are accessible through the Internet.

To install Sony’s software for viewing and working with images and videos on Windows-based computers, go to the following Internet address: http://www.sony.co.jp/imsoft/Win/. If you have a Macintosh computer, you can get the software at http://www.sony.co.jp/imsoft/Mac/. You can download Play Memories Home, a program for basic image editing, uploading, and management; Image Data Converter, a program for editing and processing images captured using the advanced Raw format; and Capture One Express, a special Sony-oriented version of Capture One, a sophisticated Raw-processing program from a company known as Phase One.

At the same websites, you also can install Sony’s Remote Camera Control software, which lets you control the RX100 IV from your computer when the camera is connected to the computer with its USB cable.

You might want to attach the wrist strap as soon as possible to help you keep a tight grip on the camera. The strap can be attached to the small mounting lug on either the left or right side of the camera. I have never attached the strap, though, because the camera is so small that I can hold it firmly without much risk of dropping it, even without a strap. See Appendix A for a discussion of custom grips that can also be of use. If you purchase an optional neck strap, you can attach it to the camera using the strap adapters provided by Sony in the box with the RX100 IV.

Charging and Inserting the Battery

The Sony battery for the DSC-RX100 IV Sony camera is the NP-BX1. The standard procedure is to charge the battery while it’s inside the camera. To do this, you use the supplied USB cable, which plugs into the camera and into the Sony charger or a USB port on your computer.

There are pluses and minuses to charging the battery while it is inside the camera. On the positive side, you don’t need an external charger, and the camera can charge automatically when it’s connected to your computer. Also, many automobiles have USB slots where you can plug in your RX100 IV to keep up its charge. And, you can find portable charging devices with USB ports, as discussed in Appendix A.

On the negative side, with this system you cannot charge a battery outside of the camera, so you cannot be charging a spare battery while using the battery that is inside the camera. One solution to this situation is to purchase at least one extra battery and a device that will charge your batteries externally.

With the RX100 IV, unlike some previous models, you can use the supplied battery charger as an AC adapter that will power the camera. So, if your battery runs completely down, you don’t have to wait until you have recharged it to start using the camera again. You can plug the charger into the camera and into an AC outlet or USB power supply, and operate the camera directly from that power source. I discussed batteries, chargers, and other accessories in another post on this blog.

To charge the battery, insert it into the camera and connect the charger. You first need to open the battery compartment door on the bottom of the camera and put in the battery. You can only insert it fully into the camera one way; what I do is look for the 4 gold-colored metal contact squares on the end of the battery and insert the battery so those 4 squares are positioned close to the front of the camera as the battery goes into the compartment, as shown in Figure 1-1.

 

Figure 1-1 - Battery Lined Up to Go into Camera

You may have to nudge aside the small blue latch that holds the battery in place, which is seen in Figure 1-2.

Figure 1-2 - Battery Secured by Latch

With the battery inserted and secured by the latch, close the battery compartment door and slide the ridged latch on the door to the closed position. Then plug the larger, rectangular end of the USB cable into the corresponding slot on the provided AC charger, which is model number AC-UB10C in the United States. (The model number is very hard to read; you have to hold the adapter up to the light at a certain angle to see the number.) Plug the smaller end of the cable into the micro USB port on the upper part of the camera’s right side as you hold it in shooting position, as shown in Figure 1-3.

Figure 1-3 - Battery Charger Connected to Camera

Plug the charger’s prongs into a standard electrical outlet. An orange lamp in the center of the power (On/Off) button on top of the camera will light up steadily while the battery is charging; when it goes out, the battery is fully charged. The full charging cycle should take about 230 minutes. If the charging lamp flashes, that indicates a problem with the charger or a problem with the temperature of the camera’s environment.

To charge the battery using a USB power supply such as a USB port on a laptop computer, just plug the large end of the camera’s USB cable into that power source and the small end into the charging port on the camera, while the camera is turned off.