The Sony RX100 series has garnered much attention from photographers with its ability to capture high-quality images in a point-and-shoot style body. Due to to the Kumamoto earthquake, there were no updates to this line released during Photokina, but Sony recently had a small event in New York launching the RX100 V and the a6500.

[REWIND: Sony’s New a6500: A More Powerful Flagship APS-C with IBIS & Touchscreen ]

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Sharing a few firsts with the a6500 the RX100 MK V has the new 315-point phase detection AF-system, touting the world’s fastest AF at .05 seconds. Sony has also refreshed the 20.1 megapixel RS BSI CMOS sensor with a front end LSI chip that maximizes processing speed and improves high ISO quality. Along with a larger cache, the RX100 V can capture 24 frames-per-second in stills mode, for up to six seconds.

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The Specs:

  • 20.1MP 1″ Exmor RS BSI CMOS Sensor
  • BIONZ X Image Processor
  • 0.39″ 2.36m-Dot OLED Pop-Up EVF
  • 3.0″ 1.23m-Dot 180° Tilting LCD
  • Internal UHD 4K Video & S-Log3 Gamma
  • Built-In Wi-Fi with NFC
  • Up to 24 fps Shooting and ISO 12800

The pop-up 2.36 million dot OLED EVF and the Zeiss Vario-Sonnar 24-70mm equivalent F/1.8-2.8 T lens with optical image stabilization, remain unchanged, but Sony has included an Anti-Distortion Electric Shutter with a max speed of 1/32000 of a second. The electronic shutter automatically kicks in for shutter speeds greater than 1/2000s, or frame rates greater than 10 fps.

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Sony has a habit of including 4K in their high-end cameras, and the RX100 V doesn’t disappoint. The camera produces a 4K UHD stream from an oversampled 5028×2828 pixel region. In other words, the RX100 V captures a 14-megapixel image and downsizes it to the 8-megapixel frames. Sony says the camera features a “full pixel readout without pixel binning condenses about 1.7 times as much data as is required for 4K movies, so 4K movie output looks unbeatably brilliant.” The RX100 V seems to be just another step forward to what many would consider the world’s ultimate compact camera.

The RX100 V is available for pre-order at B&H for about $1000. What do you think of Sony’s new compact? Does it justify space in your camera bag/pocket?