PHOTO QUALITY. This 20-megapixel advanced point-and-shoot camera captured images with very good quality. Pictures were sharp, which means you can see most details and subtle patterns in the image. In low-light situations without a flash, pictures were sharp. We judged this model very good for outdoor performance, such as shooting landscapes in the daytime; excellent for indoor performance, such as photographing a well-lit basketball game in a gym. And very good for low-light performance without a flash, such as capturing a birthday party. Photos taken in our low-light performance tests displayed very little image noise; subjects retained correct detail and color.
FLASH. The Cyber-shot RX100 III captured flash shots that were excellent. In our distance test, we found the camera's flash could illuminate subjects very well, both near and far. The flash also has excellent, very even coverage.
LENS. It only has a 2.9x optical zoom lens, less than the standard 3x. The lens also has very wide-angle (24mm) capability that's very useful for landscapes and group portraits, although you may notice a bit of distortion when you're shooting faces up close, for instance. The lens has a bright f/1.8 aperture (at its maximum), which gives you a shallower depth of field for producing more professional looking portraits and images.
IMAGE STABILIZATION. This is an important feature; taking hand-held shots at the telephoto end of the zoom range can generally blur or soften images due to the slight movement of your hands. In low-light settings, it performed very well and rarely produced blurry photos. Overall, the shake reduction results from our tests were very good.
SPEED. In terms of performance, the Sony Cyber-shot RX100 III powers up very quickly. It has a short interval between shots, which can be important when shooting fast-moving or unpredictable subjects.
VIDEO. The Sony Cyber-shot RX100 III takes excellent video. It captures full HD video at 1920 x 1080 100p. As for sound, it captures very good audio in stereo.
ADDITIONAL COMMENTS. Like most advanced point-and-shoot models, this camera does include an electronic viewfinder, which means you have flexibility when composing your photo or video; this viewfinder has excellent quality. Although it has a display with 1,228,800 pixels, which should make it sharper than most in its class, we didn't find that the display stood out from the pack. This advanced point-and-shoot is much smaller, thinner and lighter than most in its class.
