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| Dolce Vita Sydney Harbour RX10M4 Shot from a moving ferry Straight out of camera JPG |
The RX10Mk4 is the best bridge camera you can get right now with a level of picture quality and performance which surpasses other models on the market including those from Sony.
The RX10M4 really does make an interchangeable lens kit redundant for many enthusiast photographers.
Unfortunately the least well implemented aspect of the RX10M4 is the user interface in all its aspects. This detracts somewhat from the user experience in both the Setup and Capture Phases of use. It is the reason the RX10M4 did not get a Camera Ergonomics camera of the year award for 2017.
Fortunately none of the ergonomic deficiencies are of sufficient magnitude as to prevent me from keeping the RX10M4 and making it my go-to camera for most purposes.
However there are many small to medium level ergonomic problems which together lead to user frustrations which could easily have been eliminated with better design.
I will try to illustrate these using descriptions, photos and comparison with the Panasonic Lumix FZ2500 which manages to deliver optimal ergonomics in almost every aspect of camera operation.
The weak links in the FZ2500 imaging chain is the specification and optical performance of the lens and the antediluvian auto ISO programme.
Let’s start with the overall concept and realisation of the package. Sony has done a remarkable job in fitting a 24-600mm (equivalent) lens and a 15.9mm sensor into a very compact package.
The RX10M4 has actually 6mm less width and 8mm less height than the FZ2500.
The lens is longer as you would expect, but the diameter of the Sony lens housing (80mm) is actually less than that of the Panasonic (83mm) yet the Sony filter is larger (72mm) than the Panasonic (67mm).
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| RX10Mk4 rear |
But there is an ergonomic price to be paid for this restricted body height and width. Basically it means there is less real estate there for the various viewing and control modules which must be fitted.
There is insufficient width for a fully articulated rear screen.
The handle width is restricted and consequently the handle is forced to be of the thin type which cannot be shaped to conform to the anatomy of the hand and fingers as easily as a fatter handle type.
You have to use the cameras for a while to appreciate this.
The RX10M4 handle is serviceable, but it could be better if the designers had more width to work with.
Height available for the viewfinder eyepiece and eyecup is limited. Again the one supplied is serviceable but could be better if more space had been available.
The control panel (the area to the right of the monitor screen) on the RX10M4 is about 5mm narrower than that on the FZ2500. This might not sound like much but it restricts the width available for the thumb support which is much wider on the FZ2500 allowing the thumb to adopt a more natural position and at the same time opening up a space above the thumb support for the rear dial. Panasonic could have elected to embed the rear dial in the thumb support (as per the FZ1000 and GH4/5) which is my preferred location, but elected not to, I know not why.
The next big body shape item to consider is the slope of the shoulders. The top deck of the RX10M4 slopes down considerably on the right side. Presumably this has been done in the quest to make the body appear compact. The downside is that shutter button height and handle height are restricted. Users with small hands will be able to get a full five finger grip on the handle but those of us with slightly larger hands may not. This is not a huge deal but is not trivial either as the camera weighs 1170 grams ready to go. A good solid grip on the device is essential particularly when working at the long end of the zoom.
It occurs to me that there is no identifiable Sony styling or control layout theme here.
Check out the Alpha A7 and A9 models which have a hump top but a flat top panel and the Alpha A6000/6300/6500 models which have a flat top, no hump style.
Why are they all different ?? The same people with the same hands are expected to use them.
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| RX10Mk4 on the left, FZ2500 on the right. This is one of those situations where a photo does not tell a thousand words. To the casual observer these two cameras might seem very similar. But in practice one handles much better than the other. |
Now let us look at the top deck where we find something really strange — an LCD panel.
LCD panels were introduced to digital SLRs because the optical viewfinder on this camera type can display only a limited amount of camera data.
But the RX10M4 has an electronic viewfinder and an electronic monitor screen both of which can display vastly more information than the LCD panel (or not, if you prefer) and the data displayed is user selectable.
So what is the LCD panel doing there ??
I can tell you for sure it is taking up some of the most valuable real estate on the camera and preventing the Mode Dial from being located there.
In my use of the RX10M4 I NEVER look at the LCD screen. It is useless. Redundant. Actually it is worse than useless, because of the opportunity cost to the entire control layout of having the LCD panel where the Mode Dial should optimally be located.
To the right of the LCD panel we find a dedicated exposure compensation dial. These things have been fitted to all manner of cameras in the last few years, from compacts to full sized ILCs.
In my view they are an ergonomic mistake. Why ?
A much more versatile arrangement is to have two control dials on top of the camera. The user can then decide what to do with them. One option would be to use the rear (or front if preferred) dial for exposure compensation. This gives the user the option to configure the camera to personal preference.
It also allows the user to configure exposure compensation to re-set to zero whenever the camera is switched on, or to enable the set level of compensation to be retained if desired.
With a dedicated exposure compensation dial none of these options is available.
The argument for the dedicated EC dial is that the level of compensation can be seen on the dial.
Which some users might rate a benefit except that you cannot see the dial when looking through the viewfinder and adjusting exposure with the zebras as a guide.
As it happens the EC dial on the RX10M4 is quite stiff and getting the thumb onto it with enough force to turn the dial is quite an awkward procedure, requiring one to stop taking photos, shift the whole right hand upwards allowing the thumb to move forwards.
By way of contrast the rear dial on the FZ2500 is easy to access and turn with the thumb but it is not so easy to turn that the dial moves inadvertently.
If you have an opportunity to get both cameras in hand at the same time you will quickly discover this for yourself.
What’s missing from the RX10M4 top plate ?
We already saw that the Shooting Mode Dial had to move over to the left side.
But now the Drive Mode dial has nowhere to go so on the RX10Mk4 it disappears into one of the buttons with user assignable function. That’s not the end of the world, but Drive Mode is actually one of the functions which it is useful to be able to see directly in Prepare Phase of use.
Now notice there are no control dials on the top plate. OOPS !
The optimal location for a front control dial is behind the shutter, Canon style. If the handle is well designed and the shutter button optimally positioned then behind the shutter button is the best location for the front control dial. An alternative arrangement which can work well is the Panasonic/Olympus style “around the shutter button” circular type front dial.
The optimal location for the second control dial is either embedded in the upper part of the thumb support as per the GH3/4/5 and FZ1000 or on top of the thumb support as per the FZ2500, FZ300 and several other cameras.
Unfortunately The RX10 series designers lost the plot completely on the subject of control dials.
There are two of them but they are both badly located and implemented.
The upper rear dial is sitting under the right thumb in normal shooting position. So it must be set forward to avoid accidental activation. It is also small with fine serrations making it difficult for the thumb to engage confidently with it.
The lower control dial surrounds the multifunction module low down on the control panel. A camera like this needs one of these in addition to not instead of a proper high mounted rear control dial.
All the buttons on the back of the camera are too small and are flush with the surface or nearly so.
This makes it very difficult to find any of them by feel. I put a small dot of clear epoxy resin on the AEL and C3 buttons so I can more easily find them by feel.
The focus mode rotary switch is located in a most inconvenient place, on the front of the body near the bottom where the user cannot see it from the operating position.
The equivalent switch on the FZ2500 is right next to the thumb where the user can easily see and operate it.
Now we come to the aperture ring. I have been using cameras for 64 years. For most of that time the only way to change the lens aperture on any camera was to fit some kind of ring around the lens, connected to a gear mechanism which changed the position of the aperture diaphragm blades.
But on modern lenses the aperture diaphragm is operated by a little motor of some kind. This can be triggered via any kind of control point located anywhere on or off the camera.
The old fashioned aperture ring is redundant. Worse, the RX10M4 forces you to change aperture with this ring and by no other method.
The RX10M4 is a “Mode Dial+Control Dial” camera. The aperture cannot be adjusted directly unless the shooting mode dial is in the A or M position.
So to change aperture you have to move the mode dial to the required position and then use the whole left hand and several fingers to move the aperture ring. This requires many more actions, each more complex than changing aperture with a front or rear control dial which can be done with just one finger if the dials are properly located and configured.
The other obvious issue is that the lens on the RX10M4 has a variable aperture so if the aperture ring is set at say, f2.4 that will only be the actual aperture at 24mm focal length. Only if the marked aperture is f4 or a greater f number can you be sure the marked aperture will correspond to the actual aperture.
The inclusion of an aperture ring on a camera like the RX10M4 is a complete ergonomic absurdity.
Now for some minor matters:
The memory card can be awkward to extract. I cannot get my finger between the card slot cover and the card itself. So I have to grab the card by the sides. No big deal just another minor inconvenience which did not need to be there.
About the lens hood: There is a trick to getting the lens hood on and off its mount cleanly. Squeeze the hood at the sides, not top and bottom. Then it goes on and off easily with the petals facing forwards or backwards.
And so we come to the Menus.
Sony has been inflicting clumsy, badly designed menus on its long suffering camera users for many years. I am informed by those with experience that the RX10M4 menu system is an improvement on that of the Mk3 and previous iterations of the line.
That’s welcome, but Sony has still a long way to go before I could say the menu system is decently user friendly.
The designers have tried to clean up the layout with subheadings and that is a step in the right direction to be sure.
But video items are still in with stills items. There are still too many like items in different places in the system and too many unlike items lumped together.
There are way too many mystery items with abbreviated names the meaning of which is, to put it mildly, not clear. [Swt.V/H AF Area] for instance. There are many others like this.
There is an on line Help Guide (with a PDF version if desired) which is useful for unravelling the secret of some of the mystery items but not all of them.
There is an [in camera guide] which can be allocated to one of the buttons with user selectable function. Problem is, the words offered by the in camera guide are often just as cryptic as those it is supposed to explain.
There are way too many menu items altogether. Together they look like the results of a shopping spree where the buyer bought a whole load of stuff because it was on special and hoped that somebody might find a use for it someday.
There are many items pertaining to focus which appear to be of dubious usefulness to me.
So the whole menu system is cluttered up with items which I very much doubt many owners will use.
At the same time very important items which every owner who wants to use the P,A,S,M modes will definitely want to use such as [Focus Standard] are buried deep in the submenus, are cryptic in name and their function is not explained.
As it happens [Focus Standard] is the function you need to assign to the center button if you want to use that button to activate the AF frame so the position of the frame can be moved and its size can be changed.
The user experience
With so many ergonomic problems the reader might be excused for thinking the camera would be almost unusable. But in practice it is not so bad.
The reasons are:
Once the setup process is completed (I will wrestle with this in another post) and selected functions assigned to the 9 modules which can be user configured, then making function selections in Prepare
Phase of use is quite easy. Of course you have to remember which function you allocated to which button but that applies to any modern camera.
Most of the time the camera works just fine in P Mode.
There is little need to adjust anything beyond zoom and AF frame position during the process of taking photos.
The process of moving AF frame position can be streamlined by leaving the focus frame active as shown by the bounding arrows. Then the AF frame position and size can be moved directly with the rear dial/buttons.
The secret to P Mode success is the excellent if cryptically named Sony [ISO Auto Min.SS].
This is the best auto ISO programme in the business. It is focal length responsive, essential on a superzoom camera, and can be set to Standard, which preferentially selects a shutter speed 1/focal length (equivalent) or to Slow, Slower, Fast or Faster.
The setting can be saved as part of a Memory Recall set allocated to the MR spot on the Mode Dial.
I use P Mode most of the time for hand held work only reverting to A Mode when the camera is on a tripod.
So the RX10M4 is a camera which despite its rather low (for a flagship model) ergonomic score of 72/100 works decently well in practice once it has been set up to the user’s preferences and once the user has figured out how to get the best from it.