Sony RX0

[huwporter]

New announcement:

Sony RX0 1.0-type sensor ultra-compact camera with waterproof and shockproof design

Should offer RX- level image quality in a GoPro size body - I've been waiting for someone to do something like this for ages,. The idea - a larger sensor in a tiny body - has huge potential for UW imaging, as a backup camera, or as a tiny primary camera for travelling light, or on tech dives where you might choose not to take a full size rig.

As a generation 1 product, I can see a few major shortfalls as a decent dive camera. 1: Limited to 1080 internal recording; needing an external recorder for 4k ain't going to work UW. 2: No image stabilisation. 3: Going to be video lights or available light only for now - doubt it has any way of triggering a strobe. Maybe generation 2 will fix some/all of these.

Now if one of the housing manufacturers wants to offer a decent dive housing with wet wide-angle lenses...

 

[ScubaSteve85]

Already done. Sony is offering its own housing for the camera depth rated to 330'. Man I want one of these to stick on top of my Rx100m5 setup. What a combo that would be.

Sony Housing

 

[huwporter]

That is "a" housing, but to be a decent dive housing it needs either a dome port, or (better), an attachment point for wet wideangle lenses. The 24mm lens behind a flat port will give you about a 32mm equivalent angle of view - way too narrow for general shooting but not long enough for macro.

It's a step in an interesting direction, but it seems like a beta-release as far as UW video goes.

 

[ScubaSteve85]

I agree that it's not going to replace a dedicated photo rig anytime soon, especially with no flash trigger, but the housing does have 55mm threads so it could easily accommodate something like a big eye lens or similar and make a nice compact video rig or secondary camera. Obviously quite a bit more than a GoPro, especially with the housing, but I'm a huge fan of Sony image sensors.