Image: Sony Corporation, fair use

There is a famous saying that goes: The best camera is the one you have with you. Usually this is the camera on your mobile phone (the rear-facing camera to be precise). Phone cameras are very good these days, but they still have trouble in poor lighting conditions. This is due to quantum physics: phone cameras have small image sensors, and the graininess of a photo is related to how many photons are absorbed by the sensor. Few photons means that the signal from each individual pixel sensor is affected more by random factors.

Given any sensor and lens combination, more photons will be absorbed if the setup is scaled up. So I bought a compact camera that has a 1-inch sensor and a fast lens to complement my phone camera. The RX100m4 in a nutshell:

• 20 megapixel 1" sensor
• 24-70 mm zoom lens (35mm equivalent), F1.8(W) - F2.8(T)
• ISO range: 125-12800
• Weight: 294 grams (measured by me, including battery and memory card)
• Size: 101.6 x 58.1 x 41.0 mm
• Pop-up viewfinder (extremely useful in strong lighting conditions)
• Wifi data transfer (use sony-pm-alt for Linux)
• Slow motion filming up to 1000 fps
• Pop-up flash (quite redundant actually since ambient light is almost always enough)

Some sample photos below. Click on the images to view larger versions. Note: all exposures were hand-held.

Cropped from 18 megapixel image.

Cropped from 18 megapixel image.

Cropped from 18 megapixel image.

Ljusterö. HDR exposure.

Zürich. 1/800s, ISO 125.

Lake Ravalen. 1/60s, ISO 125. HDR exposure.

Bee. 1000 fps.

Bird (Jackdaw). 1000 fps. Note sampling artefacts.

Ursa Major. 1/20s, ISO 12800.
(Click to see the stars)

Candle-lit stove top. 1/8s, ISO 1000, stacking 4x.

Candle-lit stove top. 1/4s, ISO 12800, stacking 4x.
The candle is now 2.5 meters away. The combined exposure
time is 1 second, all hand-held.