RX100 M3 mode dial – what a treat!
When I first started to read the manual for the Sony RX100 M3 regarding shooting stills, I could not believe the amount of intelligence and options they have packed into this little camera! The mode dial has 10 positions, and behind two of them are 3 and 12 options respectively, giving more than 20 mode options of which some are auto modes that combines underlying features in a new way! This may seem quite intimidating of you are new to photography or new to this camera, but let me see if I can give you an overview so that you quickly can zoom in on the options that are best for you.
If you want automation
Professional photographers want control of their camera because they want control of the process and hence the outcome. Us more humble amateurs may want to turn to some of the automatic modes, either because we are lazy or because we have other things to attend to (like hosting the party where we are also taking pictures). Now, there are 2 fully automatic modes for shooting stills named Intelligent Auto (green) and Superior auto (yellow/orange), but the text is not written on the dial, instead a little camera is depicted in yellow and green, with an “i” in front of it (i for intelligent presumably):
In these modes, the camera takes care of everything – ISO, aperture and shutter speed. You “just” have to point and shoot. The difference between Intelligent auto (green) and the Superior Auto (yellow) is that the camera in the latter mode takes several pictures and combines them into one. You may have come across a feature named HDR on your smartphone (or bracketing on a DSLR), this is a bit of the same. The camera takes several pictures and combines them so that the low light parts are “boosted” so they become more bright and the high light parts are scaled back a bit so they are not blown out. This improves the dynamic range, i.e. how bright and dark parts that the camera can handle in one shot.
If you want automation with a twist
In the automatic modes, the camera tries to guess what it is you are shooting, and adjust the camera settings to optimize what you shoot. Sony call this scenes, i.e. types of photographs that you do. It is very kind and in the top left corner shows you what scene it has arrived at, based on what the electronics find on the sensor. In this example where I am taking a picture of a plastic cow, the camera figures that it is flower photography! It is not as bad as it sounds – it is an object full of colors and close up, so a flower is not a bad guess. Notice the graphics top left gives the scene mode:
In the two fully automatic modes described above, the camera constantly guesses what we are trying to shoot and it arrives a for example: Pet, Gourmet, Macro, Baby (!), Sports, Portrait, Landscape, Sunset. Night scene, Night portrait, Fireworks, etc. It also has some scenes where it just concludes that the light is very limited or that you are trying to shoot hand-held. In the fully automatic modes, the camera informs you of what it has concluded in the top left corner.
The point putting the camera in Scene mode (SCN on the dial) is that you can now tell the camera what it is you are shooting. Of course only from the list of options given by Sony, but they cover many situations. In this way, you can control that the camera optimizes for the right scene, so that it does not think you are shooting fireworks, when you actually take a picture of a flower (he he). Such mistake is very unlikely I have to add, but there are some scenes where the camera has troubles finding the right scene (gourmet and macro are very similar to give a better example).
So choose scenes mode when you want to still rely on the cameras ability to optimize the settings based on what you are shooting, but you take control and tell the camera what it is you are shooting, so it selects the right shelf to meter from.
Semi automatic modes and manual mode
The RX100 of course also gives the option to select the classic semi automatic modes: Aperture priority mode, Shutter priority mode and Program mode:
(A)perture priority: You control the aperture, the camera selects the shutter speed.
(S)hutter priority: You control the shutter speed, the camera selects the aperture.
(P)rogram mode: You select both the Aperture and the Shutter speed but in pre-set tandems, so the
exposure is still correct.
The ISO is set according to the value selected in the menu system. Press the Fn button top left of the rear command wheel, and the menu appears. Bottom left gives the ISO setting. You can control if you want to set the ISO yourself, if you want to have the camera do so – with or without limitations to upper and lower values:
The RX100 also lets you control it all in manual mode where you can set each of the parameters in the exposure triangle as you see fit. This is probably the mode you want to use of absolute control of the camera is vital to you, for example if you do long exposures.
Memory recall (MR)
In the memory recall mode, you have 3 modes to choose from of previously stored mode information. So you are not only selecting the priority mode, but also the exposure compensation, just to name one. There are 3 pages of information with what the camera stores!
I find that the confusing part is to store this information (not the recall), but the process is simple: set-up the camera exactly the way you like it to, and then go into the menu system and select item 7 in the shooting menu, and hereafter select “memory”. You can the store then information in bank 1, 2 or 3 by moving left and right with the command wheel and pressing the center for storing.
Panorama
I have done an entire video on how to shoot in panorama mode with the RX100 and you may have come across this feature on your smartphone. But it is a nice way to “get it all in” when you have a wide subject to capture. Notice that you can shoot both in portrait and landscape mode – you select the direction on the front dial (the one at the root of the lens).
Related reading
Review: Sony RX100 M3 is a value-for-money compact camera packed with features
Sony RX100 M3: How to shoot Panorama pictures in camera with
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