Sony RX100 II Image Quality

As expected, the RX100 II and RX100 look strikingly similar at base ISO levels. Both produce very high levels of crisp, fine detail, particularly noticeable in the mosaic. Interestingly, the RX100 did better with the red and pink fabrics.

Compared to Canon's high-end slim and pocketable point-and-shoot, the RX100 II wins hands down thanks the larger 1-inch type sensor and higher pixel count. In all three comparisons, the RX100 II shows more fine detail and more accurate colors than the S120.

The battle of the 1-inch type sensors! However, it's a pretty one-sided battle, with the victor being the Sony RX100 II, which handily bests the Nikon J3 in color accuracy and level of fine detail. (As is almost always the case in these shootouts, though, the Nikon wins on the red fabric swatch. For whatever reason, Nikon's processing of that particular target element is better than that of other manufacturers.)

The smaller sensor of the RX100 II really stands up to the larger Four Thirds sensor of the E-PL5 here, although we wouldn't really expect to see much difference at base ISO. While the E-PL5 does better with the fabric and ever-so-slightly better with the mosaic crop, the RX100 II is not drastically different.

Like the previous comparison, it's once again a 1"-type sensor versus a Four Thirds sensor in the GM1, and this time around, the two cameras are pretty evenly matched. Both show crisp and clean bottle crops, but while the GM1 does a little better with the fabrics, the RX100 II does slightly better with fine detail in the mosaic crop.

At higher ISO levels, the back-illuminated sensor of the RX100 II is showing its strength here against the traditional front-side illuminated sensor in the RX100. The noise in the shadows is much cleaner in the Mark II camera, though both show a similar level of fine detail. (Once again, though, the RX100 actually did a better job with the fabric swatches.)

The smaller sensor and aggressive noise reduction of the S120 at ISO 1600 produces a very noticeable drop in detail compared to the RX100 II. Despite the aggressive noise reduction, though, there's still more noise remaining in its image, easily visible in the shadow area between the two bottles.

The RX100 II wins again here at ISO 1600, with noticeably less noise and significantly more fine detail. While both struggle with producing a recognizable leaf pattern in the red fabric, the RX100 II does better with the pink swatch.

Alas, the larger Four Thirds sensor of the E-PL5 wins handily at ISO 1600. The E-PL5 shows better fine detail, less high-ISO noise, and better handling of the challenging red fabric (and the pink, too).

The larger sensor of the Panasonic GM1 again wins against the smaller one in the RX100 II, but the difference is less visually apparent here than it was with the E-PL5. We attribute this to the GM1's less-aggressive in-camera sharpening, which means lines, edges, and fine detail don't "pop" quite the way they do with the E-PL5. All the detail is there, though, it's just not emphasized to the same extent by the camera's default sharpening algorithm.

ISO 3200 is tough with a 1"-type sensor, but the high ISO performance of the Mark II is significantly better than that of the RX100. This is largely down to the RX100 II having a backside-illuminated sensor versus the conventional one in the original model, but also due to revised noise processing. The shadows are much cleaner, but similarly to what we saw with the ISO 1600 comparison, the level of fine detail is only slightly improved.

Not surprisingly, the RX100 II easily bests the smaller-sensored S120 at ISO 3200 with much more fine detail and less noise.

The Nikon J3 really struggles at ISO 3200 compared to the RX100 II despite, both having 1"-type sensors. The RX100 II shows less noise and more fine detail, as well as much more pleasing colors.

The high ISO noise reduction from the E-PL5 is quite aggressive at ISO 3200, but it still manages to handle fine detail pretty well, helped in part by its strong in-camera sharpening. The RX100 II can't quite match the performance of the E-PL5, with its larger sensor.

This is a surprisingly close contest, although we again think that much of the visual difference between the GM1 here and the E-PL5 above has to do with the amount of sharpening the E-PL5 applies. While the GM1's image doesn't "pop" quite as much as the E-PL5's, it does show more fine detail here than that from the RX100 II. Still, it's pretty remarkable that the RX100 II can come as close as it does to the performance of cameras with larger sensors.