Sony RX100 V Performance

Incredible burst performance, but slow buffer clearing.

Startup to first shot time was about average for its class. Play to Record switching was quite fast.

The Sony RX100 V's full autofocus shutter lag when shooting the same target multiple times was very fast for a compact camera. The RX100 V's full AF shutter lag clocked in at about 0.19 second at wide angle using center AF mode. Full AF shutter lag was just a little slower at full telephoto, at about 0.21 second, but that's still quite fast. Enabling the flash raised shutter lag to 0.3 seconds, to account for the metering preflash.

Manual focus shutter lag was incredibly fast at 20 milliseconds, and prefocused shutter lag was even faster at only 8 milliseconds, one of the lowest shutter lag times we've measured in recent memory.

Shot-to-shot cycle times were excellent in single shot mode, at less than 0.3 second for Large/Extra Fine JPEGs or RAW+Large/Fine JPEG files. Note that the Sony RX100 V does not support capturing JPEGs using highest quality Extra Fine compression when shooting with RAW files, dropping JPEGs down to Fine quality. We no longer test just RAW file cycle time in single-shot mode, as it's usually somewhere in between JPEG and RAW+JPEG.

The Sony RX100 V's Continuous Hi shooting mode burst rate was incredible, able to shoot best quality Large Extra Fine JPEGs and RAW+JPEG files at 23.8 frames per second and RAW files at 24.1 frames per second, and the Mark V supports continuous autofocus at those speeds! The RX100 V also offers Mid and Lo settings rated at 10.0 and 3.5 fps respectively, however we didn't test those modes in the lab.

Buffer depths were outstanding at 150 best quality JPEGs, 72 RAW or 62 RAW+JPEG files before the camera slowed down. Buffer clearing was quite slow, though, taking a whopping 108 seconds after a max-length burst of best quality JPEGs, 48 seconds for a max burst of RAW files, and 60 seconds for a max burst of RAW+JPEG files with our fast 95MB/s UHS-I SDHC card. You can make some setting changes and review images which have been written to the card while the buffer is clearing, but you can't access the main menu system at all until all images are flushed to the card. Unfortunately, the Sony RX100 V does not support faster UHS-II cards.

The built-in flash took an average of 3.1 seconds to recharge after a full-power discharge, which is good.

Bottom line, the Sony RX100 V's performance was outstanding in most respects with fast AF, extremely low shutter lag and an incredible ~24 fps full-res burst rate no matter the file type (and continuous autofocus is supported!). Buffer clearing was however quite slow, taking up to 108 seconds after a max-length burst of Extra Fine JPEGs with a fast UHS-I card. It's a shame Sony didn't add faster UHS-II card support to the Mark V.

Battery Life
Poor battery life for its class.

The Sony RX100 V uses a custom NP-BX1 rechargeable lithium-ion battery for power, and the battery is charged in-camera via the USB port. CIPA battery life is rated much lower than its predecessors, at only 220 shots when using the LCD monitor, and 210 shots when using the electronic viewfinder. We strongly recommend you pick up a spare battery for extended outings.

The table above shows the number of shots the camera is capable of (on a fully-charged rechargeable battery as appropriate), based on CIPA battery-life and/or manufacturer standard test conditions.

(Interested readers can find an English translation of the CIPA DC-002 standards document here. (180K PDF document))