Sony RX1 review posted: Stellar camera, a few issues

The Sony RX1 has probably produced more excited commentary than any other camera announced in 2012. Having spent a good amount of time with it, we can say we're solidly among its fans, although our careful testing did reveal some shortcomings that have either been only lightly reported or not mentioned at all in other coverage. There's no question that the RX1's image quality is absolutely top-shelf, and we really liked the fluidity its highly configurable user interface brought to our shooting experience. As you'd expect from a $2,800 camera, build quality is excellent as well. Fitting all that into a body that's actually smaller than some high-end point & shoots is a phenomenal achievement.

As noted, though, we did find a few items on the debit side of the ledger. Other reviewers have picked up on its short battery life, and a few reports have mentioned the subtle cross-frame magenta-cyan color shift, although it looks like we're the first to tie it to the camera's shading compensation. What we haven't seen mentioned elsewhere are the moiré issues we found with some subjects, especially in videos, the dropping of the still-capture continuous autofocus mode from production models, and the serious shortcomings we encountered with AF-C for video shooting.

How might these issues affect your use of the RX1? Relative to our own shooting styles, we're still big fans, but read our Sony DSC-RX1 review for all the details, to make your own decision.