All images by Mike Randolph of the Travel Photography Blog. Used with permission.
Sometimes we see some incredibly crazy comparisons between products. But the most crazy one that we’ve seen thus far has to be the most recent one by Mike Randolph. He dared to put the aging Sony RX100 against the brand new Zeiss 85mm f1.4 Otus mounted on the Sony A7r. Seems crazy, right? I mean, the the RX100 vs 85mm f1.4 Otus doesn’t really make sense.
For starters, the RX100 has a fixed zoom lens and a 1 inch sensor while the A7r has a full frame sensor with more megapixels and arguably the best 85mm lens attached to it. And the results? Well, they’d surprise you.
Mike offered two crops at 100% and found there to be very little difference between the two images. However, the reason why is fairly clear. The RX100 has a 1 inch sensor which has a crop factor of 2.7x. When you multiply 2.7 by 5 (the aperture he used) you get f13.5 when comparing it to the depth of field for full frame shooters. Since the A7r is a full frame camera, you don’t need to worry about a crop factor.
This can help to explain why the RX100 photo is so good despite diffraction happening at an aperture this narrow. It also explains why the images are almost on par with one another.
But what Mike wanted to prove though is the following statement, “And this is where we get to the real point of this post: The quality of todayâs digital cameras and lenses is not a limiting factor in your photography. Period. End of story.” And we tend to agree.
