Sony RX100 VII High-ISO Sample Images and Low-Light Test

When you’re traveling, most of the time you’ve got to take the light as it comes. And much of the time, the level of illumination leaves something to be desired. So you want a camera that can take it in stride — there’s not much fun in putting your camera away when the sun goes down.

Sony’s RX100 VII, introduced in 2019, is a high-end compact camera that continues in a line of feature-rich and impressive compacts. I’ve recently been out shooting with it to put it through its paces. I thought it might be useful to post some real-world examples of its high-ISO performance in case it’s useful for anyone wondering how well it performs in low light.

One thing worth knowing before you look at the files: the RX100 VII uses the same 20MP stacked 1-inch sensor generation as the RX100 VI, so what you see here is a fair guide to what the VI does in low light too. The VII’s gains over the VI are in autofocus, tracking, and burst speed rather than image quality — despite being the newest model in the line, it isn’t the best of the 1-inch RX100s for noise.

The Sony RX100 VII doesn’t have a particularly expansive ISO range. At least, not compared to some other cameras like the full-frame models that have ISOs up into six figures. I’ve previously posted some side-by-side examples throughout the ISO range. The RX100 VII’s full range is from ISO 64 to ISO 12800. Of that, ISO 100 to 12800 is native ISO, with ISO 64 and ISO 80 in the extended range (where software takes over from the hardware’s native sensitivity).

There is one setting that goes higher, but it comes with a catch. Multi Frame NR combines several exposures into one file and reaches ISO 25600, well past the top of the normal range. It only works when you’re shooting JPG — Sony’s manual is explicit that Multi Frame NR can’t be selected when the file format is set to RAW or RAW & JPG — so it’s no help for the RAW files I’ve used here.

What I’m focusing on here are some examples taken at high ISOs. I’ve posted a more general collection of sample images taken with the RX100 VII separately.

Where “high ISO” begins is obviously open for debate. For the purposes here, I’m focusing on ISO 3200 through ISO 12800. ISO 3200 isn’t really a particularly high ISO these days — certainly not compared to what it was in early digital and film days — but I’m including them here as reference points.

I’ve tried to focus here on shots that are likely to show up issues with high ISOs. So things like smooth tones through the shadows and subtle colors. I’ve also included the same shot at different ISOs to allow for apples-to-apples comparisons.

I’ve taken all of these in RAW and processed them with a light touch in Lightroom. Doing so has bypassed the in-camera processing that’s applied to the JPGs. I haven’t applied any extra noise reduction beyond Lightroom’s defaults (Luminance: 0; Color: 25; Detail: 50; Smoothness: 50).

It’s worth noting that I haven’t applied any external noise reduction to these, either. There are specialized image editing apps available that can do pretty remarkable things in cleaning up image noise at high ISOs (eg. DxO’s DeepPrime and Topaz Photo AI (formerly sold as a standalone DeNoise AI) are good places to start; and if you’re shooting RAW, DxO’s PureRAW works a bit differently and isn’t only focused on image noise, but it can yield impressive results).

Sony RX100 VII high-ISO sample images: ISO 3200 to 12800

You can click on each image to open a full-size version for a closer look.

Wrap up

For a compact camera with a small sensor, I’ve been pleasantly surprised with the high-ISO performance of the RX100 VII. That said, it’s worth knowing this isn’t Sony’s best 1-inch sensor for image quality — DxOMark’s testing puts it a bit behind the older RX100 V in low light, since the stacked design behind its speed and autofocus trades a little image quality for readout speed. The gains here are in autofocus and burst shooting, not in raw sensor performance.

Accessories

Unlike the RX0/RX0 II, the RX100 VII doesn’t have a Sony first-party filter adapter — the VFA-305R1 kit sold for the RX0 series doesn’t fit the RX100 VII’s retracting 24 – 200mm zoom, which has no filter thread to begin with. If you want a filter (for an ND, say), you’re looking at a third-party clamp-on or magnetic adapter designed for the RX100 VII specifically.

The Sony RX100 VII doesn’t come with a memory card as standard. I’ve put together a detailed post of Sony RX100 VII memory card recommendations separately.

Where to find it