Yesterday I had the opportunity to take the rig in the pool and try the steadyshot in water. Clearly it is not really accurate to compare like I have done but it gives an idea you can check it out

This made me think about the video modes implemented in the RX100, as we know there are 4 surprisingly for a compact:

1. Program
2. Aperture Priority
3. Shutter Speed Priority
4. Manual

The manual option may sound very exciting to someone that comes from still photography but in the end is not that significant in video. Not sure how many have heard about the ‘180 degrees shutter rule’ anyway google it there is some good explanation there. In essence once you fix the frame rate you have pretty much fixed the shutter speed as well so this takes away one of the exposure variables, we are left with aperture and ISO.

Aperture is available in 1/3 of Ev however in wide angle shots with a wet lens most of the times with subjects 10 feet or 3 meters away the camera even with this size sensor has so much depth of field that there is no much point bothering.

ISO in video goes from 125 to the max in 1 f-stop increments so after 200 you have 400, 800 and higher values that are not good for video as the H264 compression makes the footage grainy. I would recommend limiting the max auto iso to 800 or maybe 1600.

So the manual mode allows you to set the exposure, now is that a good thing? As seen earlier on Part 2 this is indeed a good thing in specific situations such as wreck penetration, caves and the likes. It is not however that great for general wide angle and if you ever happen to do camera pan or change the angle of the camera. Panning is not that great in underwater video but sometimes you need it and fixing the exposure is not a good idea.

So the Manual mode is good to take control of the camera in specific situation but in most cases is an overkill as there are not many parameters you can really change independently.

Following on from the shutter speed 180 rule the shutter priority is also pretty useless as we should set the shutter value to a multiple of the frame rate to avoid stuttering.

Aperture priority is instead a great value add of the RX100. Diligently the camera will try and respect the 180 degree shutter rule but in specific cases, for example when doing macro with diopters or in close up, we want to really make sure we have the depth of field required. In that scenario I recommend leaving the ISO on Auto and not set it manually.

So why Auto ISO? Because changing ISO in a digital camera is done amplifying the signal, is not changing film, so in effect the ISO does not need to go in f-stop values at all. So leaving it on ISO the camera might as well apply values that you cannot choose manual.
This uneventful picture taken with the RX100 and an Inon UWL105AD shows a value of 320 in ISO as it has been shot in program mode.

We could not select this value if we were setting the ISO manually but would have needed to choose between 200 or 400.

Aperture priority is my favorite mode for those special situation where extra control is needed.

So what about the Program Mode? Actually that is not bad at all, especially for wide angle shots, as mentioned the shutter speed is pretty much set, in program the camera tries to keep the lowest ISO as possible and opens the aperture accordingly. This behavior may be acceptable with sufficient ambient light so I would not discount this mode at all.

Not bad for program mode with no lights…

A final note the camera uses a shutter speed of double the frame rate in Active Steadyshot and the same as frame rate in standard mode, also for this reason I do not recommend the standard steadyshot even if Active crops the picture in the 1080p50 mode