Sony launched RX100 IV with 20MP stacked-sensor design, 4K recording and slow motion videos

Sony’s RX100 series has been a consistent performer with each generation of RX100 cameras being impressive. Continuing with its yearly refresh cycle, Sony has just announced the Sony RX100 IV, which will be the fourth generation RX100 compact camera. Priced at $1000 (approx Rs 64,000) the RX100 IV will start selling from July onwards. The Sony RX100 IV features a brand new 20.1MP 1-inch type stacked Exmor RS CMOS sensor which comes with an attached DRAM memory module. The DRAM chip helps with faster processing. The reason it is a stacked CMOS sensor is because of the fact that the photosensitive region of the sensor is on a different layer than the circuitry, thereby giving the light collecting region of each pixel more space.  Thanks to the stacked processor and DRAM chip, the RX100 IV can support 40x super slow motion video capture at 960 frames per second, shutter speed going as fast as 1/32,000th of a second and up to 5 min of high resolution 4K video shooting.  In the burst shooting mode, you can go up to 16 frames per second. For slow-motion shooting you will get shooting options of 960fps, 480fps and 240fps and playback options of 60p, 30p and 24p. For reference, two seconds of movie footage shot at 960 fps and 24p would take about 80 seconds to play back. The other major feature of the RX100 IV is the 4K video shooting capability. It uses an XAVC S codec which records video at a data rate of 100Mbps during 4K recording and 50Mbps during full HD recording. You can shoot up to 5 minutes of 4K footage at one go on the RX100 IV. In terms of design, not much has changed when compared with the  **RX100 III** . The RX100 IV also houses the same electronic viewfinder that was seen on the RX100 III. There is the same 24-70mm equivalent lens with the maximum aperture range from f/1.8 to f/2.8. There is a 2.35 million dot XGA OLED viewfinder. Just like the RX100 III, the RX100 IV will also support Wi-fi and NFC. It will start selling in July in the US. India launch date and pricing are not yet clear.