Because of this thread, I ended up spending money to replace my trusty Canon SD 990IS, used to take close to 100% of my skiing pictures for the last decade. (I have a different camera for wildlife where I don't care about the size of the camera so much as its zoom and speed.)
I looked at the Sony RX100, various Mark versions, III to VI, but just cannot get over the price of them, especially with a very low zoom range. I like the aperture speed, but when I looked at the cameras I'm currently using, neither is below 2.8. I used to have a film camera at 1.4, but the truth is, it's rarely needed because I'm not a pro. And when I was doing some commercial work for a store, I used a tripod and bounce flash to overcome issues that would have needed a 1.4 lens. Whereas, size is a huge issue for a ski camera, as is a viewfinder because of how bright it can be, and if you're going to film a friend for movement analysis, you are going to want that zoom to get a higher number of turns in the sequence. I could have settled on the RX100 VI and waited five years, I guess, but even the older Sony's in the line are still really expensive. So if money is not a thing with you, go for it.
I settled after many nights spent reading reviews, spec sheets, forums, starting to select one of the various Sony's and then just freaking at the price, on a Panasonic. The camera had to be at least as good functionally as my tiny Canon. Frustrations on the Canon have been the inadequate zoom, lack of WiFi, and really not a whole lot else. It doesn't have RAW, but I'm not printing most pictures and have sort of a routine after all these years tweaking the jpegs. The new camera does have RAW and if I can't get the jpegs I like, I may have to learn about working with RAW, who knows? At least it's there if I want it. My wildlife camera shoots both. The old camera was pretty good about noise, it's rarely an issue. Also very good with snow pictures as there's a snow setting. That will be lost. :-( The new camera will be bulkier and heavier, but still fanny pack sized. And small enough in that fanny pack to be probably fine in a fall, unlike my bigger wildlife camera. It has a viewfinder. And the zoom is better and it has a larger sensor, so I'm hoping that its zooming and crop performance is better.
The model is the ZS100. A hefty price, but a fraction of the Sony. Apparently many have issues with the viewfinder, but the old Canon has an old tiny non-EVF viewfinder and my wildlife camera as a same-technology viewfinder that looks to be similar resolution, so I'm hoping it's not a huge issue. (Reviews keep taking issue wth it and with some softness of the lens.). I would have liked to have stayed with Canon, but they have been steadily just dispensing entirely with viewfinders since my 990IS, which is why I still use it. I find those LCD screens to be unusable outside or without my bifocals, which is just not conducive to taking ski pictures. I wrote them a number of letters over the years about this, but I guess my demographic doesn't interest them. So, I've been moving to Panasonic, most of their stuff still has viewfinders.
New camera arrives tomorrow. Will probably spend the entire summer reading the user manual and experimenting. Will report back. Total cost, including a case, external charger, spare battery, and a rubber grip to hold the camera better, comes in under HALF the price of most of the Sony RX100's.
