Sony’s New Cyber-shot RX10 III With Extreme 25x Zoom Range

Today, Sony announced the latest addition to their RX line of fixed-lens cameras, the RX10 III, which features an incredible 25x zoom lens, covering an equivalent focal range of 24-600mm, giving you the flexibility to capture everything from wide angle landscapes to wildlife and sports action with a single compact camera solution.

The lens offers a variable maximum aperture of f/2.4 at wider focal lengths, and a remarkable f/4.0 at the tele end of the range. It features eight ED glass elements, including one super ED glass element, five ED glass elements and two ED aspherical lenses, and Optical SteadyShot image stabilization for up to 4.5 stops of shake reduction, especially important when shooting handheld at the longer end of the zoom range. It has a minimum focusing distance 2.36 feet for close-up photography, too.

Built around a 1-inch, 20.1-megapixel CMOS sensor, the camera also features a DRAM chip that allows it to shoot at up to 14 frames per second for sports and wildlife. This chip also enables super slow-motion shooting at up to 960 fps. The camera is also capable of capturing 4K video.

For fast moving subjects, the AF system offers “spatial object detection” which promises to “detect and predict motion of a subject before the shutter button is pressed” and can lock focus in as little as 0.09 seconds.

The camera is expected to retail for approximately $1,500 and will be available in May.

Sony also introduced two new FE lenses for full-frame E-mount cameras, the FE 70-300mm F4.5-5.6 G OSS telephoto zoom, and the 50mm F1.8 prime.