Sony Australia has announced June availability of the latest version of its highly-acclaimed large-sensor digital compact range, the Sony Cyber-Shot RX100 III, at an RRP of $1099.

The new model features a fast premium lens in the shape of the Zeiss Vario-Sonnar T* 24-70mm f1.8-2.8 (35mm equivalent – actual specs are 8.8-25.7mm). This replaces the f/1.8-4.9 24-100mm (35mm equivalent) zoom of the Mk II.

The 1.44 million dot OLED electronic viewfinder pops up from the camera’s top panel. (A downside of this design is that there is no space for a hotshoe – but there is a pop-up flash.) The ‘finder has a Zeiss coating, which Sony says reduces reflections and improves clarity.

Sensor is 20-megapixels and the size is what Sony calls a ‘1.0 type’, and is sometimes called a ‘1-inch’. Neither of these descriptions has anything do do with the actual size, which is 12.8mm x 9.6mm or 16mm on the diagonal. (If only they could tell you that means it has over five times the surface area of a standard 1/2.3-inch compact imaging chip – but that would be too much information, one assumes! (It’s been noted elsewhere that Sony has managed to build the large sensor into a camera not much larger than the tiny-sensored Canon S series.)

Video performance has been ramped up considerably, in part courtesy ofthe new XAVC-S codec, recording Full HD at 50Mb/s.

A built-in 3-stop (1/8) Neutral Density filter gives greater depth of field control.

The humanity-defining selfie has been facilitated via an articulated 3.0-type (which means 3-inch) LCD that flips up 180 degrees ‘for effortless arms-length portraits’ (and, almost as an aside ‘is also very useful for shooting from either high or low positions.’)

Apps…NFC/ WiFi connectivity…manual control…It’s all there.