A warm evening in August (updated again)

I had thought before that the Fuji X10 really could be one's only camera, in a pinch. And I'm realizing now that the same has to be equally true of the Sony RX100. It's just a bigger leap of faith to realize this, given that it is an actual pocketcamera, not just a nearly-pocket-sized like the X10. But let's face it, it is actually as capable as any camera I ever bought before, say, 2006. (If you can do without exchangable lenses, that is.)

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(All are clickable.)

I'm quite fond of the last two.

Sony RX100, hand-held, 10 at night. Auto-everything, including ISO. Most are about 1/30sec, full aperture (1.8 on the wide end).  The RX100, if you recall, is a shirt-pocketable camera. To be able to do this kind of thing with that kind of camera is remarkable indeed. The last pic is at ISO 1600, the quality is better than my old Canon 5D Mark 1, which at the time was the champ (and of course is full-frame, three steps bigger sensor).
(The technically curious can download a zip (27MB) with all of them straight from the camera.)

Update: Gemma said:
The colors are almost unreal, how did you do that?

They are, aren't they? I really have not manipulated the colors, the variation of night lamps around here looks like that.

Update: I was asked to compare the Fuji X10 with the Sony RX100: 

The Fuji X10 is more beautiful, more "camera-like" in the design, and has a nice optical viewfinder. And the zoom is faster on the long end (F:2.8 vs 4.9).
Sony RX100 has a larger sensor, and yet it's much more pocketable. And it has auto-HDR (combining several shots to handle high contrast).
I also think the autofocus is faster.
Most important, it has at *least* the image quality of the X10, maybe better, and it's a true breast-pocket-sized camera, which the X10 is not. Sony RX100 a milestone in quality/size ratio.

By the way, it has an interesting feature (X10 has something similar): you can set it, at high ISO settings, to shoot several frames in rapid succession and combine them to reduce noise. It makes a clear difference, I'd say at least one stop. Of course it only works with static subjects though.

In 2002 I said to a friend: "in ten years we'll be able to buy a shirt-pocket-camera which delivers large-format quality". I was pretty certain about that, but I had no idea how exact a prediction it would turn out to be!
[Note: "large format" goes from 4x5-inch negatives and up to ridiculous sizes, so this is not a precise statement, but if taken in the spirit given, I think it is true enough, incredible as it sounds.]