In the past months I got a few requests to add support for large-sensor compacts to the Mark II Artist’s Viewfinder app. I’m still not convinced to go this direction, however. Partly because I see little advantage in simulating a camera where you can’t really see what focal length you are using but can easily zoom as you wish. And partly because it takes more than a new camera in the database.
But the app is flexible enough to do it for yourself, without the need to convince me to add these cameras. It takes only three simple steps described below.
Note: if you are not sure how to complete any of the steps, please refer to the Artist’s Viewfinder Handbook for detailed coverage on basic concepts.
But let’s begin! The first step is to create a custom camera. Shown below are the settings for the RX100 III.
Sensor size comes from the camera’s documentation. It’s the same for all three generations. What looks a little odd here is the lens mount – as the RX100 doesn’t support interchangeable lenses. But the app requires to select one, so we use something that’s close to the 1″ sensor size: the Generic 4/3″ mount. Save the camera and proceed to selecting lenses.
I see no point in selecting focal lengths as you can’t really match them with the camera, but you can do that if you wish. Marking the ends of the zoom range gives you the bounds to operate within, however.
You can add these ends using custom focal lengths, as they are not present on the default focal length list. Note that you must use the physical focal lengths here – not the 35mm equivalent ones. Shown above are the values for the Mark III, for the Mark I and II use 10.4mm and 37.1mm as the end points. Going back to the virtual camera configuration screen brings us to the last step.
And this is activating ZoomFrame. I’ll turn this on to see the frame bound at the correct aspect ratio at every focal length between the end points.
That’s it. Save the virtual camera and we’re done.
One last comment though. The RX100 III’s widest angle of view is wider than that of the iPhone’s camera, so you may need a wide converter to be able simulate the wide end of the zoom.
The latest release of the 
The wait is over… I managed to finish the new edition of the Viewfinder Handbook yesterday, and now it’s available for download.
