Riding on my recent post about the Leica Q2 and its digital zoom feature, I decided to make my own experiment using files from my Sony RX1R ii.

For those of you who are unaware, the Sony RX1R ii has a full-frame 42 MP sensor and a native 35mm lens. These specs are not too distant from the 47 MP and 28mm lens of the Leica Q2. Hence my experiment.

Below you will find the following sequence:

• Original 35mm image with 42 MP.
• Digital crop to 50mm with 20.5 MP.
• Digital crop to 70mm with 10.5 MP.

From the technical standpoint this seems pretty amazing. You can click at the photos for full resolution and make your own judgement.

If you ask me, my conclusion is that with the Sony RX1R ii and its 35mm / 42 MP sensor combo you can crop your images to the equivalent focal lengths of 50mm and 70mm and get perfectly usable photos with amazing detail.

Whether this is a legitimate replacement for lenses with native 50mm and 70mm focal lengths though, that’s a different discussion. I really don’t know.

Similar to the Leica Q2, the Sony RX1R ii has an in-camera digital zoom feature. But, typical Sony style, this feature is hidden in its stupidly complicated menu and the implementation is so user-unfriendly that I had never used it. In fact, if you shoot RAW, the RX1R ii will not even allow you to use this feature.

So it’s certainly not as easy and convenient – or stylish – as in the Leica Q2.