A bit of a random title, I will admit! This post is inspired by the fact that it feels like the countryside around where I live has turned yellow. The bright yellow flowers of oilseed rape have become a familiar sight across UK farmland in recent years. I remember it being grown in Oxfordshire in the 1980s when I lived there.

However, there has been a boom in Oil Seed Rape in recent years. Historically Oil Seed Rape fulfilled a useful role as a “break crop” in farm rotation – to suppress weeds and improve soil quality – for cereal crops such as wheat and barley. The recent boom is being driven by rocketing prices as it becomes more desirable for food, with increases of up to 60% per tonne in value.

In any event, it feels like ever more of the countryside has turned yellow. Personally I enjoy the colour, though I acknowledge it may not be to everyone’s taste.

So the rest of this post relates to an impulse purchase of a Sony RX1. Some may say it isn’t much of an impulse purchase, but this really relates to my purchase of a D800E. I wanted to have a second full-frame camera to carry alongside the D800E. The sensor in the RX1 is the same as the one in the A99 and the D600.

I confess I knew little about the RX1 other than I managed to get a good price on eBay and Steve Huff likes it. What I hadn’t realised is that it is actually much smaller than most compact system cameras. In fact it’s actually about the same size as many travel zoom cameras with tiny sensors, albeit with a lens a little bigger than a Summilux 35 grafted on. See here: Comparison

At the minute I’m very impressed. I’ll report more once I’ve given it more of a road test.

Taken with my RX1

UPDATE 26 May: See my full thoughts on the RX1 here at RX1: Flawed Genius?