The Ohanaware Weblog

It comes to that time of year when camera manufactures like to parade their new products in front us, enticing us to release our hard earned cash in return for a box with a hole in it.

If not all, but most of my photos come from chance, so I like to have a pocketable camera with me at all times. I used to tote a much larger super zoom camera, but I would think about it before I went out for a walk. Many times I missed what I thought were photo opportunities, so last year I researched into pro-sumer pocket cameras.

Last year I got very excited by the very retro looking Olympus EP-1, but ultimately the slow focus times, the lack of flash and the overpricing put me off. I eventually settled on a Panasonic LX3. Quite a different breed of camera, but features and size won (at the expense of Image Quality). The LX3 is a superb little camera, some will say the best in it’s field. I had penciled in the Panasonic GF-1 (See the dpreview review) as this years replacement for the little LX3, although I’m concerned about the extra size and weight of the GF-1.

Then sony came onto the scene with their new NEX cameras, these are small(er) light(er) (in comparison to big bulky DSLRs) interchangeable lens cameras. What makes them very special is while they’re smaller, they have a huge sensor inside of them. The rule of the thumb, the bigger the sensor, the better the image quality. The sensor in this Sony is huge! See the imaging resource review, it has size comparison photos and and image quality comparisons with higher end DSLRs

The more I read, the more excited I got, and the more concerned I got. It’s pretty clear that the results of this new camera are simply stunning. So I decided to compile a list of reason as to why I think this is the summer camera to have, a list of fun features and list of things to be very cautious of.

Please note that most of this information has been composed from other people’s reviews, I currently have no way of validating any of the review information.

Exciting Features

• Unbelievably fantastic image quality (See the imaging resource review, near the bottom it has comparison shots with higher end DSLRs and it keeps up)
• It’s small and light, it’s a little heavier than the LX3 and a little bigger, but smaller and lighter than the other’s in it’s field. It should still fit in my pocket.



• The specs on this camera should mean that it’s fairly capable in almost all fields of photography. Exposure Bracketing & very fast (1/4000) to very long shutter speeds, are great for HDR. High ISO (12,800) is helpful for low light.
• Huge sensor, not only helps with superb images, but is much better at low light pictures than any other compact (or small interchange lens camera).
• Interchangeable lens, I’ll get the pancake lens, but like the option of being able to get a 12x zoom lens, or wideangle and fisheye adaptors.
• Tilt-able X-bright LCD screen, the Panasonic’s LCD screen is great in sun-light, this is not only meant to be better, but also you can adjust the angle. For instance I take a lot of party shots by lifting the camera above my head, with the Panasonic it’s not so easy to see exactly what I got until I bring the camera back down again.

  

• Handheld Twilight, fires a couple of quick shots and then merges them to create an enhanced low light photo.
• Comes with a Flash, hey Olympus, I’m not paying an extra $150 for a Flash!
• These babies start at $549.99!
• Manual focus on such a small camera, so many times I’ve wanted to focus on this, not that, this!
• Manual White Balance control, every digital camera I’ve ever owned get’s white balance wrong occasionally and having manual control is a must. It’s worth noting that DPReview sites this camera has it, whilst CNET complains it doesn’t.
• Full manual control, while I use the P mode mostly, I do use full manual once in a while when the auto just won’t cut it. Oh and for long exposures.

Partially Exciting features

• In-camera Panoramic mode, just rotate the camera while photographing and you get a good looking panoramic image, nice and easy! Although in the imaging resource review you’ll see where the camera screws up the Panorama! Which means that you may get a better result it you took the photos and stitched ‘em together by hand.

  

• In-camera HDR, should make it nice and easy to make HDR photos, albeit you lose the creativity control that we have with external software. (Such as HDRtist)
• Full HD Video, the NEX-5 does 1080i, while the NEX-3 ($100 cheaper) only does 720i
• A special ’7-Frame a second’ mode, as opposed to 2.3 fps normally… Meh!
• Supports SDHC, finally Sony, I don’t have to re-purchase a bunch of memory cards.
• Raw image format, before anyone beats me with a large stick, I very rarely require the use of RAW, I only shoot raw when I cannot get the colors right or I want to make an HDR from it. 99% of the time JPEG’s are good enough for me.
• 16:9 & 3:2 image aspect ratios, on the Panasonic I mostly use 3:2, but sometimes like the look of 16:9
• Fairly okay battery life (330 shots), but better get a spare anyway.

Downright Scary, things to be concerned.

• Corners of the photos appear to be very soft.
• Complaint’s about barrel distortion and pincushioning in the photos.
• See more bad things about Sony’s new interface than good things, especially several reviews suggesting that it’s harder to change common settings, such as ISO and white balance.
• CNET complains that the colors are blatantly wrong, with no seeable way to correct them in-camera (In my experience Sony images tend to be cooler). This conflicts with info from DPReview which says that the white balance can be manually configured.
• Reports that it’s slow to start-up, but I’m not sure if this is from first powering up after replacing the battery or from waking up from standby. If it’s waking up from standby then it’s really bad (nearly 2 seconds)!
• Sony’s build quality, the last Sony camera I owned, had to be replaced the first day it arrived (DOA) and then second one had to be repaired within 6 months as it’s auto focus system failed.
• Reports that some photographic options (not specified, so I’m not sure what at this point) are simply not available.
• Have to use different modes to play back images or movies.
• Sony’s attitude to customers, the last Sony camera I owned (which cost’s as much as the entry level NEX model), had a couple of things that frustrated users. Sony never fixed these issues, instead the second model after, had the fixes in it. Panasonic on the other hand, have not only continue to fix bugs with the LX3, but they’ve even added new features and options to their camera (which was 18 months old at the time). As a customer, Panasonic’s attitude gives them a higher ranking over Sony (in my humble opinion).
• [Updated] New Raw format, it seems to be that when a new camera comes out, it uses a different RAW format than before. It takes everyone time to catch up, and therefore it may be a while before you can use NEX RAW files in your workflow. As of today June 5th, I’ve obtained a RAW image and so far it doesn’t work in any Apple products, Adobe’s DNG converter and others (some software produces really bad results). I’m guessing you’ll have to use Sony’s RAW software.

Conclusion

Based upon all the reviews I can find, all the information I have to hand, I gotta hand it to Sony. It seems like they’ve got a great piece of kit that is currently sitting at the top of summer camera to buy list. There some fun additions to the mix, but there some scary concerns too. I’d like to get my hands on one for a bit to see if these concerns are true, for instance not being able to change photographic settings and not being able to calibrate the color could be a deal-breaker for me. While Sony’s customer attitude, wouldn’t stop me from buying this camera, if Panasonic announced such a camera, that’s just a small with as good as image quality, right now, I’d tell you to wait for it. Panasonic’s customer attitude makes up for the lack of fun options. Let’s wait and see, Sony’s new babies go on sale on June the 9th (US). If Panasonic get their announcement out soon!

UPDATE June 12th

After reading both the DPReview & PopPhoto reviews I was sorely disappointed. It looked almost like this Sony was destined to crash and burn. Both publications, recommend your money would be better spent elsewhere. I was almost hearth broken, I so wanted so much to love this camera. Read on.

UPDATE June 20th

I had about 15 minutes to play with a NEX-5, the first unit I was handed had a fault and I had to wait to get a working unit. The camera feels as light (or heavy) as the LX3, the Dimensions are so close, it’s hard to tell. Except Depth wise. The NEX-5 is deeper, while the NEX-3 is shallower.

Almost instantly I hit the menu system and spent a lot of time playing with the menus. Both DPReview & PopPhoto have suggested other cameras over the NEX series because of the menu system. CNET went as far as to call the menu system crippling. I understand exactly what they are talking about. My main goal was to see how hard it was to change the settings that I normally change, and it wasn’t too long before I found them and changed them. It’s just different.

Now the trouble came when I tried to do more advanced stuff, for instance I wanted to try the Auto HDR function. I found the option in the menus, but it was disabled. I changed shooting modes, I tried changing this and that. No luck. It was only by chance that I changed the format from RAW to JPEG, did it then work (I didn’t set it to RAW). Sometimes I’d try to change a setting, and a message would popup to say “Option Disabled” Great, but why. The annoying thing is that you’d expect if you press the button again, it goes away, nope. You have to press a different button to make the message disappear. I encountered this several times and found it very frustrating.

The Auto Panorama, kept dropping out on me for no explanation, cutting the panoramas in half.

Changing settings while shooting is a little confusing, but it does make some sense. It certainly takes some getting used to.

To play back movies, you have to go into the playback settings and change it, then jump back into the playback mode. Unnecessarily awkward, nearly every digi camera on the planet can view images and movies in the same mode, why can’t this one?

So now I’ve had the chance to play with this camera, I can see that it’s a game changer. It’s compact size and breathtaking quality make it a hit, it’s menu system is a PITA and can be navigated. If this your main camera, go for it and learn the new menu system as I believe the advantages of this camera outweigh this quirk. However if this is a second camera, it’s annoyance will prevail. I’d recommend that you wait before shelling out hard earned cash. This isn’t the first time I’ve had 1st generation Sony cameras fail on me. I suggest waiting for a month or 6 weeks and ensuring you keep all receipts (in case it fails).

As for updating the menu system, don’t bank on it. Sony don’t normally do software updates, it came as a surprise to find that they’ve already updated the NEX series to make them boot faster.

My final statement: After playing with it, it’s back to the top of my Summer Camera list (I knocked it off after reading DPReview & Pop Photo’s reviews). However the build quality, prevents me from making it a must buy, and if Panasonic (or others) announce a similar sized camera with similar image quality and a descent menu system, it may get knocked off PDQ.

References:
Imaging Resource review
PC-mag hands on
Digital Camera Review first look
CNET review
DPReview’s preview
Sony’s NEX information

Tags: Camera, CNET, Digital, DPReview, NEX-3, NEX-5, Photography, Pop Photo, RAW, Sony

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010 at 12:30 pm and is filed under All Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.