The Ohanaware Weblog
Sony NEX-5, is the quest for a summer camera over…
It’s that time of year when I’m looking for a new camera, I have a list of things I look for in a camera, it needs to fit in my pocket, it needs to be great image quality, it needs Auto Bracket Exposure & RAW (for HDR), it should have Face recognition, low-light photos are a must, has to come with a flash, it needs to have a full manual mode and should be reasonably priced (If money wasn’t an option I’d buy the Leica X1 at $4000 instantly).
Over the past few weeks I’ve had my eye on the superb looking Sony NEX-5. So is search over, or do I have to continue looking?
Before the Sony, I was looking at the Panasonic GF-1. It looks superb, it feels superb and the image quality is excellent. There’s two reasons as to why I’ve not yet bought it, #1 it’s bigger and bulkier. #2 The image quality could be better, I know I said it was excellent, and for the most part it is. However in low-light it struggles.
If the camera doesn’t fit in my pocket, it becomes a question. “Do I lug this around with me or not?”. It becomes hassle when I don’t need it, and often than not, get’s left at home and I miss a great sunset or photo opportunity. Low light image quality, a couple of weeks ago I was at a celebration and I was using the LX3 without the flash, on screen the images looked really good, however when I got home, they’re too bad to even post online. So I’m looking for better low light ability.
Enter the Sony NEX-5, it blew my mind, the image quality was just beautiful, the features were superb and judging by the published dimension, it was pocketable! Yes… For those of you who follow me or read this blog, you’ll realize that I read everything I could and wrote up a review based upon everyone else’s review (My Sony NEX-5 review). At that time I was concerned about some comments regarding the interface of the camera. Well, this week both DPReview & Pop Photo published their reviews of this ideal light capturing device. These publications recommended other cameras due to the sluggish performance and terrible interface on the Sony. Panasonic GF-1 and G2, and the Olympus EP-2 & EP-L1 all got better reviews, but are all bigger cameras!
I almost felt heart-broken, here was a camera that on paper was exactly what I was looking for, and the interchangeable lenses were a very welcome bonus (if I’m going somewhere I know I’ll need a camera, I can bring a huge lens with me). However when the multiple authorities in the photographic world all say, that using this camera was slow and painful, you know that this baby is seriously flawed. It’s not all bad, I tell myself, from the sounds of it, it’s just software and an update will fix it. Sadly in my experience the only way Sony fix problems; is sell you another camera. I then bargain with myself, what do I change, maybe it’s awkward for professional photographers, but maybe it won’t bother me. The last question I won’t be able to answer until I can get some hand time with it.
So my quest for a summer camera continues, if I can get my hands on a NEX-5 and have some serious testing, maybe I’ll find that it isn’t as bad as everyone says, maybe Sony’ll surprise the world and fix the menu system. Until then I’m gonna watch the new camera releases and reviews like a hawk.
Tags: Camera, Digital, Leica, Olympus, Panasonic, Sony, Sony NEX-5, Summer
June 20th, 2010 at 10:01 am
[...] 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. [...]