Yes I know that we have the year 2012 now and the successor of the successor has been announced and will be in the shops soon. Who cares? Beside some changes the NEX 5R is still very much like the Sony NEX 5 just better. So how is the Sony NEX? Will I finally update? How did it compare to my Canon 5D?
During my 3 week vacation in the USA I shot more than 60% of all images with the NEX despite the fact that I have brought 2 DSLRs ( 5D, 500D ) and a full set of lenses ( 4/17-40L, 4/24-105L, 4/70-200L, 35L ) with me. And the reason is simple: I loved shooting the NEX. Roam like a tourist shoot like a pro. This ad is really true. I can not tell you how wonderful it is to just sling a normal bag ( no photo bag ) around your shoulder and put the small camera there. In towns it’s like being a local not being a tourist. To blend with the crowd is simple. It’s a great experience.
Since my conversion to digital I used big pro DSLRs most of the time: The Nikon D1 or D2H. To go back to a “normal” sized DSLR like the Canon 5D was a great experience. I can remember my first vacation with the 5D in Ireland. The small camera and the small 4/70-200L was a totally new world for me.
Well moving from a Canon 5D to the Sony NEX is even more impressive. I think that the Sony NEX 5 was a true game changer when it came out 2 years ago. A game changer like the Nikon D1 or the Canon 5D. Before the NEX small cameras were small but image quality was small too. Now you get a small camera that is big when it comes to image quality. So here is a short overview about the things I liked and the things I did not like about the NEX.
likes
- image quality is impressive till 800ASA and still good at 1600 or even 3200!
- very good dynamic range
- good handling of highlights
- good colors and punch most of the time
- AF reasonable fast, I found the camera to be responsive enough for my needs
- AF reliable most of the time
- the way the camera fits in hand is really good, I got big hands but no problem
- the tilt-screen is really great, I shot from the hip most of the time, Hasselblad-style
- the Panorama mode is a truly great and impressive feature
- the built quality is great
- sometimes white balance and colors are off, image get’s greenish
- AF sometimes get’s it wrong and produces out of focus images
- the tilt-screen is difficult to see in bright sunlight, hard to frame the shot
- battery life is unimpressive, at least you get a very precise info of what’s left in %
- the menu is kind of funky, not Fuji funky but close
- Auto-ISO does not allow to set a minimum shutter speed
- the sound of the shutter is impressively loud, without the mirror I have no idea what makes the noise. It’s louder than my Canon 5D.