Look For Sony Alpha Nex 5k 14 2mp Digital Camera In at Amazon
| Most helpful customer reviews 35 of 36 people found the following review helpful. F a u l t s P l u s e s But as the race to build the largest DSLR continues and you behemoth DSLR owners continue to smirk at the nex, sorry, your old tired technology no longer impresses me. I’ve owned several DSLRs. Recently sold my nikon D100 and 3 expensive lenses, now have several other nikon owners jealous of the quality and diversity of this little gem. Read other reviews, a lot of big DSLR owners are dumping their cameras in favor of the nex. Update; Update; 55 of 63 people found the following review helpful. I wanted a high-quality point-and-shoot camera. I’ve always wanted one. I’ve spent fair sums of money in the past on such GARBAGE as Cannon PowerShots (you can read my review on it – ha). This time I got what I wanted. With the pancake lens on it you can almost fit it in your pocket (but not quite). It’s way light. You can turn it on and take your first picture in under a second. And, get this, the picture will be a good one. Sure, you can mess around with things and get great pictures by setting the camera up manually for each shot. Of course you can. Just like with any camera. But what rocks here is that you don’t need to mess with things to get good shots – the auto mode is super smart and super fast. And then you _can_ change the lens. Way cool. All told (with both lenses and other bits) it all fits nicely in a small LowePro bag (like the Edit 110). Yes, yes, this is a little bigger than pocket size. But, wow, it’s WAY smaller and way lighter than a DSLR. And, did I mention that it takes great pictures? Negatives? Well, sure, it’s a Sony. That means that they steadfastly refuse to follow existing standards. So it’s not a Micro4/3. And lenses? Well, they say that there will be another zoom ready sometime soon. And for only a bit more than the camera cost! Luckily you can use it (manually) with a lens adapter and just about any lens. But it sure would be nice to have the autofocus and all the rest when using a big lens! Mind you, I’ve only taken 250 pictures with it in this first week – I’m sure I’ll have a lot more comments as I actually get some experience with this! Edit: Quick comments… As for point and shoot, the thing that is, perhaps, the most impressive compared to normal portables is that the colors are right on. Well. There’s that, of course. But the automatic mode is pretty darned amazing all by itself. I guess I didn’t mention, but it shows you, on the screen, the mode that it has chosen for a given shot. Rather than just saying auto it will say, “Night Portrait” or whatever. I suppose this could help you learn to better manually set modes. But, hey, why bother when it usually choses the right one all by itself? And so fast! Live view is awesome! I guess that was another of the features I was looking for. And here, well, it’s not just an extra – it’s the only way to take a picture. Which is fine by me – this is exactly what I wanted! The screen is so sharp and so clear that you know right away what you’re getting – there’s no guessing how a picture is going to look in the end. I love this thing! There is a pretty darned good review of the camera on, um. On the web. Let’s see… On Unique Photo’s site. They’ve taken a lot of pictures and some video so you can see what a pro can do with the camera. Pretty impressive! Let’s see… What else? Well, I chose this one over the Nex3 because you get the metal body and the full HD video mode. For the use I’m making of it (lots of snapshots of children and pets, largely) this is working great for me. Edit: well, upgrading the firmware sure changed things! Movie mode comes up instantly now, for example. Whoa. But… But I get a histogram on every shot I take and the menu option doesn’t turn this off! I don’t care about the histogram – I want to see what my shot looks like!!! Now, I could screw around for hours more trying to figure out how to really turn that off (since the menu option doesn’t do it!) but, get this, I’m not going to! I want a quick an easy camera to use! That’s it! The autofocus is weird, now, too. The camera comes on instantly – with the last focus setting. To get it to focus on something else I have to hold the shot button half-way in for more than a second. What is up with that? A HUGE step backwards! Arg! Well, that and the histogram that just won’t go away! Arg arg! Still… I’ve taken ~1500 shots now (508 on one day. Ahem!) and I love it. I can shoot from the hip and get a great shot almost every time I try (not every shot is good – but I have it in rafale mode and almost always take 4+ shots at a go). I have discovered that there is a limit, alas, to rafale mode… It will only take ~50 shots in quick succession before it has to pause to write to disk. Maybe if I had a faster memory card I could get more shots in… Edit: So, not only is there rafale mode but there’s speed rafale mode. Holy cow is it ever fast! It’s so fast that in a couple of seconds the memory falls behind and the pix stop while the camera catches up. This is speed priority so unless you’re in ideal conditions the picture quality isn’t as good as in other modes but it is very sweet for trying to get a good picture of a wiggly pet (in good light). It does come up quickly (even in V3 firmware) with the pancake lens. But, well, I’m just not using that one any more. I really like the 18-55! No, it’s not really pocket-sized with that. But it is awfully compact and well protected in one of the leather fitted cases. I’ve taken at least 3k more photos and had some really really nice ones as a result! I LOVE THIS CAMERA! 500+ shots on one charge (I haven’t run the battery down to lower than 50%). The only problem I’m having with it now is that it’s become a real chore to sort through and tweak all of the shots I’ve taken! I don’t know what to do with them all! Edit (probably the last one!): I bought the Sony remote, too. We got some awesome family pictures taken! It took me a while to figure out how to use it (to set up the camera) but it is awesome! So happy with the whole deal! 14 of 15 people found the following review helpful. If you’re looking for a compact, yet powerful camera, the Sony NEX-5 is the one for you. And for you seasoned photographers out there – don’t forget this has an optional lens adapter so you can put some old school lenses on it. I slapped a Leica lens on and the pictures look phenomenal! Experimentation encouraged |
this little camera is better than most DSLRs
