Sony's new Alpha NEX camera system, the NEX-3 and NEX-5, the latest addition to the growing Micro System camera market, has attracted a lot of debate and discussion online since it was announced ten days ago.
The jury is out on the design of the first cameras in the system, the Sony NEX-3 and Sony NEX-5 – some find them rather boxy and ugly, especially compared with the elegance of the Olympus Pen. Personally I’d like to see a future NEX that takes its design cue from Sony’s old Cybershot F828 (right), a highly innovative bridge camera from 2003/4 which sported a curvaceous, swivelling body with a superb Zeiss lens on the end. It would have been one of the greatest digital cameras of its time had it not suffered from the most appalling image noise. A bit of F828 DNA (shrunk down a bit, obviously) would improve the NEX’s pulling power no end.
But beauty is just skin deep and you can’t deny that the NEX-3 and NEX-5 has an awesome spec sheet, including arguably the highest spec video mode of any interchangeable lens camera. I say arguably because there is some debate about that 1080i resolution. It’s interlaced rather than progressive, and its a matter of debate in tech circles whether 1080i is as good as 720p. (For more on what this means there’s a useful video here that explains it).
No doubt the debate will rage on but the proof of the pudding is in the eating. A few movie clips have already found their way onto YouTube and Vimeo and this one, produced by Sony themselves, suggest that the doubters have little to worry about….