[shuttertalk]

I've been looking at CSCs more closely in recent times, and was just wondering what everyone thought of the NEX system by Sony? I haven't heard much talk about it round these parts.

On paper it sounds good - APS-C sized sensor, EVF available, bundled flashgun (guide number 7 only though so no bouncing) and a new LA-EA2 SLT adapter which allows you to use A-mount lenses as well...

The review of the new NEX-5N, which is the upgrade to the mid-range NEX-5, and features a new touchscreen, amongst other improvements.
http://www.photographyblog.com/reviews/s...5n_review/

[Pavel]

I would say that it really depends why would you want NEX. I would go with a DSLR, unless there is a clear weight/size advantage to switching. I really like the large and relatively bright OPTICAL viewfinders that show you accurately what you will be photographing. I do not do video or fast sequences, so mirror travel is not a big deal for me. With NEX, you loose optical viewfinder. It is true that the body is smaller than most SLRs. I usually walk with several lenses and so what i look at is the weight/volume of a combination of the body and a few lenses. The saving in volume/weight in my view does not justify a switch. NEX has currently very few lenses to choose from. Thom Hogan agrees and says the system is far from complete. Finally, I have a considerable investment in Nikon. It would take a major reason for me to spend money to duplicate system i already have. I see no compelling reason to even contemplate that.

By the way, the site is still slow. I posted some times. What do you think? is it worth doing something about it?

[shuttertalk]

I would say that it really depends why would you want NEX. I would go with a DSLR, unless there is a clear weight/size advantage to switching.

Thanks for the input Pavel, you do make a good points for someone considering replacing a DSLR system with a CSC. You're definitely right in considering the size/weight vs benefits tradeoff, and also whether one could contemplate replacing a DSLR or merely relegating it to specific functions (e.g. street / travel photography).

Forgive me for being vague in the opening post though as I wasn't intending this on becoming a DSLR vs CSC debate. I was more wondering what people's thoughts were of the NEX system in comparison to the other CSC systems out there.

Sizewise, it's similar in size to the Olympus EPx and the GFx but with the added advantage of a much larger sensor.
http://www.ephotozine.com/article/olympu...nx11-17084
http://www.dpreview.com/previews/olympusep3/page3.asp

The Sony kit lens looks enormous compared to the Olympus kit lens though, but if you actually compare side by side photos with it mounted (see halfway down in the 2nd link), it only comes out a fraction longer than the Oly due to the thinner body.

[Pavel]

Julian, I think we are still back to size. If size was not an issue, I would not be considering M 4/3. This system has a big selection of lenses (which NEX does not) Not only the body, but THE LENSES are small. There are several downsides to M 4/3 system which are less of an issue with APS-C based cameras:

1) The smaller sensor size means theoretical and probably real reduction of signal to noise ratio at lower light conditions. Low light is important to me, but I am willing to accept the limitation.

2) The effective aperture of lenses is substantially smaller than the aperture of a lens with the same max aperture mounted on my Nikon (or NEX). Shallow DOF is important to me. In practice, I plan to use primes on M 4/3 most of the times to minimize this issue, accepting some reduction in convenience.

3) Unlike Leica M8, which has made effort to assure that the light is coming to the sensor more or less from the front rather than sides the current M4/3 cameras do not use microlens layer to achieve this feat. Leica and its lenses are too pricey for me. I therefore wish to find lenses that offer good off center resolution at large apertures. This is an Achilles heal of the M 4/3 design. However, there are M 4/3 lenses that do quite well in this respect. I am willing to accept vignetting issues, as this is software correctable. I understand that lenses from O and M take care of chromatic aberration and vignetting in hardware. Again vignetting and off center softness seem to be a lesser issue for systems where the lens and the sensor are further apart (like in most, if not all APS-C based systems. I wonder though about NEX, as it is a very thin camera. It may share the problems with off center softness and vignetting with M 4/3 (Matthew?))

My problem with NEX is the absence of optical viewfinder with all the relevant info displayed within this OPTICAL viewfinder. I see NEX caught between the rock and the hard place. If you want a system that is biggish (and NEX lenses are not small), you are better off with a DSLR which has an optical viewfinder AND a full stable of lenses. If you want a light go anywhere system and accept EVF (in the case of M 4/3 and NEX), you are better of with the likes of Leica (if you are rich) or M 4/3 systems, which have a relatively complete selection of lenses and which are a small package. My problem is I do not know WHEN and FOR WHAT REASON would I prefer NEX. I think if somebody gave me NEX system and I had Nikon and M 4/3 systems, NEX would be always the system left at home.

[Toad]

Let me jump in here. In the past, I have been critical of NEX for their dumbed down interface design and lack of lens selection. The new NEX-7 however has my attention, but not for the usual reasons. Since I have been shooting Leica, I have become used to manual focus while simultaneously becoming spoiled by Leica lens quality. Whatever camera body I may own in the future, I will have a VERY hard time accepting that I can't use my Summicon-M 50mm F2.0 lens which is the best lens that I have ever owned by a significant margin.

The downside of Leica is the price of the camera bodies which unlike Leica lenses depreciate over time. The NEX-7 with a Voigtlander M adapter and the Summicon, however is a *very* small and trim package, and I will suggest further that the peak focusing system of the NEX-7 is an *improvement* on the M9 as far as manual focus assist is concerned. A NEX-7 with an M adapter and a selection of used M prime lenses is one way to use Leica glass at a fraction of the cost of an M9.

[Pavel]

Matthew and Robert, I am not really knowledgeable about Leica, but I know that they went into a lot of expensive trouble to make the lenses work with digital sensor. Unlike all (?) other cameras, Leica has places a layer of microlenses in the path between the lens and the sensor to assure that the light hitting the sensor is more or less parallel with the lens axis (That is at least the way i understand it). This is very important, as this reduces light fall off and image degradation on the periphery of the sensor. As a result the same lens that may well be wonderful on Leica may be far less wonderful on other cameras where a lens is placed very close to a large sensor. I would therefore caution you when you think of using Leica lenses on NEX will give results similar to Leica. As always, I hold that cameras do not make photographers. I am in a very good club with some truly superb photographers. One of the best in the club is a guy which sometimes submits incredible prints with unbelievably basic equipment. His superb technical skills and vision make his photos consistent winners. I think that the trick is to find equipment which fits your way of shooting and to understand under which conditions and at which particular settings your particular lens-camera combination performs optimally. Bigger still is the issue of making your photos fresh, so that they do not look like thousands similar photos on the web.

[Zig]

(Yes, good point from Pavel about the non sequitur of (any) lens repeating its performance when going from one fomat(cf distance) to another; it of course works "the other way" too, with some very nice lenses on smaller format not cutting the mustard with FF(and not because of solely the quality of the outer inner zone of the lens.)
Anyway, back on topic:
Yes to NEX; almost went that way myself given the bargain MF lenses that are around; the present NEX floats my boat even more. Reasons against(for me) : no optical finder; and (if I needed a second reason), too much piddling around: if I was going to spend a cash amount x on anything photographic, it'd be on something that decreased my time fiddling about. Pawing around for anything other than top-end P+S, sort of defeats the object for me. Actually, now the Fuji X-100 is coming down, I guess it'll almost be reasonably-priced sometime next year, is my musing.

[shuttertalk]

Thanks for the comments and interesting views, everyone.

My summary of the issues + some thoughts sprinkled in between:

1. Sensor size / lens size

Some have pointed out that the larger sensor is both a pro and con - it gives better image quality but the lenses are correspondingly larger.

2. Lens selection

M43 wins here due to the strength of the common format between manufacturers and the amount of lenses available to the system.

And I think Matthew is right with regards to Alpha lenses and the optional adapter - if you're going down that route, the added bulk almost makes it almost equivalent in size and weight to a Alpha DSLR system and you probably wouldn't go that route starting out. It might make sense if you had already established yourself with the NEX system and wanted the flexibility of using additional lenses.

3. OVF

I still don't get the OVF point - none of the other CSC systems feature an OVF and rely instead of optional EVFs. The new NEX EVF supposedly performs similar to the EVF available on the new Alpha DSLRs as well which is a huge plus.


Yes, it's certainly an exciting time for the CSC segment - all manufacturers seem to have their cards out on the table (well, except maybe for Canon) and pushing full steam ahead with their offerings. You can almost see the "tiering" and maturity with the different systems - M43 is probably into it's 3rd generation, NEX into its 2nd whereas stuff from Nikon, Pentax, are just off the starting blocks.

[matthew]

Pavel, you are correct that Leica spent a great deal of time and effort to make the M-mount work with the sensor; the NEX system also has an extremely small flange back distance but without the optimization. Leica also has lens profiles programmed into the M8/M9 cameras that remove most of the issues with colour shift, vignetting, and so on. (Non-Leica lenses can be set to use the profiles of similar lenses, correcting them as well.) Other systems are going to involve so compromise.

Julian:

1 - I was playing with a Pentax Q today, which is an absurd little camera, but quite charming because of it. It's the lens/sensor size relationship reduced to its smallest extreme. While I wouldn't endorse it as a serious camera – not that cameras need to be serious – but it's nice to have something to put the Nikon 1 into perspective.

2 - Olympus and Panasonic are the Nikon and Canon of the mirrorless world.

3 - Different cameras require different ways of working. I have seen some people use accessory optical viewfinders with prime lenses on mirrorless cameras, which is a decent option, but limits what the camera can do. (I just wish that there was a good collection of macro lenses for m4/3 – I use a 4/3 lens with an adapter – because that is one huge advantage of an all-live-view system.) But as for an OVF-or-bust approach, all I can say is that Sony's electronic viewfinders are the very best that I've ever seen, and their optical viewfinders are the worst.

[Toad]

I don't agree with your point #2, Matt.

I believe that PanOly is not producing *real* camera systems. Case in point - the external viewfinder that I bought for my GF1 way back in summer 2009. It is no longer compatible with announced models like the GX1. Also, the new X lens series is not fully software compatible with these 2009 dinosaurs...

Is that a system? I call BS on that one. While it may not be possible to maintain backward compatibility (and I debate this - the LVF1 that I purchased for big dollars is only 2 years old after all), it should certainly be possible to maintain some degree of forward compatibility. Why won't the old viewfinder work on new models?

My Nikon gear is a real system. I may not be able to use G series lenses on a 1965 camera body, but I sure as hell can use an E series lens on my D200 25 years down the road. Nikon and Canon *get* what a system really means - PanOly does not (or worst case chooses to ignore it).

So while Panny and Oly may say they are developing camera systems, they are not. If an expensive accessory is not compatible with a camera body released 2 years later, it is not a camera system. It is a point and shoot - buy and discard philosophy coated in a thin veneer of *system* doublespeak.

Best case - they have incompetent engineers that can't conceive of a feature that already exists being relevant to them 2 years out - or more likely, they don't give a damn - and they hope that you will buy into the system and accept replacing major system components on a short cycle because you have an investment in lenses.

When I buy a camera system, I am actually buying future proofing - an implicite agreement that the equipment that I buy today will be supported for the foreseeable future. IMO, Panoly has completely failed to deliver on this - and in this regard the m43 "system" is a complete failure. No forward compatibility=no system.

Toad out...

[Zig]

Ah, and there's the rub, Rob. It may be that a manufacturer may wish the buyer to have the comfortable illusion of having a future-proof system, yet also needs him/her to be speaking/listening in the same lingua franca of upgraditis/speedy obsolescence cycles that drives the universal consumer-base. If I were a camera-pusher, I'd need to keep my clients within the addiction-cycle and ensure they returned to me: by giving them something really future-proof, I'd be ensuring they didn't visit my street-corner, salivating and sweating, every year, as their long-terms needs are already met. If I'm to have an income-stream(and the futures that are sold on such expectations), I need the punters back on my patch sharpish.

[Pavel]

I share the sentiments expressed about obsolescence. I think the defense is to have a clear idea what features you really need and which would truly improve the quality of your photos or which would make your photography very significantly more convenient. In my view very few upgrades pass this test. I have in my mind features that would make me move and I will not move unless the new camera offers these significant (for me) features. So far, nothing made me even tempted in almost 5 years and 70 000 + shots. (OK D3s or even D 700 do, but not enough to jump)

[shuttertalk]

Dpreview have published their review of the NEX7.
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sonynex7/

All in all a very positive one, in particular:

- excellent viewfinder - the size is comparable to a SLR, and uses the high resolution OLED EVF that has already been well praised
- excellent construction, and very customisable interface and button assignments
- high resolution and good high ISO performance