Sony Alpha NEX-5

Handling (7.00)

The NEX-5 is a nicely designed piece of gear that feels good in your hands. The body measures 4 3/8 × 2 3/8 × 1 9/16 inches (35.9 × 23.8 × 42.7mm) and weighs 8.1 ounces (20.4g), which makes it the smallest interchangeable lens camera on the market, by a skinch. Of course, Olympus offers a collapsible zoom lens, which shortens the camera depth considerably, but it’s worth remembering that the NEX-5 has a full APS-C sensor, significantly larger than the Micro Four Thirds sensor used by Olympus and company, yet Sony has managed to deliver it in a smaller body. In fact, with the 16mm fixed-focus lens attached, it will fit into a large jacket pocket or handbag.

The right side doesn’t provide a lot of clearance between the grip and the lens, but your large-handed reviewer got used to it after a few hours. The back thumb rest is textured and well positioned, which together with the small size makes this a good choice for one-handed shooters. And we like the way Sony positioned the one-touch video record button on its own angled surface; easy to find in a hurry, very unlikely to be pressed accidentally.

Buttons & Dials (10.25)

The NEX-5 takes a minimalist approach to buttons and dials, relying more heavily on the menu system than most SLRs. This keeps down clutter, and allows for a smaller camera design. It also slows you down dramatically when you want to access several basic shooting controls, a continuing annoyance even after you’ve learned how the control scheme works.

On top of the camera, there’s the shutter button, a separate rotating power switch, and a button to access playback mode.

On the angled plane between the back and the top is the dedicated movie recording button. We like the option to start recording video on the spur of the moment, without having to meddle with mode dials or menu choices. And the button is well placed, easy to find in an instant but not in a spot where you’re likely to press it accidentally.

On the back, there’s a combination control wheel / four-way controller. The wheel is used to adjust settings, browse images during playback and navigate through the menu system. The four-way controller is also used for navigation, but while shooting the top, bottom, left and right clicks are mapped to access display adjustment, exposure compensation, drive mode/self-timer and flash mode respectively.

For everything else, you have to open the main menu and hunt for your options. Want to change the ISO setting, autofocus mode, white balance, or metering pattern? You’ll need to bring up the menu, navigate to the relevant sub-menu, find the setting within the submenu, bring up the list of available settings, navigate to the one you wanted…. ooops, missed the shot. Say you have the camera set to the standard Creative Style and want to switch to vivid. We count thirteen clicks along the way… and that’s if you know where you’re going.

The other key element in the control scheme are three ‘soft’ buttons, meaning their function varies depending on where you are in the system. The current action on offer is explained with on-screen labels.

One soft button is located in the center of the control wheel, the others to the top left and bottom left of the wheel. When you’re shooting, the top button takes you to the menu system, the middle one accesses your shooting mode options, and the bottom one brings up an on-screen display of shooting tips. We have nothing against providing consumers with info about taking better photos. At the very least, though, we would have made that last button customizable, so you could access key shooting controls more easily. We would gladly have traded quick access to ISO settings or metering patterns for easy navigation to a 100-word essay on freezing subject motion.

Display(s) (8.61)

The NEX-5 has one of the most beautiful LCD displays we’ve ever seen on a digital camera, a 3-inch wide-screen display with 921,600-pixel resolution. The company says it adopted a technology called ‘TruBlack,’ first employed in its digital picture frames, to increase contrast and make colors pop. Based on what we’re seeing here, we hope this type of screen becomes a standard feature in Sony’s line.

The widescreen orientation is particularly geared toward high-def movie playback, in 16:9 format. Standard still images don’t fill the screen; the left side is used instead to display labels for the three multipurpose control buttons and the control wheel, both in shooting and playback mode.

The LCD is articulated in an unusual way, with a hinge along the top edge that lets you pull the screen away from the camera body, then pivot it down for shooting with the camera held overhead, or up for low-angle shooting. We find it more useful when an LCD is hinged along the edge, so it can be folded out to the side of and flipped forward for self-portraits. Still, the NEX-5 system is much better than nothing, particularly when trying to see over a crowd.

LCD brightness is adjusted automatically by default, but there are also two user overrides. You can adjust the brightness up or down by two steps in each direction, or choose Sunny Weather to max out the brightness for outdoor shooting. We still feel that the lack of an eye-level viewfinder is a substantial negative when considering the NEX-5. We have to give Sony credit, though: even standing outdoors in bright sun at noon, we were still able to line up a shot on the LCD, in situations where lesser screens would be all but worthless.

Secondary Display

High-end SLRs often have a second monochrome LCD on top, for reading camera settings from above. The NEX-5 doesn’t have this feature.

Viewfinder (0.00)

If you think the option to shoot with the camera held up to your eye is important, this is not your camera. Not only is there no built-in viewfinder, there’s no accessory electronic viewfinder available; your only option is a $200 fixed-focus optical viewfinder accessory, which isn’t much better than no options at all. This contrasts with the Samsung NX10, which comes with a built-in electronic viewfinder (though not a very good one), and the Olympus E-PL1 and Panasonic GF1, which have connectors for optional EVFs (though these are $200+ add-ons).

Image Stabilization (1.68)

Unlike Sony SLRs, the compact NEX cameras do not have in-camera image stabilization systems, relying instead on stabilized lenses. When we tested the kit 18-55mm zoom, though, we found it was much less effective than the in-camera stabilization we tested in the Sony A550. In fact, when the camera was shaken fairly aggressively, there was only a slight sharpness improvement at two shutter speeds, with no significant difference at all at 1/60 second or slower, where stabilization is most needed. With a lower shake intensity, there were minor improvements when shooting at 1/125 second and again at 1/15 second, but overall this new lens-based stabilization system made very little difference.

Image Stabilization Comparison Table			Expand
	Low Shake IS Off	Low Shake IS On	High Shake IS Off	High Shake IS On
1/500
1/250
1/125
1/60
1/30
1/15
1/8

The stabilization system in the kit zoom lens proved less effective than any of the other cameras in our comparison group, including the in-camera system used in the Sony A550.