Tuesday, August 10, 2010

The Allure of the NEX5 - Part 1


I am loving the NEX5 I bought a few weeks ago and since the 16mm 2.8 pancake arrived I'm loving it even more. Sooner or later I will start doing more formal reviews (never tests, I dont have the discipline) but for the time being I'm just going to post a few little vignettes on why this is a wonderful little camera and something that changes the way I think about photography.

I was never really into photography until digital and then I bought a little Canon S1 3.something superzoom and fell in love. Within a year or two I was feeling the limitations of the small sensor and went to a DSLR, a Sony A100. Since then I'm hooked on big sensor goodness and cant tolerate anything less. Yes, yes, I know that the A100 (and the A700 that supplanted it) are 'just' APS sensors and that there is still full frame sensors above me but nothing I've seen indicated that the jump from APS to FF is anything like the vast leap from compact sensor to APS so bear with me.

But being addicted to big sensor goodness has a draw back, the cameras are huge. Ok, I know I could make this smaller, I could go for a little lens or remove the grip but thats not how I use the A700. But the NEX changes all that. Its IQ is, I think, better than the A700 and just look at the size difference. Will the NEX5 with a pancake lens fit in a jeans pocket? Not on your life. But if you are in cargoes, or wearing a jacket it slides straight in. The A700 on the otehr hand, well I doubt I need to say anything.

The NEX now goes everywhere with me, in the month I've had it I doubt the camera has ever been more than 20 feet from me and I've taken 8 times more photos in July with the NEX than any other month for over a year. I love this little guy precisely because he's little.

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