The Sony NEX-5: A Camera Review

As I held the Sony NEX-5 camera in my hands, I couldn't help but feel a sense of excitement and curiosity about its capabilities. With its compact design and 16.1 megapixel sensor, this camera promised to deliver high-quality images with minimal fuss. But how did it perform in real-world shooting conditions? In this article, we'll take an in-depth look at the Sony NEX-5 and explore its features, strengths, and weaknesses.

One of the standout features of the NEX-5 is its ISO performance. While I was testing the camera, I noticed that it can reach high ISO settings up to 1600 without much noise or grain, making it suitable for a wide range of shooting situations. However, beyond this point, the image starts to degrade noticeably. In particular, when setting the ISO to 32, you may start to notice some noticeable noise and grain in your images. Beyond that, the camera's performance becomes increasingly compromised.

Another aspect of the NEX-5 worth mentioning is its similarity in performance to my older camera, the 5D Mark II. Both cameras have similar sensor performance, allowing for high-quality images without excessive noise or degradation. However, while the 5D Mark II can reach even higher ISO settings up to 1600 without major issues, the NEX-5 starts to show its limitations at a slightly lower setting.

The NEX-5 also boasts an excellent autofocus system, with features like phase detection and contrast detection working in tandem to ensure accurate focusing. The camera's electronic viewfinder (EVF) is another standout feature, offering a clear and responsive display of the scene before you. While it may take some getting used to, the EVF proved to be a valuable tool for photographers who want more control over their shots.

The NEX-5 also includes Wi-Fi connectivity, allowing users to transfer images to other devices wirelessly. However, I was unable to test this feature thoroughly, as my primary method of image transfer has always been to pull out the SD card. Nevertheless, it's great to know that this feature is available for those who want to take advantage of it.

One aspect of the NEX-5 that caught my attention was its ability to connect to external devices via Wi-Fi. While I haven't had much experience with this feature, it seems like a convenient way to download apps and other content directly to your camera. However, as someone who's used to pulling out an SD card for image transfer, I couldn't see the need to invest in more expensive app subscriptions when there are plenty of free alternatives available.

In terms of movie mode, the NEX-5 offers excellent performance with features like peaking and manual focus control. While it may not match some of the higher-end Sony models, such as the FS100 or FS700, it provides a solid foundation for capturing high-quality video footage.

The design of the NEX-5 is another area where this camera shines. With its compact size and sleek design, it's an excellent option for those who want a camera that's easy to carry around. The camera's weight distribution is also well-balanced, making it comfortable to hold for extended periods. One feature I particularly appreciated was the placement of the movie button, which is conveniently located on the top of the camera and can be easily accessed without having to dig through menus.

One notable difference between the NEX-5 and its sibling model, the NEX-7, is the resolution. While both cameras share a similar design aesthetic, the NEX-7 boasts a slightly higher megapixel count, with some models reaching up to 24 megapixels. However, I couldn't see this as a significant difference in most shooting situations.

Overall, the Sony NEX-5 has proven itself to be an excellent camera that delivers high-quality images with minimal fuss. Its compact design, excellent autofocus system, and impressive ISO performance make it an attractive option for photographers of all levels. While some features may feel gimmicky at first glance, they ultimately add value to the camera's overall performance.

As I continue to explore the capabilities of this camera, I'm finding that its unique characteristics are slowly winning me over. Whether you're a seasoned photographer or just starting out, the Sony NEX-5 is definitely worth considering for your next camera purchase.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey everybody my name is Ted Forbes and welcome back to another episode of The Art of Photography and today we're going to look at another camera um a couple episodes ago we looked at the Sony nx7 which is a mirrorless camera and this is I I'm I'm late on the bandwagon here I know because a lot of people have already jumped into the mirrorless thing um I just didn't think that I had much use for this in my life and I I had a specific reason that I wanted to check out the nx7 and it was particularly to do b-roll on video and I've been really impressed and you know this is what gear does is one thing leads to another I want to talk about the nx5 which is the nexx 7's slightly smaller and little brother and I want to talk about um these cameras are really impressive to me and I want to talk about why and we'll compare this to the nx7 a little bit and you know which one might for for you but you know for a camera this size that shoots images of the quality this does is simply amazing so what we're going to do is go over to the workbench so I can you know open this up and show you a few things and uh so come on over and let's have a look Okay so we've got the the N5 here on the right and this is the nx7 over on the left which we reviewed in another episode that we did a while back and I want to show you some of the basic differences between these and gosh how impressed I am with these cameras actually nx5 as you can see if you look at them side by side is just a little bit shorter and a little bit more squished in there a little less wide and uh you'll also notice the other big shift is that on the back on the back side you have uh you have a secondary electronic View finder um up on the um upper left hand side which more or less electronically simulates a traditional viewfinder and you don't have that at all on the nx5 now you could tell that uh well one other thing too is you have two control knobs on the seven and you're down to one on the five and I really have not noticed this to be a problem and mainly it's the way that I use it and I'll explain that a little bit um like I said I needed uh a camera or in this case cameras that would be capable actually became very interested in these for the video capabilities and they have not disappointed at all um there is one small disappointing Factor when it comes to video on these the specs say that they will record about 29 minutes a video or so and the truth of the matter is that they use Coss sensors just like most SLR cameras these are AP APS C sized and what'll happen is as you're filming because the size and the design of these cameras is they get a little hot and what'll happen is the U the the seos sensor warms up and basically starts to shut down so I've had enormous heating issues with these which makes it challenging to film certain things now if you're just making short films you're shooting just you know Run and Gun b-roll style you're not going to notice much cuz you're probably not going to need more than four or five minutes at a time uh it's kind of like going back to the old Canon 5D Mark II when it first came out when you had some pretty big limitations on it but if you're trying to film a long interview or performance or something like that you'll have issues now when it does heat up you just turn the camera off for for just a little bit couple minutes turn it back on and you're good to go again so I haven't had you know it's a predictable problem I guess is what I'm saying now the other interesting thing about the N5 it is half the price of the nex7 pretty much and you could tell that what's interesting is it's not just the little brother it's a completely different design that has been employed into this and I'll explain what I mean one of the uses is they really intend this camera to be much like a smartphone with a really nice lens and so it has a touch screen on it uh you can take pictures in a very similar fashion that you do on the iPhone you can check your focus you can do pretty much a lot from the touch interface it's not bad it's a small screen and if you're used to working on a smaller type phone really not a big deal um just to show you the screen and you probably see that it does fingerprint up pretty easily but it has a double hinge so you can pull it out if you are filming from a looking down at a lower angle on the camera it also has double hinge so if you need to be looking up at it while you're filming that is a very nice feature and the best thing about the nx5 is it will tilt completely the other way so if you are shooting a podcast like this one or something like that you can you know at least get a framing reference for yourself um anyway very nice very well thought out design it doesn't feel cheap or flimsy um now as it it's been said in I think one of the comments I got when I was reviewing the nx7 so one thing I do want to point out on here too this has been said in some of the comments that uh you know these are capable of taking very high quality awesome images um the interesting thing is is just the physical nature of the camera being mirrorless and everything's electronic is you got to get used to it's more like acting like a computer than it is a camera but once you get past that and you're concentrating on the images that you're making um they capable of some wonderful things just to show you too the way the sensor sits in these if I take the lens cap off it's almost right up against the lens flange here which makes it very easy to find lenses with adapters this is a kit lens that actually came with the nx7 um but also I have and just so we don't get a lot of dust in there um if you buy the adapters this is an older Voit Lander lens that I got it's not super old but uh a couple years old and it is a screw Mount Leica style um lens and so if you get a 39 Mount screw mount lens adapter basically you just screw the lens on like so and uh this is a 15 mm I believe and so it's capable of pretty wide angle I mean remember you're on a crop sensor so um it's not going to be as wide as it would be on a full frame or 35 mm but it is very easy to use and very easy to deal with you just line that up and I now have a non-standard lens and the the cool thing about this lens is it's really small so if I want relatively wide- angle shots and you know fits in the palm of your hand almost in your pocket without the lens it certainly does and these are really Compact and easy to take places I'll go ahead and turn this one on too pretty much much like the nx7 everything is pretty much at your fingertips either on the touchcreen or by the wheel um I just kind of prefer the wheel myself but your mileage may vary I can change my ISO I leave these in manual mode a lot simply because um I'm using them for video capabilities but they work pretty well in manual mode for Stills and I kind of prefer to shoot manually anyway and I don't really even need to go aperture priority or shter priority for the most part uh they do a pretty good job the another difference between the two it's pretty much the same software but the iso settings on on the nx5 here you kind of for video at least you cap out at 32 you can't really shoot video any higher than ISO 3200 this one will go up to 64 I can take it up to 128 and I can actually take it up to 256 so it does the image will fall apart a little bit those High those are seriously High ISO settings um I have noticed that these cameras both of them the sensors act a lot like I mentioned my 5D Mark II my older camera a minute ago um it's similar performance you can get up to 1,600 easily um without much noise um when you go to 32 it really you start to introduce some some noise and grain into the picture um depending on what you're shooting it may or may not be a big deal um and beyond that is when you start to see a lot of heavy grain and the the thing starts to fall apart on you a little bit one other thing to mention on these is I mentioned the metaphor or the the comparison to a smartphone a minute ago and one of the things I'll show you on here is that you do have this enabled on the five and not the seven you can connect via Wi-Fi um I haven't done much image transfer that way just because I it's just as easy to pull out the SD card for me um I haven't had the need for that and so I haven't tested that but you can actually connect to the internet and go download applications uh to put on the phone and so the whole idea is that this was going to run kind of like a smartphone I got to be honest this is a real it works fairly well but it's a little bit gimick gimmicky feature first of all there aren't that many apps a aable for this and they don't do a whole lot of stuff the really the only useful one I found in there was a time-lapse application so okay that's fairly useful but why would I need to pay more than 99 Cents you know we're all used to kind of the Apple Store model um the apps are a little more expensive and I just didn't think it was really worth it um the other thing I question is apple has a huge developer Community around what goes into the iOS stuff and Sony NX really doesn't at this point so it'll be interesting to see you know how further they go with that in the future but you know everything is accessible right here from the camera I can change all my settings I can initial initialize my card I can change the brightness and color anyway the settings are very standard just like they are on the nx7 I can pretty much control everything in here um it's it's very nice and very easy to use um you know and you get a lot of the features that you get in dslrs for instance if I change the display mode around a little bit if you guys can see this I actually have my my bubble level in here too so if you're shooting a landscape and you need everything to be perfectly straight you can you can use that and that's that's typically a feature that you find on and dslrs and really Sony designed these well there's nothing missing on these um movie button is right there it's really not easy to hit accidentally your shutter releases up here um some of the designs on some of the mirrorless cameras the movie button generally you end up hitting by accident a lot and it's really not designed that way here it's it's really beautifully done um the other main difference between the two just um I don't think it matters too much is that uh the NEX 5 is a 16.1 megapixel and I believe the nx7 was 23 or 24 and so that's not a huge resolution difference but if for whatever reason your application demands the max resolution possible that might be a consideration between the two um you get slightly better low light performance out of the nx5 and you know really I can't recommend these enough they're amazing they will do a lot of the features for video that the higher-end stuff like the um the Sony NX series like the fs100 the fs700 will allow you to do peaking to help with autofocus and the same thing is controllable here so anyway that is basically the nx5 okay so this has been some talk about the Sony nx5 and this is really quickly becoming my favorite camera um the the NX series are small um they have amazing image quality and when you start to get used to some of the just weirdness of shooting with you know basically an electronic viewfinder on the back which is a basically a computer screen um you know they somebody left a comment on the nx7 episode they are like working on a computer and less like a camera but once you get beyond that you learn what you're doing with making images with them um they yield some very impressive results so um if you are interested in learning more I'm going to put a link in the show notes below and um anyway once again this has been the Art of Photography and thank you for watching we'll see you next timehey everybody my name is Ted Forbes and welcome back to another episode of The Art of Photography and today we're going to look at another camera um a couple episodes ago we looked at the Sony nx7 which is a mirrorless camera and this is I I'm I'm late on the bandwagon here I know because a lot of people have already jumped into the mirrorless thing um I just didn't think that I had much use for this in my life and I I had a specific reason that I wanted to check out the nx7 and it was particularly to do b-roll on video and I've been really impressed and you know this is what gear does is one thing leads to another I want to talk about the nx5 which is the nexx 7's slightly smaller and little brother and I want to talk about um these cameras are really impressive to me and I want to talk about why and we'll compare this to the nx7 a little bit and you know which one might for for you but you know for a camera this size that shoots images of the quality this does is simply amazing so what we're going to do is go over to the workbench so I can you know open this up and show you a few things and uh so come on over and let's have a look Okay so we've got the the N5 here on the right and this is the nx7 over on the left which we reviewed in another episode that we did a while back and I want to show you some of the basic differences between these and gosh how impressed I am with these cameras actually nx5 as you can see if you look at them side by side is just a little bit shorter and a little bit more squished in there a little less wide and uh you'll also notice the other big shift is that on the back on the back side you have uh you have a secondary electronic View finder um up on the um upper left hand side which more or less electronically simulates a traditional viewfinder and you don't have that at all on the nx5 now you could tell that uh well one other thing too is you have two control knobs on the seven and you're down to one on the five and I really have not noticed this to be a problem and mainly it's the way that I use it and I'll explain that a little bit um like I said I needed uh a camera or in this case cameras that would be capable actually became very interested in these for the video capabilities and they have not disappointed at all um there is one small disappointing Factor when it comes to video on these the specs say that they will record about 29 minutes a video or so and the truth of the matter is that they use Coss sensors just like most SLR cameras these are AP APS C sized and what'll happen is as you're filming because the size and the design of these cameras is they get a little hot and what'll happen is the U the the seos sensor warms up and basically starts to shut down so I've had enormous heating issues with these which makes it challenging to film certain things now if you're just making short films you're shooting just you know Run and Gun b-roll style you're not going to notice much cuz you're probably not going to need more than four or five minutes at a time uh it's kind of like going back to the old Canon 5D Mark II when it first came out when you had some pretty big limitations on it but if you're trying to film a long interview or performance or something like that you'll have issues now when it does heat up you just turn the camera off for for just a little bit couple minutes turn it back on and you're good to go again so I haven't had you know it's a predictable problem I guess is what I'm saying now the other interesting thing about the N5 it is half the price of the nex7 pretty much and you could tell that what's interesting is it's not just the little brother it's a completely different design that has been employed into this and I'll explain what I mean one of the uses is they really intend this camera to be much like a smartphone with a really nice lens and so it has a touch screen on it uh you can take pictures in a very similar fashion that you do on the iPhone you can check your focus you can do pretty much a lot from the touch interface it's not bad it's a small screen and if you're used to working on a smaller type phone really not a big deal um just to show you the screen and you probably see that it does fingerprint up pretty easily but it has a double hinge so you can pull it out if you are filming from a looking down at a lower angle on the camera it also has double hinge so if you need to be looking up at it while you're filming that is a very nice feature and the best thing about the nx5 is it will tilt completely the other way so if you are shooting a podcast like this one or something like that you can you know at least get a framing reference for yourself um anyway very nice very well thought out design it doesn't feel cheap or flimsy um now as it it's been said in I think one of the comments I got when I was reviewing the nx7 so one thing I do want to point out on here too this has been said in some of the comments that uh you know these are capable of taking very high quality awesome images um the interesting thing is is just the physical nature of the camera being mirrorless and everything's electronic is you got to get used to it's more like acting like a computer than it is a camera but once you get past that and you're concentrating on the images that you're making um they capable of some wonderful things just to show you too the way the sensor sits in these if I take the lens cap off it's almost right up against the lens flange here which makes it very easy to find lenses with adapters this is a kit lens that actually came with the nx7 um but also I have and just so we don't get a lot of dust in there um if you buy the adapters this is an older Voit Lander lens that I got it's not super old but uh a couple years old and it is a screw Mount Leica style um lens and so if you get a 39 Mount screw mount lens adapter basically you just screw the lens on like so and uh this is a 15 mm I believe and so it's capable of pretty wide angle I mean remember you're on a crop sensor so um it's not going to be as wide as it would be on a full frame or 35 mm but it is very easy to use and very easy to deal with you just line that up and I now have a non-standard lens and the the cool thing about this lens is it's really small so if I want relatively wide- angle shots and you know fits in the palm of your hand almost in your pocket without the lens it certainly does and these are really Compact and easy to take places I'll go ahead and turn this one on too pretty much much like the nx7 everything is pretty much at your fingertips either on the touchcreen or by the wheel um I just kind of prefer the wheel myself but your mileage may vary I can change my ISO I leave these in manual mode a lot simply because um I'm using them for video capabilities but they work pretty well in manual mode for Stills and I kind of prefer to shoot manually anyway and I don't really even need to go aperture priority or shter priority for the most part uh they do a pretty good job the another difference between the two it's pretty much the same software but the iso settings on on the nx5 here you kind of for video at least you cap out at 32 you can't really shoot video any higher than ISO 3200 this one will go up to 64 I can take it up to 128 and I can actually take it up to 256 so it does the image will fall apart a little bit those High those are seriously High ISO settings um I have noticed that these cameras both of them the sensors act a lot like I mentioned my 5D Mark II my older camera a minute ago um it's similar performance you can get up to 1,600 easily um without much noise um when you go to 32 it really you start to introduce some some noise and grain into the picture um depending on what you're shooting it may or may not be a big deal um and beyond that is when you start to see a lot of heavy grain and the the thing starts to fall apart on you a little bit one other thing to mention on these is I mentioned the metaphor or the the comparison to a smartphone a minute ago and one of the things I'll show you on here is that you do have this enabled on the five and not the seven you can connect via Wi-Fi um I haven't done much image transfer that way just because I it's just as easy to pull out the SD card for me um I haven't had the need for that and so I haven't tested that but you can actually connect to the internet and go download applications uh to put on the phone and so the whole idea is that this was going to run kind of like a smartphone I got to be honest this is a real it works fairly well but it's a little bit gimick gimmicky feature first of all there aren't that many apps a aable for this and they don't do a whole lot of stuff the really the only useful one I found in there was a time-lapse application so okay that's fairly useful but why would I need to pay more than 99 Cents you know we're all used to kind of the Apple Store model um the apps are a little more expensive and I just didn't think it was really worth it um the other thing I question is apple has a huge developer Community around what goes into the iOS stuff and Sony NX really doesn't at this point so it'll be interesting to see you know how further they go with that in the future but you know everything is accessible right here from the camera I can change all my settings I can initial initialize my card I can change the brightness and color anyway the settings are very standard just like they are on the nx7 I can pretty much control everything in here um it's it's very nice and very easy to use um you know and you get a lot of the features that you get in dslrs for instance if I change the display mode around a little bit if you guys can see this I actually have my my bubble level in here too so if you're shooting a landscape and you need everything to be perfectly straight you can you can use that and that's that's typically a feature that you find on and dslrs and really Sony designed these well there's nothing missing on these um movie button is right there it's really not easy to hit accidentally your shutter releases up here um some of the designs on some of the mirrorless cameras the movie button generally you end up hitting by accident a lot and it's really not designed that way here it's it's really beautifully done um the other main difference between the two just um I don't think it matters too much is that uh the NEX 5 is a 16.1 megapixel and I believe the nx7 was 23 or 24 and so that's not a huge resolution difference but if for whatever reason your application demands the max resolution possible that might be a consideration between the two um you get slightly better low light performance out of the nx5 and you know really I can't recommend these enough they're amazing they will do a lot of the features for video that the higher-end stuff like the um the Sony NX series like the fs100 the fs700 will allow you to do peaking to help with autofocus and the same thing is controllable here so anyway that is basically the nx5 okay so this has been some talk about the Sony nx5 and this is really quickly becoming my favorite camera um the the NX series are small um they have amazing image quality and when you start to get used to some of the just weirdness of shooting with you know basically an electronic viewfinder on the back which is a basically a computer screen um you know they somebody left a comment on the nx7 episode they are like working on a computer and less like a camera but once you get beyond that you learn what you're doing with making images with them um they yield some very impressive results so um if you are interested in learning more I'm going to put a link in the show notes below and um anyway once again this has been the Art of Photography and thank you for watching we'll see you next time\n"