Good gets turned into great

The Sony Alpha NEX-3N is the latest mirrorless interchangeable-lens camera featuring a compact body and yet producing good image quality, thanks to the same large sensor used in a digital SLR camera.

NEX-3N is the fourth entry-level model in Sony’s NEX mirrorless interchangeable-lens series, replacing the F3. It has several improvements over the F3, including a more compact body.

So far the 3N is the smallest mirrorless camera that uses the same APS-C size sensor found in DSLR cameras along with Sony’s Exmor APS HD Cmos technology, which ensures good image quality in most lighting conditions.

Another nice new feature is that the 3N uses Sony’s 16-50mm retractable power-zoom lens. The NEX system has 15x crop-factor, so the lens provides a wide-angle view of 24mm in 35mm photography with telephoto focal length of up to 75mm. And the lens also comes with image stabilisation.

Another nice change is that the camera now has a zoom lever on the body, in front of the shutter button, to boost the feel of a compact camera. The zoom lever allows effortless one-handed operation and smooth zooming. The lens has a zoom slider on its barrel as well, and a zoom ring around the front of the lens, so you can control the motion several ways.

Compared to F3, the 3N flip-up LCD is easier and more secure to handle when shooting self-portraits as it can rotate 180 degrees, whereas the F3’s screen had to be pulled out and hinged.

But unlike F3, the 3N has no assessor port to let you use an external viewfinder. Sony removed the port apparently to keep the price affordable. With a very good lens, the price of the 3N kit is under Bt20,000.

The 3N is fun to use and captures pleasing-quality photos. Despite its compactness, it has all the shooting modes of a larger DSLR camera, including Programmed AE (P), Aperture priority (A), Shutter-speed priority (S), and Manual (M).

It also has two automatic modes – Intelligent Auto and Superior Auto. I enjoyed shooting in Superior Auto mode in which the camera recognises the current shooting environment then adjusts settings for optimal results. Best of all, Superior Auto also includes Auto HDR and Hand-held Twilight modes that handle difficult lighting by recording multiple images at high speed then composing them to produce the final sharp and clean photo.

And you can add Sony’s famous Soft Skin Effect to the automatic modes. During the test in The Nation newsroom, we enjoyed shooting portraits with the Soft Skin Effect, which brightens and smoothes the face and makes the subject look younger.

You can select one of scene modes on your own, including Portrait, Landscape, Macro, Sports Action, Sunset, Night Portrait, Night View and Hand-held Twilight.

The test found that 3N captured sharp and clean photos in most lighting conditions. Colours were well saturated and the scenery shots looked beautiful with green leaves in nice contrast with the blue sky, for example.

The 3N has good performance. It took about two seconds to start up and be ready for the first shot. Shutter lag did not matter in well-lit conditions. It has good battery life as well. One full charge allowed the camera to capture more than 400 photos.

And the 3N comes with several other features that make shooting fun. One of them is Auto Object Framing. In this mode, the camera automatically crops shots, including portraits, into stunning compositions. It uses advanced functions like two-person portrait capability along with Face Detection 

and Tracking Focus to recognise the scene and then crop accordingly.

You can further have fun by applying picture effects. The 3N includes 15 effects in 11 modes that can be applied to photos or movies. 

You can view effects in real time on the LCD before taking the shot. The effects include Posterization (Color, B/W), Pop Color, Retro Photo, Partial Color (R ,G ,B ,Y), High Contrast Mono, Toy Camera, Soft High-key, and Soft Focus.

The NEX-3N provides easy access to most Picture Effect settings as well as controls for Background Defocus, Brightness, Color and Vividness. You can activate Photo Creativity option by clicking on the main dial and choose the appropriate item then adjust while viewing in real-time on the LCD screen. 3N also has Creative Style function that lets you tailor the look of photos and movies before shooting. There are six Creative Style setting, which are Standard, Vivid, Portrait, Landscape, Sunset or Black & White, depending on the scene or your creative intent.

Another useful mode is Anti-Motion Blur mode which corrects for subject movement to capture clean and sharp images in low light. The camera leverages the large image sensor and captures six images in a fraction of a second. Combining the data from all six creates a single image that minimises subject blur.

The 3N can also capture Full HD video in either 60i or 24p frames per second. The test found that it captured good-quality sharp and clean videos in MP4 format.

Sony Alpha NEX-3N is available in white and pink and retails for Bt18,990 with SELP16-50 lens.

 

 

      Key specs

_ Imaging Sensor: Exmor APS HD CMOS sensor (23.5 X 15.6mm) 

_ Processor: BIONZ image processor

_ Focal Length Conversion Factor: 1.5x

_ Lens Mount: Sony E-mount

_ Lens: E3.5=5.6/PZ 16-50mm OSS (24-75mm equivalent) Power Zoom lens

_ Focus System: Contrast-detect AF 

_ Focus Points: 25 points

_ ISO: Stills: ISO 100-16000 selectable in 1 EV steps

_ Shutter Speeds: 1/4000 to 30 seconds, bulb

_ Metering Modes: Multi-segment, Center-weighted, Spot

_ Exposure Settings : iAUTO, Superior Auto, Programmed AE (P), Aperture priority (A), Shutter-speed priority (S), Manual (M), Sweep Panorama, Scene Selection

_ Video Format: AVCHD / MP4 (MPEG-4 AVC (H.264)) 1920 x 1080/60i/24p

_ LCD Type: 3.0-inch TFT LCD (460,800 dots), 180-degree tilt angle

_ Memory Card Slot: Dual compatibility slot: Memory Stick PRO Duo/Pro-HG Duo/PRO-HG HX Duo media - SD, SDHC and SDXC memory card

_ Battery: 1020 mAh InfoLITHIUM NP-FW50

_ Dimensions (Approx.): 109.9 x 62 x 34.6 mm (W/H/D) excluding protrusions

_ Weight (Approx.): With battery and Memory Stick PRO Duo 269g