Sony Alpha NEX-7

amazon Sony Alpha NEX-7 reviews

Design and feel

Sony NEX-7 has a rectangular shape with very sharp edges, thickened at the rubberized handle, the rest metal, APS-C lens mount, all combine to create a camera style differences with rivals such as Olympus PEN and Panasonic GX-series. When fitted with the 18-55mm kit lens attached, the NEX-7 seems a bit heavy at the beginning. To the machine can use the jaws A lens DSLR, Sony offers optional LA-EA2 adapter for users in need.

As assessed from PhotographyBLOG, NEX-7 feels solid in your hand, though with lens attached, it is too big for his coat pocket, which the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX1 pass pancake tube 14-42mm very thin.

The NEX-7 is not interchangeable lens camera smallest and lightest in the world, but with 291 g weight and 42.6 mm thickness excluding grip or when attaching the lens, it is a camera quite compact, take-fit in a small bag machines used for the family camera.

3-inch LCD screen of the NEX-7 can be tilted to the rear and front flip, but not horizontally by 90 degrees. Machines capable of high definition video recording 50fps or 25fps Full HD 1080p with stereo sound and the ability to very welcome to control shutter speed, aperture and exposure compensation during recording, plus the ability to take continuous auto focus or manual when filming. A red record button is also arranged on the NEX-7, and Tracking Focus feature allows monitoring focus on the subject even if the subject moves, offered in both modes and movie stills.

However, it is regrettable that the NEX-7 is not integrated image stabilization mechanism in the camera body (like Panasonic GX1 opponents, while Olympus PEN is available), so the machine can only be used on the tube vibration glasses. According PhotographyBLOG lens NEX-7 with anti-vibration can be quite good, although sometimes still appear soft areas on the image.

Photographing button (shutter release) located at the top of the camera slightly inclined forward, next to the button allows to assign some custom features. The NEX-7 is turned on or off via a switch form the circle surrounding the shutter button, very different from the buttons on the form of publication still see regular camera. Machine takes about less than a second to ready to shoot the first picture, the equivalent of some DSLRs.

The top surface of the NEX-7 showed big improvement compared to the other NEX cameras from Sony has released so far. Seen from behind and from the left, a machine with a stand mount accessory, allows attaching external flash or a removable LCD screen (clip-on LCD monitor, typically used for self-portraits), a flash integrated with smart hinge design improves on the lens to help avoid red eyes, two rotation parameters adjustment without marking the stops and is designed on the upper side of the camera and just emerged on a little from the plane around.

Depending on the mode you’re using, the rotation will allow you to control shutter speed, aperture and exposure compensation. You can combine the use of the index finger and thumb to simultaneously adjust the aperture and shutter speed in Manual mode, this is not seen on camera.

Press the shutter button halfway down, the camera will quickly adjust the focus and exposure, the focus point will be highlighted in green, accompanied by a beep (option turned off) to users said user machine is ready to take pictures. According PhotographyBLOG, Sony NEX-7 can take a snapshot and the light conditions pretty well, but when the light it takes a bit of time to lock focus on the subject, while the Olympus E-P3 Panasonic DMC-GX1 and have an advantage over this point.

In single-shot mode (shooting each type a), the shutter need about 0.02 seconds to make shooting, and images are recorded in JPEG format memory at full resolution in approximately 2 seconds. Machine offers RAW and JPEG capture options in the Image Size folders, with the option to Fine or Normal compression is.

The back of the NEX-7 is a bigger part by 3-inch LCD screen. NEX-7 allows the display frame borders on both the LCD screen and electronic viewfinder, and the machine will automatically shut down the information displayed on the screen if you put your eyes close to the viewfinder. Viewfinder reached by the keen eye of people, so you can observe the correct image.

The electronic viewfinder is one of the main advantages of the NEX-7 compared with rivals. The viewfinder has a high-resolution XGA OLED, with 100% coverage, high-contrast images and bright, wide viewing angles, especially you can see through the viewfinder of the settings as shown on the LCD, sightseeing was very good both in terms of good and bad light. This is the best viewfinder mirrorless cameras nowadays.

Like the previous NEX models, not everything on the NEX-7 can be found at the location you expect. For example, to set the desired ISO level, you have to have the name Brightness menu, but when we look at the icon on your computer, you would think it is only used to adjust the screen brightness. Meanwhile, other significant customizations are ranked in the Camera folder.

To select the shooting mode, you have to select them in a virtual rotating disk (virtual dial), with the mode P, A, S, M, 9 scene preset modes, Anti Motion Blur, Intelligent Auto, Sweep Panorama and 3D Sweep Panorama. Even in Smart Auto mode, you can still intervene to adjust the focus manually background. Additionally, an interface called Photo Creativity Touch will allow you to adjust Brightness, Color, vividness and Picture Effects.

Above the screen is the dedicated button to turn on the flash and playback, the button to toggle between modes AF / MF / AEL button and shoot. On the right side of the LCD screen is a set of three buttons, including two at the top and bottom buttons are not assigned specific commands, but to wait until you turn on the monitor, the detailed instructions will appear for users to customize, including the top button allows access to the menu where users choose 6 entries, including: Shoot Mode, Camera, Image Size, Brightness / Colour, Playback, and Setup. To access this menu item, you need to rotate the wheel section below and click on the round button in the center. This scroll wheel quite sensitive, so you’ll easily be mistaken rotate to select unwanted items. You can also quickly set the ISO level by turning this wheel. When used in conjunction with two adjustable rotation atop the machine, you can easily change the exposure options.

By default, round button in the center of the wheel to open mode, but you can also reset for quick access button to display the Custom, which allows you to change the parameters of ISO, white balance , flash, creative shooting options and image size options. Or you can also set for this button to quickly access a specific parameter options depending on the needs.

Also with swivel wheels, you’ll have 3 points are set up to access the screen (Display), set the exposure mode (+ / – 2EV), and drive mode recording modes (allows select shooting each type, continuous shooting, continuous shooting speed with priority, taking with set focus and exposure similar first shots), or pick timer (2 or 10 seconds). There is also the option to allow the use of remote control (sold separately). By default, clicking the right side of the wheel will access the flash mode with synchronized lights 4 options.

Left a round button below to set the focus modes: multi-point AF, center AF or AF flexibility.

At the bottom of the camera is a tripod screw to mount, battery compartment and memory card slot. It supports formats of Sony Memory Stick and Memory cards such as SD / SDHC / SDXC.

While on the side of the right hand side of the NEX-7 has no ports or buttons, the left edge is arranged HDMI port, a USB port and an external microphone. However, only the USB cable supplied with the machine, there is no HDMI cable and AV-out cable so you will not put the image on the screen TVs.

Quality photos

Sony NEX-7 for a very good image quality. Wide ISO range 100-16000 machine, in which the level of ISO 100-1600 absolutely no noise from ISO 3200-6400 noisy but totally acceptable, even at ISO 12800 and 16000 levels can still use small photo print or web use. The photos in RAW format to have more than JPEGs.

Chromatic aberrations are well controlled, only appears in areas with high contrast. The 24-megapixel photos with soft zones appear when using the default creation mode where you can edit in Photoshop or image sharpening mode available in machine.

Integrated flash worked well indoors with good overall exposure and no red eye. Snapshot very good night, with a maximum shutter speed of 30 seconds and bulb mode mode provides the ability to capture creative night. SteadyShot image stabilization system worked well when holding the camera by hand and shooting at slow speed.

Features Dynamic Range Optimizer (optimal sensitivity band) brings a lot more detail to the shadows and bright areas in an image without noise or interrupted details “digital”. High Dynamic Range mode combines two shots taken at two different levels of exposure to create an image with better light-sensitive frequency bands. Sweep Panorama mode is also quite interesting. It also comes with 3D Sweep Panorama lets you create pictures with depth.

With 11 photographic effects Picture Effects, NEX-7 allows you to create new shades for the photo shoot, while 13 shooting modes Creative Styles help you refine your JPEG photos quickly.

The photo below was taken with the Sony NEX-7 in Fine JPEG setting 24.3 megapixel images, with each image size is about 7MB, cropped to show the quality of the photography.

where can you get a Sony Alpha NEX-7 online

Sony Alpha NEX-7 24.3 MP Digital Camera – Black w/ 18-55mm Lens: Buy it now

Conclude

Sony NEX-7 is a worthwhile choice among mirrorless camera today, to highlight the quality optical viewfinder equivalent to the human eye, flip the LCD screen is tilted, the amount of manual control options particularly rich and very good image quality even when shooting at high ISO. Although the user interface can make the user confused when just starting out, but once mastered, the machine will give you invaluable support. Machine weight relatively mild compared with rivals.

Advantage:
+ Good quality optical viewfinder
+ Many custom hand varies
+ Wide ISO range, less noise at high ISO
+ Image quality is very good
+ Sensitivity Frequency Range (Dynamic Range) Wide
+ Support for external microphone
+ Compact size

Disadvantages:
– Monitor just flip up and down, do not swivel
– No A / V ports to connect a TV out
– Complex control system, less direct access buttons