The camera in this video has a few
problems and these are problems that
might stop other people
from wanting to buy one
But I think it might be the best gateway
camera to get you from hobbyist to
semi-professional photographer
That you can buy for a hundred dollars.
When this camera was released in 2010
It was released alongside its slightly
lower spec sibling and these two cameras
being released together
Mark the beginning of Sony mirrorless
cameras as we know them today. Before the
beginning of Sony's mirrorless cameras
They only produced SLT cameras both in
APS-C and full frame sensor format and
these cameras used their previous
A-mount lenses which will become an
important factor later
But on release of these two
cameras the NEX 5 and the NEX 3
It's clear that Sony didn't quite know
who to market them to and who mirrorless
was ultimately going
to end up being used by
alongside releases from Lumix and Olympus
This was one of the first mirrorless
cameras ever brought to market
And it's unclear from the way that this
camera was marketed and the way it's been
packaged and the way
the interface is presented
Whether they thought that mirrorless
cameras at the time were really going to
be the underdog rivals
to the big DSLR pro bodies
Or whether they thought this is a nice
step for the person who would
have bought a compact camera
To get into interchangeable lens cameras
and experiment with more manual settings
It's just really hard to tell if they
thought you were gonna make money with
this camera or just take it on holiday
Looking at the menu and interface of the
Sony NEX 5 it is quite clear that
Sony thought mirrorless
cameras are gonna be fun
And we need to make sure that people who
are using them are having
a fun time and I kind of
respect how fun the menu system is
Considering how boring
Sony menu systems are today
But at the same time it is frustrating to
use if you're someone who's used to
professional equipment
It's quite clear that Sony expected quite
a low level of understanding in terms of
the photographers who
would use these cameras
So that's why they use things like
background defocus to refer to aperture
So rather than explaining
depth of field they were just like
If you turn this wheel down, it'll make
the background blurrier
This isn't the only thing they felt
needed explaining instead by
default the entire camera menu
Features a helpful little guide that
highlights every single menu option and
feature and explaining it to you
Like you've never heard of a camera
before I have seen this on even more
recent mirrorless camera bodies that have
features that might be
Uncommon across other bodies, but for
this one in particular
It feels almost cartoonish in terms of
the menu system styling the interface and
the sort of language that's used to
explain these features
However, we don't need to keep this
camera set up this way
It doesn't need to feel like something
straight out of toys
I rust we can get it feeling much more
professional we can easily disable the
bright menu and turn it into dark mode
We can turn off the annoying notification
beep and we can also remove this very
helpful, but very distracting help guide
But after that in terms of physical
customization and using the custom
buttons, we are a
little bit limited still
We do have two custom
buttons we can customize
So it's just a case of actually finding
those and changing them to what we need
But once you've got your custom buttons
in place and your menu into the awesome
dark mode like genuinely
I'm kind of
I wouldn't mind having this menu in dark
mode on my modern sony cameras once
you've got these set
up and then you power it
Off and see that awesome sony alpha logo
It starts to feel like a legit sony
camera and not just a vacation
interchangeable lens camera
This camera is seriously well equipped
for amateurs or hobbyists
looking to go semi-professional
Let me explain
I've shared quite a lot of small cameras
on this channel and the majority of them
have actually been using
a four-third size sensor
On the micro four-thirds mount others
have been compacts and some have even
been compact full frame
Among those cameras the ones that have
surprised me the most have been those
using the four-third size sensor
And because of that i'm now an avid fan
and promoter of the
micro four-thirds mount
This nex 5 however
actually uses a 14.2 megapixel
apsc size sensor
A sensor that they've then squeezed into
this tiny wafer thin
super lightweight body
What's different about this sensor versus
the four-third size sensor?
Is that for any lens you put on here the
focal length will have a 1.5 times crop?
Whereas on a four-third size sensor that
same focal length will
have a two times crop
For example a 20 millimeter lens on this
camera will become 30 millimeters
And a 20 millimeter lens on a four-third
size camera will become 40 millimeters
when you look at this camera
You can see it's much more than just the
apsc sensor that looks disproportionately
This sony e mount slapped on the front of
this camera is where a lot
of the potential is hiding
Because lucky for us sony since moving to
mirrorless picked a lens
mount and stuck with it
Not knowing how much thought they
actually put into releasing their cameras
and how they're going to develop them
But they have kept the same lens mount
from this camera all the
way up to their cinema line
And of course like any lens mount you can
spend crazy amounts of money on the
highest end g master glass
But sony e mount
because of how popular it is
Also has a whole world of affordable sony
branded lenses a lot of fantastic
manufacturers have created very good
lenses for this lens mount
Sony created plenty of these nex style
lenses for their apsc sized cameras and
most of these lenses featured this kind
of chrome shiny aesthetic
That fit with the original nex lineup
But these lenses are still compatible
with any sony camera today
Both their apsc lineup and also their
full-frame lineup that
can go into apsc size mode
Just by cropping the image and the
reverse is also true
So you can take full-frame sony lenses
and mount them onto
this camera with no adapter
Which means you can get fantastic glass
on this camera, but also some hilarious
combinations of camera
body to lens size ratio
Like the nex 5 with my
tamron 70 to 182.8 lens
I don't even know what the camera is in
this mix if you're interested in
developing your photography long term and
you don't want to keep losing money
Between swapping between camera systems
and you're trying to sort of place your
bets on which camera
systems are actually invested
The nex or early a6000 cameras are
genuinely very worth considering because
of the lens upgrade path of the email
You can hold on to most lenses that you
pick up at the beginning
Which will then just help you save money
when upgrading your camera bodies
And typically you'll find yourself rarely
upgrading lenses once
you get to a certain point
If you get a constant 2.8 zoom from like
24 to 70 or somewhere in that range
Once you have that you don't really need
to upgrade that much more
Sigma make a very good lens for the sony
e-mount aps c-size
sensors. That's the 18 to 55 f 2.8
And if you were to pick up this camera
and then save up to get that lens
You could then slowly upgrade through the
sony aps c-size sensors
until you get to say an a6700
Or an fx30 if you get into filmmaking the
images that you can get
from the nex5 may surprise you
Given the fact that it
has a 14 megapixel sensor
You might be thinking well
my phone has more megapixels
But this is actually more megapixels than
this sony a7s3 that i'm filming this
video on and I still use the a7s3
For photography in some situations and
the images are fantastic
The raw images from this camera are as
good as you'd expect
They are not lacking in any kind of
sharpness and they are
totally flexible and malleable
The same way that any raw image from any
modern camera is going to be and as
someone who has produced
some of my favorite images
Off of a 2007 compact
camera with a ccd sensor
Trust me
This thing is punching well above its
weight to really get the most out of this
sensor trying out
different lenses like this kit lens
A 50mm 1.8 or the telephoto tamron lens
all these different lenses will bring out
different characteristics
That will help you see that this camera
can deliver fantastic quality images
That any client could use on social media
The images you'll see at the moment have
been edited with either my free fuji film
preset or my new free
lomography 400 preset
And you can get both of these free
presets by signing up to
my newsletter on my website
I'll drop the link in
the description below
And speaking of fuji film for anyone
who's looking into fuji film cameras or
something affordable and you want an
affordable x100v alternative
Check out this video here on a 500 dollar
fake fuji film that I made with an
olympus and a single prime lens