These two cameras were
released 13 years apart.
Today, one costs $100,
while the other costs $1,399.
Both share the same lens mount and also a
surprising number of essential features.
But does the price difference between
these two cameras tell the whole story?
Well, it's not quite that simple.
Representing Sony's first instalment into
the crop sensor
interchangeable lens mirrorless world.
The NEX 5 and its counterpart, the NEX 3,
were both released in 2010.
And to me, these are really Sony's
mission statement on what
a mirrorless camera can be.
"Has that for a slice of fried gold?"
"Yeah, boy!"
Compared to their previous SLT cameras
and the common SLR cameras of the time.
They were simultaneously compact while
also feature packed.
And they really are the beginning of that
evolutionary scale of Sony mirrorless
cameras as we know them today.
Following on from the NEX lineup, there
was the A5000 lineup
and then the A6000 lineup.
The first release of the A5000 was 2014.
Then the A6000 later made a massive
impact by being one of the
most popular cameras ever sold.
And went on to still be sold new for
years after it's released.
Nine years on from the first A5000 and 13
years on from the NEX 5,
the A6700 was released.
Completing the evolutionary scale of Sony
crop sensor mirrorless cameras.
It far exceeds the consumer level and
even surpasses most
professional use cases
for people shooting photography and many
people shooting video.
While it is a newer, more expensive and a
little bit larger than the NEX 5,
what really can it do
that the NEX 5 can't do?
Looking at these two cameras
side by side aesthetically,
we can see some similarities and some
differences between the two cameras.
Primarily the similarities are the Sony
logo and the E-mount on the front.
"Exactly."
"It hasn't got any fancy dials."
"Really?"
"I'd rather have a Nokia 3310."
You can't please some people.
The front and center common strength of
these two cameras is the
lens mount and that is of course
the Sony E-mount. The very large ring on
the front of this tiny camera.
With this lens mount both cameras have
full access to all the
APS-C lenses and all the
full frame lenses from Sony as well as
the entire world of
third-party manufacturer lenses
both in autofocus and manual focus.
Think of the E-mount like
the USB-C of lens mounts.
Maybe one day Apple will even start using
the E-mount on their phones.
To be honest, not the
weirdest suggestion.
When it comes to autofocus,
these cameras do differ slightly.
The NEX 5 has a
respectable 25 autofocus points.
However, the A6700 has
759 autofocus points.
As well as having easier autofocus point
selection through the touch screen,
the A6700 also has a few better ergonomic
features over the NEX 5.
While the NEX 5 relies on one wheel to
alternate between ISO, aperture and
shutter speed selection
by toggling the mode that you are
selecting between, the
A6700 benefits from having three
different dials that we can assign to all
three of the manual exposure triangle.
So we can have ISO on the thumb wheel,
aperture on the back wheel
and shutter speed on the front
wheel which is how I have mine oriented.
Using the NEX 5 alternating between
different modes isn't
the end of the world,
but it's something that once you're used
to having independent wheels
for each of these settings,
it's kind of difficult to go back to
something that doesn't have that.
Taking a look at image quality, we can
see from both the 40
megapixels of the NEX 5
and the 26 megapixels of the A6700 that
the image quality on a laptop or a
monitor or even just your
phone will look quite similar. It's only
when you get into larger files you'll
really notice the difference.
Canon cut us way better. Where are the
Fujifilm film simulations?
Okay, well how's this
for a film simulation?
That presets quite nice actually.
Yeah, I thought so. Thanks very much.
If you're like me and you regularly
hallucinate that you're
experiencing an earthquake,
then having in-body image stabilization
in this A6700 is going
to be very useful when
you can't get steady shots when the world
around you is shaking.
Of course, this stabilization is useful
in photography, but it's
also very useful in video
which we'll get into more later. The
biggest drawback of shooting
with the NEX 5 when outdoors
is shooting in broad daylight because we
are stuck with the LCD
screen which does not get up to be
nearly bright enough to compete with
broad daylight. The
screen can become difficult and
that's when an EVF would be very useful
which the A6700 and most of
the A6000 and 5000 series have
been equipped with. The EVF on this
camera is nothing to write
home about, but at least it's
there and the LCD itself is actually a
bit brighter compared to the NEX 5.
Speaking of the LCD screen,
the A6700 has a fully articulating LCD
screen meaning it can be
viewed straight on from above,
from below or from in front of the camera
if you're trying to shoot a
vlog or a self-timed photo.
The NEX 5 however uses a tilt screen so
it's very useful for viewing
from the back and also from
above and many people actually prefer
this orientation of a
screen when shooting sort
of at waist level when shooting street
photography, but it is not quite as
versatile if you are looking
to shoot with something on higher angles
and also self-shooting
like in this situation here.
The NEX 5 was the first of many Sony crop
sensor cameras to use the cursed
FW50 battery. This little nugget of hell
was responsible for propping up an entire
industry of third-party battery
manufacturers. I'm looking at you, power
extra. Whereas the A6700,
complete with its chunkier, funkier grip,
now use the FZ batteries which is used by
most of Sony's full-frame cameras,
meaning it gets more
juice from a bigger battery.
Okay, what camera do you use? Your
opinion is just like not
valid in this conversation.
Looking into the accessories between both
of these cameras, we have some
interesting features.
The NEX 5 actually comes with an external
flash when it was first
made, however this external
flash does not use a typical hot shoe, it
uses a unique connector
type on the top of the NEX
cameras. You'll notice that next to this
flash mount there is no
cold shoe or hot shoe available
for us to mount things like microphones,
flash or LED lights. This
external flash was later
replaced by pop-up flashes in the later
series and now it's being completely
removed by the time you
get to the A6700 because this is
technically a pro body and with pro
bodies you should always be
using an external professional flash. The
A6700 and more recent A6000
cameras are all equipped with
a hot shoe. This is useful for mounting
camera flashes, for
mounting microphones, monitors,
LED lights etc. While there are
workarounds for mounting things to the
NEX involving cages or
other sorts of rigs, it becomes quite
cumbersome and defeats the aspect of
having a compact camera
when we attach these things. Having used
both of these cameras for street
photography, I feel both
are reasonably well equipped for
everything you need to do on the street,
however the A6700 is
going to outperform in terms of speed and
autofocus tracking,
but when it comes to the
lens selection and reliability of
grabbing a single image, both
of them are very well equipped.
It is just that the NEX V is a little bit
slower with its autofocus
and can hunt when subjects are
moving a bit quickly. The A6700 has just
been released and it's
significantly more expensive,
so what features are we getting for the
money compared to the $100 of the NEX V?
Well in street and professional work, the
speed and
responsiveness of the autofocus,
the burst shooting and most aspects of
the A6700 are insane in
comparison with the NEX V.
There is never any doubt that you can
capture what you are trying to capture,
it doesn't matter if the subject is tiny
in your frame, if you set up
autofocus tracking you will
track that subject all the way from one
corner to the other at
varying distances while shooting in
burst mode. Whereas with the NEX V, we
don't quite have that luxury, it's better
to go for the slower
moving shots, for going for the one shot
instead of trying to aim for burst.
Continuous autofocus
in the NEX V is nothing compared to the
A6700, however in street photography
these moments aren't
always that frequent. Typically we're not
tracking things like in a
sporting event but having that
tool available can be very useful in a
pinch. If you want to see
more of the NEX V, its images and
what it can do for such a low price,
check out this video here
where I talk about the upgrade
path of this camera and how it can even
make you a pro photographer.