Starting to play a little

Over the next couple of weeks I experimented with the camera, trying new shots, I soon realised a few things which differed from my use of compact cameras:


1) The capabilities of taking low light photographs was massively better than any of my previous compacts - night photography was pretty much a waste of time with these but the NEX is more than capable of capturing some great shots.

Rubbish on the pavement

Lack of 'toys' meant I use a TV remote and a phone for these lights!

2) The auto focus works an absolute treat to the point I still hadn't really messed about with manual focus very much (though I knew this was something that would come in the future).


3) The lens' Optical SteadyShot image stabilisation technology was incredible, I took numerous close up shots of flowers, plants etc. without a tripod and got great results.

Egg shell

Ladybird

4) The flash, like with my compact cameras, was pretty much useless. Now it may be that I simply haven't got the skills to use it properly but pictures taken using the flash always look washed out and unflattering.


I also started to realise there were a couple of negative points about the NEX-3 compared to other cameras and even to the NEX-5 (I'm sure there are plenty more but these were the first I identified):


1) The camera doesn't have a standard flash shoe, instead it uses Sony's own interface which means that I can only use accessories officially released by Sony (and to be fair they have released a few such as a stereo microphone etc.) which means I couldn't use any other flash systems or things such as off camera flash.


2) The lack of a digital remote trigger is a bit of a pain, when it comes to long exposure pictures as pressing the shutter release by hand causes vibration through the camera. You can get around this by using the time delay but if you wish to use the cameras bulb mode for a very long exposure it would mean holding it by hand.