The mirrorless Sony NEX-7 gives you up to 10 frames per second

The second-generation NEX, along with powerful functional improvements to the original NEX-3 and NEX-5 series, unexpectedly brought a significant structural change to Sony’s entire line of compact systems. Novelties with the indices N and C turned out to be – it’s funny to say! – amateur, and in addition to them released “advanced” supercompact NEX-7.

24.3 megapixel resolution, 18-55mm Zoom, 3″ display, F3.5-5.6

The calculation is not the easiest: after all, the electronic viewfinder makes the camera noticeably bigger, but not significantly better, and demanding photographers are still more suited to classic SLR cameras.

But if functionality is your deciding factor and you’re determined to save on size, there’s nothing cooler on the market right now than the NEX-7.

The most noteworthy points are easy to identify at once. NEX-5 and NEX-5N style body 3-inch display also tilts up for waist shots is taller and a bit more massive – the built-in flash, hot shoe for connecting external blitzes and electronic viewfinder take up additional space.

In this case, the viewfinder, usually not the most important element of a compact camera, in our case is unique: a half-inch OLED-matrix world’s first has a resolution of 2.4 million. pix.

The developers took care of the control. In the key of “a lot – not a little” NEX-7 is equipped with a named Tri-Navi system, t. e. With a ring around the navigator, the NEX-7 still retains its smaller footprint, while the two pillar disks extend to the top and back of the camera.

They can easily manage three exposure parameters at once, such as shutter speed, exposure compensation, and sensitivity in shutter speed priority.

Other exciting features lurk in the electronics inside the camera. First of all, the powerful 24.7 million pixels Exmor CMOS sensor. The first-generation NEX-7 Kit has the largest pixels in its class and by the standards of any digital camera, not so small .

The sensor sensitivity is slightly lower than the 16-megapixel sensor NEX-5N – “only” 16,000 ISO the same technology with the same area just does not allow the same good noise control . But it’s at least a two and a half step lead over competitors like the Nikon One – at incomparably higher resolution!

Even more interesting are the speed figures. Up to 10 frames per second in continuous mode and 60 frames in 1920×1080 video recording with “full” line scan.

Aimed at experienced amateur photographers, by the way, extends to video mode: NEX-7 offers the user full control over exposure when recording movies, with either priority or manual control of aperture and shutter speed. To quickly capture still images, the creators were able to reduce the lag of the shutter to 0.02 seconds and this is also a world record .

The NEX-7’s handling and shooting capabilities are roughly on par with the other NEXes. Beginners will enjoy the clever auto mode, while creative types will love the digital effects and special modes like dynamic range enhancement, automatic panorama creation or generating highly detailed night shots by combining six frames into a single image.

The only thing that might displease those who have already dreamt of a compact super-professional is the cost of the camera. The first time after the start of sales it is unlikely to fall below 45-50 thousand Dollars, for which you can already buy NEX-5N with a full set of compatible optics. But this is the price of exceptional features and “professional” interface.