Sony NEX-5K/B Compact Digital Camera 14.2 Mpix Black

This is for EVERYONE before they start using the camera. UPDATE THE FIRMWARE!!! The firmware is actually for the lens and not the camera itself. However, you have to update it through the camera with the lens attached to it. YOUR HYBRID FOCUS WILL NOT WORK WITHOUT THIS UPDATE!!. You also need to turn on phase detection AF to have hybrid AF. I've seen "professional" reviewers bashing the slow focus and bad night time AF when they're so professionally inclined to do a simple update job. Hybrid AF = phase detection + contrast detection. Phase detection AF works great and as intended. It is faster than I can press a stopwatch. I do notice that phase detection does not work with illumination light or low aperture. Low aperture means a high fxx number! remember that! But even in my dark bedroom with only 1 lamp + shades, I am still at about F4.0-5.5 on the stock 1855 and therefore phase detection still works like magic. I bumped ISO to 3200 and sometimes 6400 in my room to compensate for lack of light and pictures still came out with relatively low noise. I noticed my camera tends to underexpose a tiny bit so I bump EV +.3. However, this is only using the camera's LCD. I have not have time to upload the pics on my comp. I did get the 10fps speed continuous. However, it really is only for the first 10 frames. Then it feels like 3 fps afterwards. This is with the Sandisk extreme class 10 UHS 1 45mb/sec. The Nex 5R does not support UHS so it reverts to class 10. The flash attachment works great. When you install it, you must push it down and turn the little wheel on the inside of the bend. Else, it would pop out on you. I almost missed that step because I never read instructions. HDR and DRO settings are in the color settings instead of camera settings. Why? I have no idea. Maybe the Japanese have a different way of organizing things. I tried it and it just works like in the product description. However, the last shot seems to take a much longer time than the first 2 shots. Remember that and don't pull the camera until it finishes. I think there are times where it needs up to 6 shots. I don't know what people are saying about controls. Yes it is finicky initially trying to figure out everything since not everything is labeled. But it literally took me about an hour to get used to the control. Some of it is redundant and I hope they fix that. Like the top dial and back dials sometimes serves the same function which is annoying. It's not the easiest interface but it's definitely easy to use if you just invest some time and learn. Or like me, just play around pushing every button and turning every dial. You cannot break the camera by pushing buttons! Image quality is excellent. I feel as if my lack of skills was compensated by the camera's ability to take great pics. It does most of the thinking for you. Rule of thumb is to use Intelligent auto for regular shooting and superior for high contrast scenes. Or pick a scene selection mode and it'll always get the job done for you. Once you google photography basics and learn about aperture, shutter speed, iso and exposure. You can use the priority modes or manual once you get used to the controls. I spent 2 hours in my room playing with this cam, doing firmware updates, going out to a pho restaurant and snapping a few pics to try out the features. Everything is just like it says or better. AF is fast and generally focus on what you want but you can always use the touch screen to have it focus on something else(like if you want to focus something on the edge of the screen and defocus the middle and background). NO EVF IS NOT A DEAL BREAKER! first, you already know it has none before you bought it. And then the naysayers complain about wanting EVF + flash. WTH, the LCD screen works just fine at night. And if you are a pro photographer then I ask you why are you using this camera? haters will always hate. Dumb people will always make dumb decisions. Battery life definitely last way past the 330 rated shots for me. I took about 180 and my battery was at 75%. Maybe they meant 330 on raw + jpeg with flash and LCD on brightest outside in -20 weather. But maybe they are compensating for the battery over time. IDK but the battery lasting longer is a good thing, no complaints here. I do have a few complaints. I hate the wifi and touch screen. Touch screen is pressure sensitive and not touch sensitive. I feel like i'm bending the screen sometimes because I actually am! Wifi is useless. Stick the card in your laptop and enjoy the UHS speed. Plus it doesn't drain your cam's battery. Or better yet, just plus the cam into your laptop and you can charge/transfer photos at the same time. Windows 7 automatically installed the camera btw, I didn't have to install anything except Playmemory software if you want to use it. I don't want more junk, I didn't bother with it. I have playmemory on my ipad2 and it works great transferring there through wifi but it's much slower. You know what? screw you apple! when are you going to have an SD slot?!?!?! Turn on lens distortion correction in your settings!!! These lens are cheaper but they are ok. With the distortion correction, these lens should be excellent but don't expect it to be like $4000 professional hardware because it is not! Sony charged you an extra $100 over body only. What did you expect? a few Ferrari F430? I like the size compared to the performance. It is pocketable body only but who does that? With a 16mm pancake lens, you can pocket it but why would you? You will have a better social life if you strap it around your neck(not waist! it's 2012!). It's light enough to not snap your spinal cord and big enough for people to notice and start a conversation with me. I was sitting there eating pho tinkering with this thing and a lot of people was looking at it(no i wasn't taking photos) Some even came to ask me about it because they did not know which to decide. Some just came to admire it because it is a very cool looking gadget. I will repeat this one more time. DO NOT POCKET THIS CAMERA! and DO NOT TAKE OUT THE LENS UNLESS YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO PROTECT THE SENSOR!. Yes, i took the lens off and it is right there in the bare. I did some research on the web and found that memory stick duos will be slightly faster than sd class 10. It will also produce less heat from the camera. If you have money to eat steak and eggs in the morning instead of a coffee and rice like me then go for it. I don't like Sony all that much to give in to their expensive crap. It cost about twice as much as the equivalent SD card from Sandisk. READ THIS!! I have solved the slow recharge problems. Instead of using the brick sony included, I used the usb wire sony included and plugged it in my ipad's charger brick. It recharged my 5r from 11% to full in less than 2 hours. Pros: Fast AF if you update the firmware. Excellent image quality even at high ISO. A lot of features. Will improve your social life if you don't pocket it. Better manual controls. Wifi for Ipads. Battery life exceeds expectations. Flip screen. Free flash. Cons: wifi lacks speed. No support for UHS-1. Touchscreen is smash screen. Not pocketable. Nothing protecting sensor with lens off. Controls are sometimes redundant. Maybe no EVF?(but you already know it has none!)

I've only had this camera a few months. Here's what I think so far. The images are good, but not as spectacular as I had hoped. My buying decision was based primarily on the APS-C sensor size. I believe that the included 18-55 MM lens might be the problem. The photos are soft, especially at the lowest (3.5) f-stop. I thought about buying the e-mount 16mm lens, but reviews were mixed. So, I have just ordered a 30MM Sigma lens that gets strong reviews, so that might help. The other negative comment has to do with the process to select specific menu items. The layout/design is cumbersome. This is especially true if you have to go into the setup category to make a change. There are numerous settings and scrolling through dozens of them to find what you are looking for is a pain. For example, changing the brightness of the LCD screen. Last negative is that Adobe Raw cannot yet process the RAW format pictures, even though it apparently works for the NEX-5N previous model.

More details below but first the summary: Pros (Just the big ones, no room for them all): -Great full-sized sensor, preforms really well in low-light -Quick auto focus, also works well in low-light and has a very useful focus point tracking -Really small and light (surprisingly so) but still feels sturdy -Great kit lens that works for both still photography and video -Ability to add a larger flash, viewfinder or directional mic -Sony's software makes it easy to import photos via (fast) USB or (super slow) WiFi Cons (Let's be honest I'm reaching here, it's a great camera): -Doesn't come with a battery charger (easy fix, Wasabi makes one, costs $20 and comes with two extra batteries) -No viewfinder or built in flash (so if you want/need both look at the Nex-7, personally it's not an issue for us) -WiFi upload is SLOW, ridiculously so, and the camera must be turned off then on again afterwards (Fix: Use USB) -Isn't weather sealed (It would be nice, just saying) -Doesn't come with the available PZ 16-50mm F3.5-5.6 power zoom lens as part of the kit (This lens is amazing!) -aaaannnnnd...nothing else I can nit-pick really, sorry but it's just a great camera. I spent about a month or two looking at various cameras for my wife after she said she was interested in getting back into photography. Originally I was leaning towards a DSLR but after my wife complained (correctly in my opinion) that they were bulky and unappealing I started looking at ILCs. After a lot of looking and a long discussion about viewfinders (my wife is a trained photographer and started on film so she was initially uncomfortable with a camera without one), though we eventually decided that $300-$500 more for a viewfinder-equipped camera wasn't worth it. The primary reason I picked the Nex-5r was that it was moderately priced and equipped with a full-sized sensor, allowing better performance in low-light, as well as having the ability to mount an optional viewfinder or boom-mic. So far the camera has performed flawlessly. We have been shooting portraits and candids of our daughter, athletes in motion and in dim to bright environments, and using it for street photography and the images are great. The only real issue is we both want to shoot with it all the time (I'm considering getting a second Nex-5r or maybe a Nex-3 body this holiday). In summary, we both love the camera and recommend it as a great beginner to intermediate user camera (I've even read about some semi-pro photographers using it or the 6 & 7's as their primary camera).

Since current reviews of the NEX-5R already cover technical aspects and picture quality, I won't go into those too much. My review focuses on a few usability issues that I found through using it the past few weeks. WiFi Connectivity One of the main reasons I chose the NEX-5R over another compact system camera in its price range is WiFi connectivity. But having WiFi isn't as useful as I thought it would be due to the limitations in Sony's software. There are several ways to get pictures from the camera and they all have drawbacks. - Direct Upload - Sony touts apps as one of the big features for the NEX-5R and Direct Upload is an app that does what its name suggests. However, the only two supported destinations are Sony's PlayMemories service and Facebook. No Flickr, no Picasa, no Dropbox. Uploading to PlayMemories is pretty easy, but once my pictures are in there, I can't do much with them. I can't even share a picture by directly linking to it. Instead, I have to send an electronic postcard using one of the gaudy templates. - PlayMemories Mobile - What I love about taking pictures on my iPhone is being able to share them instantly through text message, email, Instagram, etc. The PlayMemories Mobile app for iPhone allows me to use my phone to view and copy the photos currently on the camera. The only problem with this method is it requires disconnecting my phone from my WiFi network and connecting to a wireless hotspot the camera creates. I understand why Sony did this; there most likely won't be a WiFi network available outside. However, when I'm inside with both the camera and iPhone connected to my home WiFi network, PlayMemories Mobile should be able to connect to the camera through the existing network. - PlayMemories Home - I hate having a bunch of USB cables connected to my laptop so the main thing I expected to do through WiFi is upload full resolution pictures from the camera to my laptop. It sounds like I might be able to do this using the PlayMemories Home software; there's a short paragraph about it in the manual but it is weirdly worded so I'm not sure. I wasn't able to test this out because the PlayMemories Home software doesn't work with OS X. It took me a while to figure this out because the packaging plainly states the camera is compatible with Macs. However, Sony is being only partially truthful because although Macs can recognize the camera when it's connected through USB, PlayMemories Home is not available for Macs. - USB cable - This is the old-fashioned way and it works just fine. After connecting it to my Mac, Aperture immediately recognized it and I was able to upload pictures easily. For now I'm grudgingly using the USB cable method to upload pictures. Once in a while I'll use PlayMemories Mobile on my phone, but fiddling around with the WiFi network is too much of a hassle so I'd rather wait until I get back to my laptop before sharing any pictures. Touchscreen & Responsiveness The overall quality of the hardware is fantastic. It feels very sturdy. The only aspect of the hardware that isn't excellent is the touchscreen. It's definitely nowhere near as responsive as a touchscreen on a modern smartphone. The software makes the touchscreen feel even worse than it is. Many buttons have small touch targets so it takes several tries for me to successfully tap them. Fortunately, there are hardware equivalents for the on screen buttons. For example, instead of tapping the OK button on the screen, I can press the center button on the directional wheel, which I do most of the since it's a lot easier. Typing on the screen is a huge pain. On certain screens, Sony displays a dumb phone style keyboard where multiple letters share one button so I have to tap it several times in order to get the letter I want! When trying to download an app, I have to log into my PlayMemories account. For those instances, Sony displays a regular keyboard. However, the screen doesn't always recognize when I tap a key. The good news is I've only had to use the keyboard a couple times - connecting to my WiFi and logging in to PlayMemories. A minor hardware decision that bugged me is the NEX-5R comes with a bulky shoulder strap similar to ones that DSLR's have, which seems to defeat the purpose of getting a relatively small camera. Instead of using the included shoulder strap, I bought a wrist strap that's much smaller. The one I bought is the EzPhoto leather wrist strap. It looks great and is strong enough for me to confidently hold the camera using just the strap. At only $8, the EzPhoto wrist strap (available on Amazon) is a great purchase. Overall the NEX-5R is a fantastic camera. Although the issues I described above are disappointing, they don't affect the most important feature of the camera, which is taking high quality pictures. EzFoto Black Genuine Leather Hand Wrist Strap, for Fuji X100 X10; Nikon N1 V1 J1; Leica X1 D-Lux5 M9 M8 M7 M6 M5, M4; Panasonic GF1 GF2 GF2K GF3 GX1 LX-3 LX-5; Olympus E-P1 E-P2 E-P3 E-PL1 E-PL2 E-PL3; Sony NEX-3 NEX-5 NEX-C3 NEX-5N NEX-7.

I upgraded from the original Sony NEX-5 to this. The speed is awesome (shots per second) and I really appreciated the upgrade to 1080p video. The 180° tilt of the screen is awesome and makes self-portraits much simpler. The touch screen is fine for normal menu navigation, although I often just use the click wheel/hard buttons anyway because it's usually faster and I was already familiar with them from the previous camera. Where it truly excels, though, is the feature that lets you tap the screen to take a picture (I don't remember what they call it). It makes it drastically easier to focus on the exact spot you want – no centering the focal point just to focus and then reframing your picture. This, combined with the recharge speed, makes it really easy to capture exactly what you want. The apps are alright. They definitely add some useful functionality (time lapse, non-exposure bracketing, etc.), but take a bit to load. It would be nice if these fairly common features were just included in the default software so they worked more smoothly. One app that is pretty cool is the remote app. This is one of the better uses of the camera's built-in WiFi. My first trip after buying this camera included a visit to Arches National Park. I was able to use the camera's remote app + iPhone app to climb onto a rock formation and position the camera about 50 feet away from one of the arches, then climb back down and get under the arch with my fellow travelers, watch a live stream of video from the camera to help us pose correctly, take a few pictures, review them, and then finally retrieve my camera. The main improvement I think I would still like to have in these cameras is GPS. I love being able to explore my pictures from a map, but there's not a great way to do it with this camera. I've tried Eye-Fi cards with their pseudo-GPS tracking as well as using iPhone apps to create waypoints and merge then with the pictures later, but the overhead is still enough that I usually don't end up tracking it and resort to manually adding geotags later, if I desire. I realize adding GPS could significantly decrease battery life, but this camera isn't exactly made to excel in that department (no optical viewfinder results in a lot of power spent on the LCD). I would rather carry a couple extra batteries (I already always have one spare) than hassle with geotagging solutions. All-in-all, I think this is a good camera. I'm usually not much of a Sony consumer, but I've been pleased with their hybrids, and would consider them in any future upgrades.