A buddy of mine shoots with a NEX 5

as well as other cameras. He just posted up some pics on a mountain biking forum. The colors are great, his compositional skilz are improving...but what's with the softness? That was my first impression: man those images look soft, sort of "stirred". Just like the 16mm and the 18-55 lenses I used on my NEX 3 looked.

I didn't know that was the camera he used for those images but when I checked the exif data I wasn't surprised it was his NEX.

I guess I'm just asking: is the hit rate for sharp kit lenses for the NEX much higher than when I owned my NEX 3? I sold it because those were the only Sony lenses available at the time and I didn't want to go vintage manual focus lenses.

I never would have sold my NEX if I'd had a chance to shoot with sharp Sony lenses (like with my Nikons shooting with Nikon kit lenses or any number of Tamron/Sigma/Tokina lenses). Maybe I should have waited a year and my chances would have improved?