Sony Alpha NEX-3

This is a 14mp camera and you get DSLR quality pictures. The white balance options are great especially the custom setup where you take a photo and the dot on which measures white balance is on a white thing and it bloody gets the perfect white balance. Metering is great. ISO from 200-3200 is useful. Low light performance is amazing. The shooting modes are M,A,S,P + Intelligent Auto, Sweep Panorama, Scene Modes like Landspace, Portrait, Night View, Hand Held Twillight, Sports, Macro and ...

So having had this for over a year now I can report it is holding up well. Nifty enough to make me sell up my old Nikon system (D70 etc) and invest in different lenses: I started with a 16mm E (for indoor use) and moved to am 18-55 (light travel) then 18-200 (long travel) as well as a multitude of inexpensive MF lenses (28, 35CCTV, 45, 50, 100, 200, 400...) which are all great fun. Pros: small enough to take with you most of the time eg walks (fits in a bumbag with almost any lens) + adapters ...

The NEX3 is the camera that finally sold me to mirrorless products. A few years into the trend, I observed that Sony seemed to have a product that fits multiple needs with the best implementation in the market regarding size and technology. The ergonomics is something of a P&S but very usable once one sets the control keys to own liking and starts using the swivel screen; that being said, the screen really improves on stability and is a throw-back to the twin-lens reflex days with perfect ...

Sony outdid themselves with the NEX line. Impressively small with a 14mp APS-C sensor, that means no compromise on image quality. Low-light performance is spectacular. I can shoot indoor at 1600 without worry. And for stationary objects, there are the image-stacking modes that will let you shoot at a much higher ISO without much noise (only JPEG though). Both kit lenses are quite good (assuming you get good copies). But if you don't like them, you can always buy adapters to use your older MF ...