Couldn't Resist

Bicycle -- NEX-5N & JML 50mm f0.95 @ f0.95, ISO 3200. Click for larger

After reading the NEX-5N reviews, I couldn't resist so I went out and bought one today.  This will be an upgrade to my current NEX-5.  Once I am happy with the 5N, I will sell the NEX-5.

One thing I immediately noticed after I turned on the camera, was the speed of operation has improved markedly.  Everything seems faster.  The old NEX-5 was excruciating slow when it comes to image review, and the turn on time from wake up was unbearable.  The second thing I noticed was the shutter sound is quite a bit quieter with less vibration, due to the front curtain shutter release.  I shot RAW+JPEG and the JPEG image shows a lot of heavy noise reduction, even on ISO 800, but the images are very clean even on ISO 6400.  There is almost no chroma noise.  The jpeg engine in the 5N seems to be much better those from any Sony cameras before.

Eager to test out the RAW output so I installed the Sony RAW converter.  What a mistake.  It's one of the most horrible piece of software.  Compared to the Canon DPP, the Sony version is just plain bad.  I will wait for Adobe to update its DNG converter to support the 5N.

Overall, it's a much more refined camera than the origianl NEX-5.  I will wait and see what the NEX-7 offers in terms of image quality when it's available in November.