Sony NEX-C3 triple review (including DPreview) and new A35 review.
The Sony NEX-C3 is getting heavily tested by the most important review websites! And before you get submerged by the upcoming A77 and NEX-7 news and reviews take a look at those articles:
Yesterday DPreview (Click here) posted their NEX-C3 article. The camera gets the “Silver Award” with an overall score of 74%. It is the same score of the Olympus E-P3 but the NEX-C3 has a better image quality and is cheaper!
Also Photographyblog (Click here) tested the NEX-C3: “While usability has been improved, with a number of customisable controls, the NEX-C3 is still best suited to the beginner rather than the more confident prosumer, who will bemoan all the button pressing that’s required. ” The camera gets recommended with a rating of 4 of 5 stars.
The last review is from Whatdigitalcamera (Click here): “The C3′s new sensor is a success, images look great and the camera’s smaller design looks the part too. The price is held at a very reasonable sub-£450 point and there’s very little not to like bar some control issues.”
Click those direct search links to check the NEX-C3 price and availability: Amazon, B&H, Adorama, J&R, eBay.
There is also a new Sony Alpha 35 review at Techradar (Click here): “In terms of performance, the SLT-A35 is highly responsive, while image quality – whether you’re shooting JPEGs and/or RAW files – is equally as impressive. ”
SonyAlphaLab (Click here) tposted some A35 image samples.
Click those direct search links to check the A35 price and availability: Amazon, B&H, Adorama, J&R, eBay.
David
2 years ago |DPreview numerical rankings are a total joke. The tests and comments are usually very accurate, but they seem to lose all sensibility when it comes to assigning % values to things.
They say repeatedly in the text how good the image quality is. Yet in the summary at the end, the bar chart is only just past half way. What are they comparing to??
Cheaper than the EP-3, and better image quality, yet the same score LOL. And they can barely find anything major to criticise to justify the low-ish score.. no HDR mode when shooting raw. It’s hardly a fundamental flaw to the whole camera is it!
Okas
2 years ago |+1
Dennis
2 years ago |I fully agree.
It became obvious to me when I read the review about the Alpha 580. I was surprised about its low score and then I noticed that they gave the 580 the exact same image quality scores as the Alpha 55 got. Meanwhile, the Nikon D7000 has significantly higher scores. This is very surprising, because all three cameras have the same chip, but the Alpha 55 has a semitransparent glass in the way and should perform 2/3 EV worse than the other two, which is confirmed by DxOMark. DPReview apparently copied the values from the A55-review and then computed the overall score with the wrong image quality settings. With such mistakes, the overall scores is rendered completely useless. (And surprise! Who get’s an advantage out of this mistage? Nikon!)
David
2 years ago |D7000 and a580 getting different scores for IQ is ridiculous, and a total mockery of their review system.
They two are absolutely identical. Indistinguishable. So to award one a higher score is bias, pure and simple.
monkeyfacemcbride
2 years ago |Auto HDR in Raw, Erm…thats also not even physically possible with current sensor tech! You’d need a sensor with variable sensitivity across the frame in a single capture. I’d love one personally, they may even exist in a design lab somewhere, but certainly not in a production camera
Eric
2 years ago |IQ is only part of the battle. Depending on what you want to do with a camera the C3 simply might not work. The E-P3 has faster AF, smaller lenses, more lenses options (very very important), built-in flash that can control wireless strobes (also important to me), EVF options, a hotshoe, and built in shake reduction. From an enthusiasts POV the E-P3 should actually score higher even with the lesser IQ.
That said, technical reviews like this are now pretty much pointless. In the early days of digital when there were real differences in camera image quality from year-to-year I appreciated DPR, but cameras have been so good for the last few years I don’t even bother looking at their 100% noise tests anymore. Real world reviews from people like Steve Huff or Robin Wong are much more useful to me. I simply want to know if a camera has some weird quirk that will drive me mad, because I know full well from a technical perspective any large sensor camera made these days has all the IQ I need.
David
2 years ago |I agree with what you say about IQ not being everything. The reviews are good for looking at the menu structure, button layout etc.
Yet after praising the IQ so much in the text, they assign a “meh” numerical value to it. Stupid, and it brings down the review of the whole camera.
Mportillo
2 years ago |Personally, I go straight to the sample photos and make my own comparisons, skipping all the rubbish “review”
Mportillo
2 years ago |I’ve also take this oppinions:
http://snapsort.com/
To make purchases, it’s more objective and facts oriented site.