Nex-5 versus Nex-7

RedOctober25

RedOctober25

Member
Looking to upgrade the camera in the next few months (pre-pixelmania) and really like the Sony NEX setup. ; But here's the dilemma. ; Other than having a viewfinder and being 24MP, is there any other difference between the NEX-5 and NEX-7? ; And are those two differences that big of an advantage over saving $400-$500 on the older model? ; Any insight is greatly appreciated. ; And yes Tim, I will click through to BH when I make my final puchase.
 
The NEX-7 has more dials that you can use to change settings - more dSLR like. ; It also has a pop-up flash which the 5 does not.

The 5 has a touch screen LCD screen while the 7 doesn't. ; That feature is not on the original NEX-5 I believe.
 
Don't forget what those extra pixels can do for you in lower light, even if the ISO range hasn't improved much. I'd be willing to bet when you downsample the larger image, you'll end up with less noisy photos of those low light rides.

Erich
 
Actually Erich, they do seem to be a bit of a draw - the NEX-5N appears to have better overall noise performance, in that the noise pattern is very fine, uniform, mostly luminance, and not blotchy - the NEX7 noise becomes much more blotchy at the high ISOs, but the NEX7 has the greater MP and when resized can make up for much of that - in the end, most seem to agree they come out about even at ISO3200 - 16,000 (NEx7's limit)...and the NEX-5N actually allows shooting up to 25,600.

Red - as mentioned, the two extra control dials are a bit of a difference, and size itself is a bit different between the two, with the NEX7 being notably taller to accomodate the built-in EVF. ; There are also a few more user-customizable ranges in the NEX7, but otherwise not a huge difference. ; The NEX-5N allows for much more customization of controls than the NEX-5 did, so has surprising amount of external control without menu diving (up to 9 functions); the NEX7 with the two extra dials allows for more jog-wheel control over different controls than the 5N does.

It's totally up to you to decide...personally, I was more happy going with the 5N - the performance was exactly what I wanted, without needing to rely on post-processing to clean up and resize my photos for best results, and personally I found 24MP just overkill as 16MP is more than enough for significant cropping, publication standards, and large prints. ; I bought the add-on EVF to go with mine, which I love for shooting with longer lenses for wildlife and birds and such, but also like that I can take the EVF off and make the camera smaller when I want to.
 
And there in lies the dilemma. ; In some ways I like parts of the 5N better, and in others the 7 is better. ; Guess this means I am making a "Pros/Cons List" for each to compare.


RedOctober25
"The Pan & Scan Perspective"
(Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk)
 
That's the right way to do it. ; Neither is 'better' or 'worse' than the other - they both have advantages and disadvantages, and you just need to work out which will be better for you! ; Feel free to sample any of my NEX-5N shots so far - though they're mostly birds and wildlife since I've only had it a few months now and that's mostly what I shoot around home:
http://www.pbase.com/zackiedawg/sony_nex5n&page=all

Soon, I'll get the chance to add some Disney photos with the 5N as well.
 
If it's really that close, what other goodies would buy with the difference in price? Stuff that you've been saying you'll buy, some day...
 
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