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The European press launch
David Kilpatrick recorded the proceedings at Le Meridien Lav Hotel, Split, Croatia on March 11th 2010 using a Zoom H2 portable digital recorder. Shirley Kilpatrick transcribed the audio, with subsequent editing to translate verbal output to read well as text. This is a multi-page document please use the PAGE navigation at the foot of each page to continue reading. It is a very long document.
Nick Sharples, director of corporate communications for Sony, Europe, welcomed the press to Split in Croatia, and thanked everyone for getting up before breakfast – especially those from Portugal who arrived at midnight (volcanic ash delayed their flights). The launch was synchronised round the world, hence the 8.00am timing for the European meeting.Yoshiyuki Mogami (Vice President of Digital Imaging, Europe) was introduced to explain a little bit more about the business strategy for Digital Imaging in Europe. Yoshiyuki thanked everyone for coming over to Split; the team from Munich had arrived by driving ten hours.Sony started Alpha business in 2006, he said, introducing the Alpha 100 in Morocco. The Alpha 700 was launched in Italy in 2007, the Alpha 900 flagship model was introduced in Scotland in 2008. “We have carried out surveys asking people in Europe which brands they would think of when buying a digital camera; the figure has risen from 50%, to close to 70%. Now we are enjoying a 15% market share in Europe. This figure is OK, but Sony now really has to go to our next step.“But looking at the DSLR as an industry it’s not like two years ago or three years ago. DSLRs were pretty much a booming industry, and that’s why everybody came into his segment. These days the growth of this segment has very much flattened, and of course you could say this is due to economic slow down or recession, but we suspect that the traditional DSLR has a limit in mass appeal to consumers.“So that’s why Sony can try to break this type of barrier. We put together all kinds of voices and views on this technology to see what we can do – we think we have heard the customers’ voice, and really put it into this project.”Mogami-san introduced Toru Katsumoto, senior general manager of Alpha:“Today I would like to officially announce our new ultracompact interchangeable lens camera we have already shown at PMA in February and in Japan. In the current market the boundaries between the three categories – DSLR, compact still camera and camcorder – are already starting to merge.
“In the area when DSLR and Digital Still Compact merge, we see great possibilities. Let me introduce to you NEX-5 (he holds up the camera, in front of large projected images of the cameras). This beautifully crafted body is designed to bring out the presence of the lens. The body is so slim and compact but without sacrificing any size or balance. The grip on this camera ensures a firm and comfortable hold despite such a slim and compact body. The rigidity and texture of magnesium alloy gives a high grade appearance and solid feel to the camera.
“NEX-3 is designed for a more casual approach, and can be very attractive especially for those who have yet to explore the world of the DSLR. The slim design comes in three different colour variations, with a unique texture on the grip. It simply feels great in one’s hand in addition to being a stylish camera.
“The key concept of NEX-5 and NEX-3 is to combine the best of both worlds – the image quality and power of expression of the DSLR, with the portability and ultra-compact design of a digital compact camera. We strongly believe that NEX-5 and NEX-3 are cameras that are capable of satisfying customers’ needs from both DSC and DSLR segments. Namely, compact digital still camera users who are motivated to step up from DSC, and DSLR users who are demanding a more compact camera without compromising DSLR power.
“Professional quality in your pocket is the buzzword for this camera. There are six elements:
- DSLR quality in still and moving images
- Compact and stylish
- Power of expression derived from interchangeable lenses
- Making creative work easier
- Beautiful high definition movies easily filmed
- High speed continuous shooting, 7fps
“The APS-C sensor successfully packs DSLR quality in a small body (he removes the lens and shows the sensor). The new sensor is significantly larger than the FourThirds sensor, resulting in a higher pixel count and superior picture quality.
“Our designers have done a great job; the philosophy is a minimalist design. The lens itself is small, but the body size is so small that the lens looks dominant overall. With the pancake lens, it comes close to the size of a point and shoot camera. It is the world’s smallest, and is lighter than either of the rival brands (Olympus and Panasonic profiles shown on screen but not named).
“The depth of the flange back on the camera is 18mm, the world’s thinnest. This is why we can make it so slim. There are three new lenses. Also conventional Alpha A-mount lenses, currently in customers’ hands, can be used via our mount adaptor.”
Katsumoto-san described the user interface with its virtual scroll wheel, adjusting depth of field; and the sweep panorama including the 3D function. “During the sweep motion, the camera generates two pictures, one for the right eye and the other for the left. You do not need two lenses for 3D.”
He said that Handycam experience had been used to set up high definition recording. Toru emphasised the value of Alpha NEX division working together with other Sony technologists.
“NEX-5 and NEX-3 are only the first two products to be offered by Sony in this emerging area. We believe that products based on the combination of a large imaging sensor and interchangeable lenses are not limited to NEX-5 and NEX-3; today, let me take the opportunity to reveal our second proposal to you briefly. As I am speaking now, a dedicated group of engineers is in the process of developing a new camcorder with the interchangeable lens system (he shows a mockup image).
“This camcorder will come with an EXMOR HD APS-C sensor for DSLR quality video in AVCHD form. Like the NEX-5 and NEX-3, with an adaptor, this new camcorder is also compatible with current Alpha lenses allowing videographers to access a wide range of high performance lenses to be used to express one’s creativity like never before.
“Needless to say, its body design is specially optimised for video shooting. Details of this product will be communicated soon, I’d say around the Autumn area, so please stay tuned. The combination of a large image sensor and interchangeable lenses can create whole new dimensions and expression and possibilities.
“To express our strength in such products, we would like to introduce the phrase “Beyond Our Eyes” which contains the following meanings – bringing new experiences, and style of unforeseen dimensions, that evoke deep emotions, and creating a visual world beyond how our eyes can see in both still photography and video.”
After this, the conference was officially over, and journalists were asked to re-convene for region specific in depth meetings. The meeting for the UK and Scandinavia was headed by Paul Genge of Sony UK.
The UK in-depth introduction to NEX
Rachel Banin, head of the Alpha product division for Sony UK, introduced the hands-on press conference for UK and Scandinavian journalists:
This product is a new and exciting surprise for Sony, and we’re really excited about bringing it to market, and we’ve got really big plans for it – and high expectations for it also.
Here is a UK-specific slide, highlighting what we expect the market potential to be for this kind of category – compact interchangeable lens cameras. We think that market is going to be about 100,000 units in FY 2010 (April 2010 to March 2011) and we’re very encouraged by the positive actual sales results that we’ve now seen come through for FY 09.
Certainly looking at the kind of coverage which the GFK data indicator gives, that 30,000 units (2009) might even be on the kind of pessimistic side. We’ve seen some good developments so far and we’re expecting a lot, lot more in 2010 and the key reasons for that, I think, are obviously new brands coming into the marketplace, including Sony
Sony is starting to be able to address a market which is not just DSLR consumer. That’s very important because we don’t believe this market is going to 100% cannibalise the DSLR business. We think it’s incremental and by appealing to people who are used to using a digital still camera – and who are perhaps ready to take an upgrade to a camera that offers them a higher performance, better flexibility and better creativity – we can generate this kind of business potential.
So communicating with consumers has been a very, very important part of the product development process for NEX in particular. We’ve really involved them right from day one in terms of testing out concepts with them, testing out some prototypes and then, finally, testing them with an almost complete product and I have to say the response has been very, very positive from the groups that we tested.
They were tested also with similar products available from the market place at the moment including some micro DSLR products, for which there were certain limitations identified – be that physical limitations, or limitations in the performance of the camera itself. The response that we got to NEX was what we were really hoping to achieve – that it was something new and unique, that it was a completely different camera category in itself and revolutionary in that sense, and easy to use and allows the consumer to take that step further and get the extra special results that they can’t get from a digital still camera.
So that’s really it as an introduction to the product. I’m going to hand over to Paul now. He’s going to talk in a lot more detail about the NEX products.
Paul Genge, technical sales manager for Sony Alpha division UK:
You remember last night’s dinner when I asked you which was the camera you would like to own, given to you, any choice, you could have whatever you like. I was fairly confident that by the end of the day most of you would switch your allegiance to wanting at least one of these. I think as soon as you get a hands on opportunity with these, from the moment you pick it up and realise what a quality proposition it really is, it’s really a nice camera to use, shoot and own. So you’ll get your opportunity a bit later. Right, let’s get cracking.
Sony is very much a technical innovation company. We operate in numerous electronic areas and every business that we operate in has radically changed over the last ten years or less really. I mean, it wasn’t so long ago when I was a little kid with the Argos catalogue writing down what I wanted on my Christmas list – a Sony tape Walkman. Today, nobody wants a Walkman, it’s all iPods, it’s mobile phones and the way you get your music and they way you handle your music is entirely different to what it was like ten years ago.
I used to sell these – a 35mm compact camera, eight or nine years ago was a big thing that cost £300. Today for £300 you can have a glossy slimline, feature-rich, high quality, digital compact camera. Digital photography has changed not only the form factor but also the way the customer experiences photography.
Anyone still got a big-box CRT TV at home?
Today televisions are slimline, they hold to the wall, and in the future is 3D and internet download services direct to your television. You can also plug many devices into them and use your television for other purposes than just watching television. Today we record to hard disc drives and we watch high definition movies on Blu-Ray. It wasn’t so long ago that we all had our individual cassettes and woe betide you if you recorded your football over the top of Mum’s Coronation Street!
Today those arguments don’t exist. Every market has changed radically, everything has been improved, everything has been made faster, everything is delivering a better consumer experience. Or is it?
Because on the left-hand side there(he shows a slide with two cameras, the smaller on the left) you’ve got a Minolta Dynax camera and on the right you’ve got an Alpha 550. Have we really changed SLR photography? I don’t think so because really the functionality, operational experience and form factor is nearly identical.
Yes, we’ve taken out the film gubbins and we’ve put in the digital and we’ve added a tilting screen because it’s digital with Live View but, actually, is it any more appealing a product proposition as it was ten years ago? Not relevant, it’s still seen as a specialist product, it’s still seen as something you’ve got to learn and experience and “get into” photography. So really we haven’t actually delivered a new consumer propositional experience in the same way as all those other devices have done – until now.
NEX design philosophy
The NEX system has been designed from a fresh start. A clean sheet of paper approach. We knew what we wanted to achieve and we knew the boundaries in which, the confines in which, we had to operate to deliver the product. But we actually wanted to radically change the way that you used the camera, and then alter its appeal to the consumer, and we think that we’ve done that in a totally different way to all of these other mirrorless styled cameras.
It’s a totally different user experience and the user we’re targeting is in this(upgrading consumer digicam owner) category because the SLR camera market is dominated by heritage brands. There’s the Canons, the Nikons, there’s ourselves on the back of the Minolta legacy, there’s Pentax and there’s the likes of Olympus.
Our Cybershot and all DSCs (digital still camera – industry term for consumer digitals) are in a range where you’ve got a plethora of products. You can buy anything from any brand, some you’ve heard of, many you haven’t and the majority of them take a reasonably good picture from a certain price point upwards. It’s actually getting more and more difficult to separate the brands themselves. They all have this feature or that, they all have a smart shutter, they all have this many megapixels, they’re all this small and they all have that much zoom.
So where is the defining factors? Is there actually anything different between any of them? Yes we’ve got features like sweep panorama at Sony, but it’s one feature in a cluster of lots of things on the ticket at retailers. How does the customer separate one from another? So the market’s a wash.
Do you buy a digital compact camera to replace your previous digital compact camera? You’ve probably had about four or five of them by now in the lifespan of digital camera development. Or are you ready for the next step? Do you actually want the best picture quality and some creative input in the way that you take your pictures? But actually you’re a little bit worried, you’re a little bit put off by what an SLR is and what it perhaps stands for. For most people an SLR is too big, too expensive and too difficult to understand and we do research on this. We’ve understood what the consumers’ voice is because we’ve listened to it since 2006 when we entered this market four years ago.
The cameras I’m about to show you and talk you through are thirteenth and fourteenth Alpha introductions since 2006. In four years we’ve launched twelve cameras, and this is the thirteenth and fourteenth. For the first time we are bridging the gap between digital compact cameras and what is truly digital SLR, and we believe globally that there is up to 10 million potential customers in this market, and our solution for their demands we’re calling NEX.
Our engineering department, our technicians and our designers wanted to deliver a product that was more closely suited to a digital compact camera than naturally a digital SLR. However, we wanted to deliver the quality and experience in photography that you take of a digital SLR but we didn’t want to go down the road of covering it with a plethora of buttons and external controls that make it appear complicated from day one.
That’s the sort of thing; it’s in there, it’s up to you to unlock it and use it to its full potential, so the day you pick this camera up for the first time you use it it can be as simple as your digital compact camera, because that’s our primary market – digital compact camera upgraders.
So here is the next focus, this is where we want to develop from. The largest potential for us is in the digital compact camera upgrader market, and at the same time we wanted to keep one foot in the sort of legacy part of digital SLR market because there is another customer, a niche market perhaps, but somebody like myself and the majority of you who are SLR enthusiasts. We know how to use an SLR – but actually at the same time you find an SLR itself to be big, heavy and cumbersome and not the sort of thing you would take with you all the time. Maybe NEX can provide that solution as well.
With a T on the end, this is your NEXt camera. Your next progression from a digital compact camera. It’s going to deliver you the quality and photographs that you’ve always wanted and it does movies too. So, shoot now, create well. Professional quality in your pocket. Take it everywhere. Take the best pictures and those pictures will make you go “wow” when you download them and show them to your friends and your family.
It is about giving DSLR quality and experience and control without the complication to a digital compact camera user, both stills and video. It’s got to be “cool”, it’s a Sony product after all so it’s got to look great – and it has interchangeable lenses, creativity, HD video and high-speed continuous shooting.
The products
Right, let’s get into the nitty gritty detail of it all. There’s two cameras, the NEX-5 and NEX-3. NEX-3 is actually a derivative of the NEX-5, they are very similar cameras. They are like siblings if you like of each other, very similar specs. Essentially NEX-5 is for the experienced user and comes in black and silver; and for the absolute beginner NEX-3 comes in silver, red and black … and you can see the colour variations across the table there.
When our engineers set out with that fresh sheet of paper they lay down various boundaries that they wanted to keep within, targets that they wanted to meet in the end fulfilment of this product. Number one, it had to have a DSLR sensor. We are not the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturer, but we are not about to try and reinvent the wheel yet again, try and re-educate the monkey that everything they’ve seen before wasn’t good enough and actually this is better again.
No, we already produce fantastic DSLR sensors, we’ve been equipping our cameras since 2006 with them so why change that? APS-C is there and it’s understood in retail – and predominantly the consumer understands it as well in the DSLR category. So there is one boundary, now that is a defining point because you’ve got to squeeze that into a very small camera and that’s not easily achieved.
It had to be the size of a compact camera, so when it’s fitted with its pancake lens it had to be as small and pocketable as possible. The lenses obviously need to be interchangeable, that gives the flexibility and control of shooting when you’re out in the field, and to have some inter-compatibility with our existing products in our Alpha line-up.
So those were the four defining factors and I think they’ve achieved a fantastic job. They’ve done what they set out to do.
I want to draw your attention to a couple of key points. Three sensor sizes are shown in this slide; digital compact camera on average these days has a 1 over 2.4 size sensor. You’ve got four-thirds or micro four-thirds in the already mirrorless category, and then there’s what we’ve got in our DSLR cameras, the APS-C size sensor.
The difference between these sensor sizes makes a massive difference in the way the images actually result and the future prospect of development beyond what you see today. In a year’s time we could be talking about different cameras and there’s more potential in an APS-C size sensor, we believe, to continue to develop technologies.
We offer twice the sensitivity, or one-stop greater sensitivity, over our competitors in the micro four-thirds category. At the moment their sensitivity maxes out at 64 hundred, ours, in this camera, goes up to 12 eight hundred. Now, nobody shoots black cats down coal mines very often so it’s not actually that this is the important value. What is important is what it does lower down the scale. An extended latitude range and noise reduction system (means) we actually achieve less noise at the lower ISOs than our competitors.
There is less depth of field generated with a larger sensor. That beautiful defocused effect is something that separates a DSC from a DSLR. You can’t get that effect (with a smaller sensor). You’ve simply got very little control over getting that effect with a modern day digital compact camera and even with the other mirrorless cameras, the effect is there but not as great as it is with the APS-C.
Sensor performance
Let’s talk about noise. So we go from 200 to 12,800 ISO and we’ve got an EXMOR APS-HD CMOS Sensor – we’ve actually put in the HD abbreviation to give the presence of video – and the BIONZ processor. There is less noise at 200 than our competitors have at 100 and the trend continues all the way up the ISO scale. So we really are delivering the best image quality without the customer even realising potentially. Leave it on auto ISO and the camera’s going to select for itself the ISO, and it actually means that you can take pictures in circumstances that otherwise you would probably have thought not possible. With higher ISOs you can shoot without flash. In a romantic sort of restaurant situation which a compact camera would automatically chuck the flash into and change completely the ambience of the picture, you wouldn’t get the feel of the situation you were in. So this is the best image quality in any conditions.
Let’s talk about video. Comparison here with a camcorder. The camcorder has a 1 over 2.88 sensor and is even smaller than a digital compact camera and records high definition movies now, granted the pixel count on a camcorder is not as high as on a digital compact camera, but there is still a massive difference in the potential of things like background defocus and resolution. It’s down to the sensor size and the of the lens.
OK well, that’s the techie stuff about the sensor and why we’ve chosen to adopt an APS–C size. Now let’s talk a little bit about the design of the cameras and their actual appeal. It’s a complete break from what you would consider normally to be an SLR style. They’re very slim, they’re very well made, the fit and finish of them is fantastic, but there isn’t a plethora of buttons. We’ve kept them clean and free so at the point of retail where the customer first handles this camera they will see that actually it’s very easy for them. There isn’t actually a load of buttons that they’re frightened of.
Differences between 3 and 5, and DSLRs
The NEX 5 is a very stylish design available in the black and silver finish. The NEX-3 is available in the three colours and has a more compact camera-styled look to it. It’s subtle but it’s there. We’ve managed to package all of this into a really small compact. Weight, you take the body, you add the battery, you add the pancake lens and we are significantly lighter than the competition. If you switch the pancake lens for the standard zoom, an 18-55, we’re actually no longer the lightest but the reason is that some of our competitors have really reduced the weight and the material construction of their lenses to make the overall combination as light as possible. Their lenses don’t actually have a great feel of quality about them, whereas ours is a nice combination between the body and lens. Put the flash in as well and we’re about in the midst, we’re certainly the lightest with the pancake, but we’re in the midst when it comes to the standard zoom.
Compare that to a digital SLR and there’s a massive difference – 887 grams for the Alpha 550, which is its natural comparable model in our line-up if you like, and the NEX is only 503 grams. That’s some 44% difference in overall weight. A lot of difference if you’ve got to carry that think with you all day, every way you go and you’ve probably got kids with you as well and you’ve got all their paraphernalia and stuff that they need and you’re carrying this alongside and it all adds up. So it’s a much more enjoyable experience to carry this around with you wherever you go.
As design goes they actually have a family look to them, Notice there’s no cinnabar. The orange colour has been chosen to remain the preserve of the true Alpha DSLR category and the colour complement for NEX-5 and 3 is silver, white and black, so the Alpha logo is in silver on this camera.
NEX 5 is a magnesium alloy construction, so the body panels are magnesium alloy. NEX-3 is a polycarbonate plastic body, so it has that feel of a compact camera. Lenses are the same for both so whichever camera you end up buying the lenses are exactly the same. They’re actually finished in a brushed aluminium and the way they fit to the body, the tightness of the mount, the way they zoom, they’re really high quality. Real pleasurable experience, summed here as a high grade design that emanates a sense of oneness. It does feel part and parcel of the camera.
E-mount to A-mount adaptor
We’ve already got a line-up of over thirty lenses in Alpha, the A-mount, and we have an adaptor which will fit between the two. If you do wish toy use one of these Alpha lenses on the face of the NEX camera you can do, you just need this lens adaptor to make that possible. Here’s a good example, the new or recently introduced DT 30mm 2.8 macro. We are not launching the NEX camera with a bespoke E-mount macro lens, but if you want to do macro photography you can go about it this way. Just a couple of things to point out here, E-mount is all electronic coupling. There is no mechanical aperture as there is with Apha, so it is probably closer to the EOS system. There is no mechanical coupling at all so we have to transfer what is an electronic signal in the front of this camera to a mechanical closure within the lens, the aperture, and this does that. It provides that interface.
However – and our technicians have been battling with this night and day – they are unable to offer reassured autofocus with Alpha lenses so that feature is disabled. You will only be able to use manual focus with any Alpha lens with an adaptor on NEX.
There is also a tripod attachment which fits to the underside and comes with the mount adaptor to spread the load because the weight of some of our Alpha lenses is very high; they were designed for a different system originally, and the weight is all of the way forwards. Rather than place the tripod mount on the camera and take the load from there, instead we’ve placed it on the mount adaptor. OK, so there is some incompatibility and some compatibility in the way that you use Alpha lenses on NEX cameras. But it does mean that the potential is there for people who are already in the Alpha system, who have invested in some good quality lenses and want to get the maximisation of that with a smaller more portable system.
E-mount lenses
Right, E-mount lenses: our launch lenses are 16mm ƒ2.8; 18-55mm ƒ3.5-5.6; 18-200mm ƒ3.5-6.3. The subtle differences between these, all three have circular apertures so you do get that beautiful defocus effect without the shape of the aperture forming in the highlights in the background. These are the first Alpha cameras to not have in-body stabilisation. To go with the miniaturisation as much as possible, it wasn’t possible to incorporate the sensor shift technology that our Alpha cameras are known for, instead we’re opting for the optical in-lens stabilisation which we’ve used for the Cybershot and for Handicam for many, many years. It’s great that we’ve got both technologies within the Sony family because we can now adapt the right technology for the purpose and what delivers the best consumer experience.
So, bearing in mind we are primarily trying to attract DSC users to this category, optical stabilisation is something they have probably already experienced in their use of the Cybershot cameras. There is also is slight difference between the performance of optical steady shot in the 18-55 and in the 18-200. The 18-200 is equipped with active mode. Now if you’re familiar with our handicam line-up of products, the active technology is there for when recording video. It’s also in our Cybershot HX5 because that’s equipped with AVCHD video. Active mode provides up to 10 times more stable a viewing on video recording. It can actually move the optics better, and in a greater range, to combat camera shake. That will be in the 18-200.
We’re particularly proud of the fact that we’ve brought down the distance between the mount and the sensor to 18mm. It’s 44 and half mm in our traditional DSLR styled product and simply by taking out the mirror box and the mirror and everything and bringing that back we’ve made the camera ever so thin. That has also obviously meant that the focusing of lenses has changed and that’s where the issue exists with the mount adaptor trying to provide assured focusing.
Actually if you look at the diameter of the mount they’re not that different. There ’s only about 4mm in it, so for such a small camera, the large part of the front of it is the open aperture, the mount where you attach your lens. It’s dominated by this great big ring. That’s just how small it is. So when you come to think, this is like the Tardis. This side of the camera is hollow. This side of the camera is the battery, where’s all the rest of it? Where’s all the electronics? It’s a marvel.
The user interface
We have completely changed the way that you operate the camera. As we said right at the beginning people think digital cameras are too complicated and too confusing. They can handle a digital compact, they have every confidence in that, so what we have tried to do in the NEX is try to deliver a compact style experience, bringing the functionality and control of a digital SLR. So the back of the camera is very clean.
You have two soft keys, top and the bottom, which control various functions that appear on the screen here depending on the mode setting. You have a control wheel which has a North, South, East and West input and rotation so you interact all the camera between these three button controls and the control wheel. It’s actually quite a speedy process, the software guys have learned from compact cameras, mobile phones, and incorporated it in the NEX.
The screens are are very colourful, animated interactive screens. You can have a black background, you can have white, you can have blue. We have an electronic dial which responds just like a normal wheel would do by rotating the control. This I think is absolutely fantastic.
Every camera comes with an instruction manual. What’s the first thing that the customer does, particularly if they are a male? “Don’t need that.” Straight in the bin! Straight in the recycling box! What we’ve done is build in a photographic guide better than the instruction book. The instruction book just tells you “this is the feature and this is what it does”. It doesn’t tell you how to use it. It doesn’t tell you when to use it. So we’ve got eighty screens of English with full photographic explanation of settings, controls, lighting, composition, how to take a better picture built into the camera and you can read that like a book.
In the menu there is an option to go straight into the screen and scroll through all eighty pages and learn photography but actually, when you’re out shooting with the camera, dependent on the settings at the time, only the relevant pages of the shooting tips are shown to you. So you can read it as a reference book when you first get the camera, think you understand it, you’re out in the field taking pictures and you think “I read something about how I could do x, y, z and I can’t remember it now”.
Shooting Tips is a soft key at the bottom of the screen, so you press it and all the relevant information is there for you to digest and get a better picture. It teaches you photography. So you’ve got that built in – Shooting Tips.
We’ve also got a Help Guide. Now this was introduced with the Alpha 230s and 380s. The Help Guide as you’re scrolling through the various setting is actually telling you what those settings are for. The Help Guide can be turned off, so once you’re familiar with your settings than you don’t need those to get in the way and slow down the operation of the camera you can turn that particular feature off – but Shooting Tips is always there.
Intelligent Auto (iAuto)
We have introduced Intelligent Auto to Alpha for the first time. This has been in Cybershot, so anybody coming up from a digital compact will be familiar with this. It’s also in our Handycam products as well. It has scene recognition, automatically recognising that it’s a landscape, or a portrait or whatever it might be and setting the appropriate settings. This is just fantastic. The first time you buy a digital SLR and you are met with ƒ-numbers, pphhf, you don’t understand it and… “oh it’s the aperture”… then you get into a full conversation… oh, that controls depth of field.
Depth of field? What’s that mean? Agricultural term? It’s too complicated. There’s too many phrases used, there’s too many acronyms and numbers and mathematics and… ppphhhh oh no! It doesn’t excite me, sorry, I just want to take nice pictures.
Okay, let’s change this completely. Let’s completely change the way that you work the aperture. You’re in Intelligent Auto or any one of the scene modes, you’d like to control what we know as the depth of field. Easy, ‘background defocus’ – you press the centre of the control ring and the background defocus screen appears just as you see here, and there’s a scale on the right hand side, going from crisp at the top to defocus at the bottom.
As you rotate the wheel, this dot moves between the two, so you’ve got it there with a crisp background. You might like it with a defocused background. You see the result before you shoot because the camera is closing down the aperture live. It’s doing it for you. It’s showing you a live preview of what your end result will be and it’s using gain-up on the sensor to keep the exposure consistent, so it’s not like depth-of–field preview on a digital SLR which doesn’t give a very good consumer experience. That shuts the aperture down, makes everything go dark and you can’t see what’s in focus or not. It can be impossible to use in some dimmer lighting conditions. You have to have a fantastically bright view finder and lovely lighting conditions to be able to get the benefit. Here, somebody who doesn’t understand apertures, doesn’t understand depth-of-field, gets the result they’ve seen in magazines but without complication. Very easy. A totally different way of interacting with what is a photographic control.
If you look in scene selections, you’ve got landscape, macro, night portrait, night view, portrait, sports action and sunset. All built into the camera and all selected by the user and usable further with background defocus mode adjusted. For those that are conversant with their photography and want the interaction control, you have got the usual Alpha display of shutter speed and aperture combination.
When you play back the images, if you wish, you have the full display of histograms and EXIF data shown. So it is as “complicated” if you like, as a DSLR candid so somebody coming down from that niche market has the things that they look for but at the same time we’ve tried to accommodate as possible the user of a digital compact camera with their expectations, their knowledge without making it overly complicated from day one.
Sweep Panorama
So we’ve covered quality. We’ve covered compactness and style and now we’ve covered functionality – they way you interact with the camera and make the settings. Now I’m going to tell you about what makes this camera different to everybody else’s in which features that you’ve got like sweep panorama. Sweep panorama has been with us in Cybershot for some time now. We introduced it in the HX1.
It’s a case of being able easily to take panoramic pictures. In the past it’s been a case of get a tripod, get a cable release, line up the camera, swing it round… then you’ve got to combine it in software, three days later you might have a picture. Doesn’t make for an easy life. Sweep panorama is now in Alpha for the first time. You’ve got two settings, wide and standard. In wide, you shoot 226° on the horizontal, in standard 149°. In wide that is 12,416 pixels wide.
Vertical? You can also use sweep panorama this way. You can shoot 106° in standard or 151° in extra wide with a maximum resolution on the vertical of 5536 pixels. Sweep panorama in Alpha is different to sweep panorama in Cybershot. NEX actually takes photographs. When you are doing a sweep panorama, it is assembling a series of exposures. When the shutter actually fires for each one. With Cybershot, it records video and buffers film frames out of to assemble the sweep panorama. The resolution is a lot lower.
This is where you see the difference. This is SLR quality with DSC functionality. (Paul showed panoramic prints from pictures by Duncan McEwan, taken in Germany on a trip – he said that Sony would be offering a print service, but many high street outlets now offered panorama printing as well).
Vertical panorama – sweeping down from the sky, the camera shows its dynamic range, blending the exposures as the light changes. Standard pan 15 megapixels, extra wide 23 megapixels(Paul showed the end results of NEX versus Cybershot HX-5 panoramas) –10 million more pixels in the Alpha NEX panorama.
This is the first camera in the market to be able to record 3D with panorama. They way that it does it is to take two pictures, one as if mimicking the left eye, one as if mimicking the right eyes, so you’ve got the separation. As you are sweeping across, it’s recording two sections on each exposure. The playback of those images on the Bravia TV with the glasses is fantastic, experiencing the depth of the final result. What it actually saves is a movie file. You do need to have either the camera to play back the image, or a PlayStation 3. There will be a firmware upgrade for both the camera and PlayStation 3 (scheduled for July, hopefully mid rather than late). This technology is not actually ready yet, so we will not be launching these cameras with this feature enabled. 3D will be on the box, but it’s something which comes later.
You will need a Bravia 3D TV.
Multi shot modes
Building on existing technology, in Alpha 500 and 550 we launched Auto HDR. High Dynamic Range is about expanding the latitude in the final photograph by using two different exposures. It takes the underexposed picture and produces the highlight areas from that, and takes the overexposed picture and uses the more shadowy areas from it, to merge to one finally saved result.
In NEX, it now takes takes three pictures – under, average and over exposed – merged into one final result. The improvement is in the mid-tones, because it has actually captured them in the average exposure. It actually saves you two pictures; it saves the auto HDR, and the average exposure. Even if your HDR does not work, you still have a normally exposed picture.
You also have manual over-ride, so you’ve got HDR Manual and can go up to 6EV difference, a massive difference (Paul shows examples).
Anti Motion Blur is built into Cybershot. It takes six photographs, and it uses the best bits of all of them. Camera shake is random, so is noise; it detects the noise, and extracts it, so it only uses the best bits of the exposure and the sharpest bits of the exposure, merges them all into one and you end up with one final, great, saved result.
(Paul did not cover the similar Night Scene multishot mode, which takes six images and improves noise and detail).
Seven frames per continuous shooting puts the NEX on par with a DSLR in speed priority mode. When you have a subject entering a zone where you have pre-focused, you are guaranteed the capture the best moment. If you need it with AF and AE update between shots, it is reduced to 2.3 frames per second. Speed priority is for fixed conditions, where the subject is passing into the zone of focus.
Autofocus
Autofocus performance is one of the challenging areas for this category – to try to offer DSLR performance on cameras actually not equipped with a mirror, and not equipped with Phase Detection autofocus. This is the benchmark, the traditional DSLR with 20-plus years’ worth of autofocus since Minolta pioneered it in 1985. Now we are moving into video-based contrast detect autofocus. We would refer to the digital SLR as still the best camera to use for sports photography – anything that’s high speed, requiring fast-updating autofocus, the DSLR is going to do the better job.
For everyday snaps and in most user conditions, NEX is going to do perfectly well. We actually believe that we have the best on-sensor autofocus technology possible. And that is a first for Alpha, because none of our Alpha cameras to date have offered on-sensor, live view, autofocus. We’ve got 25 zones spread all the way across the image area; you can select those with flex spot, you’ve got centre focus as well, and wide area multi-zone. You select as a user which is most sensible for the subject conditions.
That’s more sensor positions than Panasonic, significantly more than Olympus, and we believe our speed is as fast as Panasonic who seem to be about the best so far. We are seeing a consistently of about 0.3 seconds focusing on any focal length, with all of our lenses, which is a bit quicker than even Panasonic on telephoto.
You also have got Direct Manual Focus. This was introduced by Minolta in their legacy SLR system. Direct Manual Focus means that when the camera autofocuses, if it is not right, you just turn the end of the lens and manually focus. It automatically goes into manual focus control and automatically enlarges the image for you on live view. Manual focus assist pops up at 6X enlargement, if you want 12X enlargement you press the softkey at the bottom, you jump to 12X. This is another first.
Additional features
We put Smile Shutter into the camera; it is also in Alpha, but I don’t think that much used. It’s a great way of taking pictures of happy families without using the self timer (the camera also has Face Detection – Ed.).
The screen is an absolute joy to use. We introduced TruBlack technology in our photo frames and some of our camcorders. TruBlack is a gapless or bonded screen assembly which cuts down on internal reflections. You get the maximum resolution out of the 920,000 dots on the 3 inch screen. It is 55% brighter than the Alpha 550 screen. And the screen tilts. You can lift it up 80°, you can drop it down 45°, so you really can shoot above your head or below your waist, and get some creative angles. For the price point that is unique in the micro category.
It is able to take SD and MemoryStick, with automatic recognition of which you are using. We are now doing Sony branded SD cards.
Dust? Well, dust is a big problem, and something to worry about in a camera without a mirror and with an exposed sensor when you change the lens. So we have built in our anti dust system, vibrating the sensor on shutdown, it tries to dislodge the dust particles. But you are going to need to be somewhat more careful and considerate because of the exposed sensor.
Flash – it is an accessory, it is attached when you need it. It comes free in the box. The noise is so low you can take pictures in darker conditions without flash, that’s why we did not incorporate it, we went for the smallest possible accessory flash which can still provide great quality results. It draws the power from the camera’s battery, you simply elevate it to turn it on.
Video
The camera is equipped with AVCHD, a first for Alpha. We have deliberately held off launching digital SLRs with video until we knew we could get in right. We are providing film-quality, AVCHD 1080 on the NEX-5. For NEX-3, subtle difference, it records 720p at MPEG4 compression.(A short video clip with music was shown). You press the movie button on the back of the camera to start and stop your movie recordings.
That brings Alpha now into the line-up with Handycam and Cybershot, equipped with AVCHD – full factor AVCHD, if you like, not the ‘lite’ version that we co-developed with Panasonic and they introduced in their models. Which means the compression isn’t as hard on the video, the audio channels and clearer, the picture has less artefacts to it. AVCHD requires a huge processing capacity. We wanted to get it right for the DSLR sensor. Quality, and usage really. It now means the whole family records to the same format, and we will continue to push forward on this with further product introductions in the future, so stay tuned on this. Video is now as important as taking stills.
For the consumer, they can go out of the house with one device. And they can record fantastic quality stills, and video when they want, where they want. They can take a still picture, but sometimes it’s moving pictures with audio that actually add an extra dimension and more enjoyment.
If you want even better audio quality, there is an accessory microphone that goes in to the Active Shoe on the top of the camera so that you can record – with the flick of a switch – either 90° coverage or 120° coverage. That is again powered from the main camera battery.
Playback is via HDMI to your Bravia TV. That brings Alpha into the family network of High Definition. You can record your movies to Blu-Ray for posterity, up to 50 gigabytes of data.
That’s really all the technical stuff. I’m now going to take you through how we are going to be packaging these products and sending them out to market, the kit formations, and the various accessories we have to complement these cameras.
Marketing matters
NEX-5, NEX-3 – we have spoken about the colour differences. The ‘Go Out With Me’ package is a 16mm lens f/2.8 pancake in the box with body, so it’s a one box, fixed lens combination. However, when the camera is fitted with a fixed lens, the menu system activates a digital zoom and it only works when it’s with the pancake 16mm. 10X digital, precision zoom enables you still to have some zoom just like a compact camera user would.
The ‘Snap Package’ is the standard 18-55mm lens in combination with either body. ‘Go Out With Me and Snap’ is a twin-lens kit, with the 16mm and the 18-55mm. The ‘Sports Travel’ package is only available with the NEX-5 camera, and is the 18-200mm lens in the box with the body.
Optical Steady Shots – the benefits are that it’s designed to match the performance of the lens, and the combination used, subject matter and suchlike, you do have a live stabilised view on the LCD, and it means the body is as small as possible. Obviously the disadvantage is that we need to stabilise each lens. We have to design the lenses with built-in stabilisation. But it really means that for those Alpha users that want to use their existing lenses with the lens mount adaptor, obviously there isn’t any form of stabilisation.
We think the twin lens kit is going to be the most popular combination. We are working on various cases, there is a luxury strap, a soft carry case, and a wrapping cloth. I really like these wrapping cloths! The Optical Viewfinder goes on top of the camera, and is matched to the 16mm pancake. The mount adaptor is manual focus only.
Lens adaption was popular with digital cameras before the lenses got so versatile, and it certainly is very popular still with Handycams. But it’s never been done in this configuration before with an interchangeable lens camera. So, two converters – a wide and a fisheye. The wide is 0.75X magnification, and the fisheye is 0.62X. It bayonets directly on to the front of the pancake. The most expensive part of buying the lens is the autofocus system, the aperture control and what have you. That makes the fisheye lens in the Alpha lineup (the 16mm f/2.8 full frame Minolta design now made by Sony – Ed.) £600, more than most people could justify when stepping up from a compact camera. But they like the creativity, the effect of a fisheye picture.
So let’s make it easier and cheaper for them – this adaptor, the fisheye lens, just bayonets on to the front of the 16mm lens. Brilliant! Likewise, the ultra-wide converter too.
Body accessories – spare battery, we are going to do a mains adaptor for it too. Obviously memory cards. We are going to do a screen protector, polycarbonate clip-on. And this is a great combination kit – the wrapping cloth, the luxury strap, spare battery and a lens-cap holder all in one box, great value for money.
Question and Answer time
The press was invited to ask questions. The first of these was – what are the prices!
A: Retailers are free to set their own pricing, and we have actually done something in the UK for the first time. We have actually sent all the dealers information on the NEX system before the embargo. So it’s gone live now. You can go and check on internet and see the prices now.
NEX-5 equipped with an 18-55mm lens will be something between £550 and £600. NEX-3 with the same lens will be about £100 less, something between £450 and £500. The 16mm lens on its own will be around about £200-220; the 18-200mm lens on its own will be something in the region of £550-600. The viewfinder, about £130; the microphone, about £90-100; the Alpha lens adaptor, about £150; the wide lens converter about £100 and the fisheye converter about £20 more; the Accessory kit that I said was good value about £80, and it is good value because the battery on its own is about £65.
We are anticipating about a month from now for shipping, early to mid June. The only kit which will be slightly behind will be the NEX-5 with 18-200mm, which will be a little bit later, about a month after that we will also be announcing the 3D firmware upgrade. All of the accessories will be available from day 1. In the UK, you will see those cameras hit the stores first in the photo independents, and that includes Jessops. We will be doing various launch activities around the UK with the retailers, a party atmosphere.
Q: is focus confirmation offered with Alpha lenses on the adaptor?
A: No. Since we reduced the flange back between the rear element and the sensor, we are experiencing some difficulties with the focus confirmation, which is why we have not made in autofocus. Autofocus varies massively according to the lens we are using, and therefore the autofocus indicator is not good enough to rely on.
Q: Is there any way that this adaptor can power the OS or VC available in Tamron or Sigma lenses?
A: No.
Q: Is it an SSM type motor or an SAM type motor?
A: It’s SSM. It is silent for both zoom and focusing and you should not hear any audible mechanics working on movie recordings. The microphones are positioned on the top of the camera body and they are separated by about a centimetre, it varies on the two bodies. Movie recording is not impeded by noises coming from the body.
Q: Is the aperture actuated by a linear motor or another mechanism?
A: Pass!
Q: Is there a 3.5mm jack socket for other mics?
A: No, it has to be the Sony mic.(In a later written reply to Photoclubalpha, Paul Genge stated that if Sony felt there was a viable market demand for a jack input adaptor which could be profitable, they would make it, but they were not here to serve niche markets).
Q: About the mechanical shutter, is there a silent mode of any kind?
A: No.
Paul confirmed electronic pass-through of A-mount to the E-mount, everything about the lens data is transmitted. It knows EXIF data, where to position the aperture. For launch on these cameras AF is disabled.
Q: Are there any plans for an electronic viewfinder?
A: We have requested it, certainly most countries have requested it. It is something we would like to see. There is a multi-connector accessory shoe in the top of the camera that can do all sorts of wonderful things. Whether an electronic viewfinder is one of these, we don’t know. We certainly have seen nothing in development. We have seen it in other people’s products and we would like it too.
Q: Are we likely to see video recording in a DSLR?
A: Yes you are. When we announced NEX at PMA we also showed the next generations of Alpha. Video is in the next generation of products which we have already shown as prototypes.
Q: Are there any more lenses planned for the system?
A: The three-lens line up at the moment is a little bit restricting, and there’s potential for many more. Consumer feedback will determine it; ‘what they would like as lenses, we really want to hear’.
Q: What are you calling this type of camera?
A: Compact Interchangeable Lens Camera (later on, a questionnaire was handed to delegates to find the most popular term – in fact ‘Compact System Camera’ was the preferred choice).
Q: Will the 3D panorama play back on other makes of TV?
A: 3D playback – we guarantee the performance on Bravia, it should work on Samsung and some other 3D televisions, but we can not guarantee it.
