Sony NEX-3

It does allow the use of some Alpha-mount lenses until Sony can start to provide the impressive-sounding E-mount lens lineup it has set-out.

The majority of people walking into camera shops will be very badly served if they leave with a camera and nothing but an ultrawide angle lens.

For sure the provided lens is one of the most important components of the NEX-3's set up, but with or without it screwed on to the front via Sony's new E-mount (as opposed to standard Alpha mount utilized by the rest of the DSLRs in its family) the camera design looks a little 'basic' compared to competitors - certainly when viewed from the front.

Featuring a 14.2 megapixel Exmor APS HD CMOS sensor, 25-point contrast-detect autofocus system, 49-segment exposure meter and 3-inch tilting LCD panel with 921,000-dot resolution, the NEX-3 certainly seems to have what it takes to compete with the already well-established Micro Four Thirds cameras from Panasonic and Olympus, and the newer Samsung NX series.

Unfortunately point-and-shooters don't get the full benefit of this in iAuto, which limits the (Auto) ISO range to 1600.

Here you can see that the supplied software is applying much lower levels of sharpening, by default, than either the camera JPEGs or Adobe Camera Raw.

A one-touch video record button features top right of the backplate where it falls readily under the thumb as the camera is gripped in the palm of the right hand.

The NEX-3's external backplate is a similarly pared down affair, the majority of it taken up by the 3-inch widescreen ratio angle-adjustable LCD that stretches from base to top plate.

With its two NEX series models you feel that Sony has done just enough to stake its claim on the fledgling compact system camera market, whilst leaving plenty of room for refinement and improvement in future models - chiefly by adding a pop up flash, touch screen operation and greater flexibility as regards the movement of said screen.

The following were all shot as maximum quality JPEGs under available natural light, with default camera settings applied to ensure a level playing field between this and rival models.

Despite being able to capture a wide dynamic range with lots of scope for highlights, the camera's apparently miscalibrated metering means it offers little advantage over its rivals - most mid tones are overexposed so that there is only around 3.3EV of highlight dynamic range left to accommodate any bright tones in the image (which is pretty much the standard highlight range figure we see in most large sensor cameras).

The NEXs both offer pretty good noise reduction but it's fairly simple to get more out of your images by applying different sharpening.

And by contrast here's an example of what's achievable at the telephoto end of the zoom, shooting handheld under near perfect daylight conditions.

Let's make it clear that we don't object to the lens at all per se; indeed we actually like the idea of having a compact wideangle prime to complement the kit zoom (arguably every system should have one).

Sony has therefore incorporated 'Optical SteadyShot' into its kit zoom.