Today I took a look at some sample images taken with the Sony NEX-5N and I must admit that I was blown away by the image quality at high-ISO. Many of us know that the NEX-5 image is one of the best we’ve seen in any interchangeable lens camera with an APS-C sensor. The Sony NEX-5 even triumph that of the NEX-5. I’ve visited a few sites today, stevehuffphoto.com and eoshd.com. Both have posted some test shots and eodhd.com posted a side by side comparison of the Sony NEX-5N vs Canon 5D Mark II, Sony A77, Panasonic GH2 and Canon 60D.
The results are quite astonishing, say at least. On eoshd.com you can observe this image quality of the NEX 5N compared to the other camera at ISO 12,8000. The 5N just blows away the other cameras, even managed to beat the 5D MKII (a full frame DSLR camera). The sensor used in the NEX-5N is a new generation sensor, designed specifically for the NEX-5N. I never seen such a clean image at this high ISO sensitivity. I first thought that the reason for that was string noise reduction algorithms applied to the image. In order to make sure that this isn’t the case, I took a look at the enlargements and they told the same story. The details are well preserved and the image quality is certainly related to the new sensor, no NR magic here!
The links: eoshd.com and stevehuffphoto.com
Steve Huff’s Sony NEX-5N review tells the same story about the image quality. You can see from the test shots that the image quality of the ISO1600 is just unimaginable. Who have imagined that we would see such a low-noise image on a non-Full Frame camera. It just blows my mind every time I see it. That just tells me about the potential of camera sensors nowadays. I dreamed of a APS-C camera that can give a result like those of the Nikon D3s. It’s even tells me that future Nikon and Canon cameras would result in amazing low-light images, something that was never possible just a year ago.
CMOS technology has really come a long way. The Sony NEX-5N just shows us how experienced is Sony in designing and manufacturing sensors, especially camera sensors. Just watch the image quality yourself and tell me what you think.