Sony Alpha 3000 at a glance
- 20.1-million-pixel, APS-C-sized CMOS sensor
- E-mount
- ISO 100-16,000
- Street price around £350 with 18-55mm f/3.5-6.5 kit lens
Sony Alpha 3000 review – Introduction
Many people new to photography overlook compact system cameras (CSCs) simply because they don’t look like DSLRs. Commonly, there is a preference for DSLR-type cameras as some consumers assume they offer superior image quality. The small size of a CSC, on the other hand, can give the impression that it is just a step up from a compact. Of course, we know that many CSCs are capable of matching, if not bettering, similarly priced DSLRs.
Into this environment steps the Sony Alpha 3000. It is, in essence, an addition to Sony’s NEX series, but it is housed inside a lightweight, compact, DSLR-style body. As a result, the Alpha 3000 sits somewhat unconventionally in Sony’s current camera line-up as being the first and only mirrorless camera included in the Alpha range of SLT (single lens translucent) cameras. Boasting an impressive sensor, a large but lightweight body and an electronic viewfinder all for a very reasonable price, the Alpha 3000 could prove very popular.
Sony Alpha 3000 review – Features
Inside the Sony Alpha 3000 is an Exmor APS HD CMOS-type sensor with a 20.1-million-pixel resolution. The sensor is APS-C-sized and measures 23.2 x 15.4mm. Images can be captured as both raw and JPEG files, and they are processed by the speedy Bionz processor that we’ve seen in many recent cameras from Sony. The speed of the processor allows 2.5 frames per second when shooting at full resolution.
As a kit, the Sony Alpha 3000 comes with an 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 zoom with built-in optical stabilisation. On an APS-C-format body (with a 1.5x crop), it is the full-frame equivalent of a 27-82.5mm lens.
Usually, cameras in Sony’s Alpha range sport the A mount, but the Alpha 3000 uses the E mount like the company’s NEX series. This allows the use of a wide range of Sony E-mount lenses, from wideangles to telephotos and everything in between. Also, like the NEX series, an LA-EA1 or LA-EA2 adapter can be added to allow the use of Alpha lenses. The LA-EA2 adapter can use phase-detection autofocus, but it costs around £260, so while it allows Alpha lens owners to their existing kit on a lighter body, it is an expensive accessory.
Following on from cameras such as the Cyber-shot DSC-HX50 and Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 II, Sony has again incorporated a multiple-interface hotshoe. This is a special hotshoe developed by Sony to allow advanced communication to the camera via special information terminals. As a result, it is compatible with many Sony accessories, including microphones, external flashes and the EV1MK electronic viewfinder.
For the creative shooter, the Sony Alpha 3000 has 11 creative modes with 15 different types of picture effects. These include retro photo, toy camera, miniature, soft focus and rich-tone mono. These can also be used when recording video.
The well-regarded sweep panorama function is featured on the Alpha 3000. By pressing the shutter button and sweeping the camera across the scene, a series of pictures is taken, which are then processed by the camera and combined into a single image.
A lithium-ion Stamina battery powers the Sony Alpha 3000, and allows for an extensive 460 shots before needing to be recharged, which is carried out via a Micro USB port. This has the advantage of being able to charge the camera from a variety of sources, including a laptop and mobile-phone chargers. The port also acts as a terminal for transferring images.
Image: Even with the 18-55mm kit lens, nice shallow depth of field can be achieved
Sony Alpha 3000 review – Third-party lens adaptors
One of the assets of the Sony E mount is its very short flange depth – the distance between the back of the lens mount and the sensor. Due to this, the distance can be extended using an adapter to allow almost any SLR lens to be used with an E-mount camera. A range of adapters is available from www.srb-griturn.com, and other companies online. These adapters allow users either to mount lenses they already own, or to buy new lenses cheaply and get an adapter to make them fit.
I used a manual Nikon F-mount 50mm f/1.4 lens, which cost around £80 second-hand. Connecting the lens to the adapter and the adapter to the camera was perfectly straightforward, and I was then able to shoot portraits with a fantastic lens. For the photographer on a budget, this is a good way to obtain great lenses at a cheap price.
However, most of these adapters lack the ability to autofocus or change the aperture of the lenses, so their use is generally limited to manual-focus lenses that also have an aperture ring.
Image: Using a lens adapter means a host of lenses can be fitted onto the Sony E-mount. This image was taken with a manual Nikon 50mm f/1.4
Sony Alpha 3000 review – Build and handling
Measuring 128×90.9×84.5mm, the Alpha 3000 is big for a mirrorless camera, but not small compared with other Alpha SLTs. It is also light due to the plastic body. On the rear is a nice textured grip that allows the thumb to rest close to the main controls without any issues. Coupling this with the large textured front grip makes for a very comfortable camera to hold. It feels nice and secure, and I think many users will prefer this to a standard compact system camera.
The build quality reflects the fact that this camera is designed to be inexpensive. As such, the Alpha 3000 is constructed from low-cost components. Of course, this is to be expected of an entry-level camera with such impressive hardware inside. Although it does feel very plasticky, as with many Sony cameras it is well built and has nothing that feels precarious or insecure. My only criticism of the construction is that the buffer on the electronic viewfinder is entirely plastic and not rubberised. It is not noticeably uncomfortable, but it could present a problem for wearers of glasses.
The menus are almost identical to those in the NEX cameras, with five separate submenus represented by icons: one each for camera, image size, brightness/colour, playback and set-up. These submenus distribute the settings nicely so users can quickly find what they want.
The button layout is centred around a D-pad, which doubles as a scroll wheel to toggle through different values. This also has directional buttons that control ISO, display, drive mode and exposure value/focus point, with the centre button used to confirm/select. Below is a custom button Sony calls Soft Key B, which can be set by the user. I often used it to switch between JPEG and raw shooting. The right directional button can also be changed from ISO to access the function menu. By default with the function menu enabled, this button allows quick access to AF/MF select, AF mode, autofocus area, ISO, white balance and picture styles. However, it needn’t be limited to these – users can define which settings they have quick access to. The camera is therefore easy to use and very open to personalisation.
The Alpha 3000 doesn’t have a proximity sensor, so in order to switch between live view and the electronic viewfinder the finder/LCD button between the pop-up flash and the mode button must be pressed. This takes getting used to, but it is not too much hassle. However, the lack of a proximity sensor makes reviewing shots on the LCD a tad frustrating. Once a shot is taken using the EVF, you’ll need to press the finder/LCD button to review it on the LCD screen.
Sony Alpha 3000 review – Metering
Multi, centreweighted and spot metering are all offered by the Alpha 3000 and all can be relied upon to achieve reasonable results. Pressing down on the D-pad allows the exposure value to be changed should the metering be thrown by a high-contrast scene or other challenging conditions. However, this is only available in the PASM exposure modes.
Images previewed on the back of the camera looked fine, but turning on the highlight/shadow clipping warning showed that many highlight areas were blown. This happens because the camera has a tendency to prioritise midtones, which gives the appearance of a well-exposed image on the LCD. Rarely did I find that shadow details were clipped, so by shooting at between -0.5EV and -1EV, better results could be achieved straight out of the camera.
By slightly brightening the shadow areas using software, a better image can be achieved. Alternatively, for some scenes, particularly high-contrast landscapes and when shooting at -1EV, I found that the DRO (dynamic range optimisation) setting helped bring out detail in shadow areas.
Image: Reviewing the histogram shows that blown highlights are quite common in high-contrast scenes. Nudging the EV to -1 usually achieves a better exposure
Sony Alpha 3000 review – Dynamic range
As mentioned in the Metering section, I found that the images from the Alpha 3000 lose highlight detail rather easily, but after applying exposure compensation the balance between highlights and shadows was acceptable. In many situations, a good balance is struck. By using Adobe Lightroom to process the images, I discovered that a lot of detail could be brought back from shadow areas in the raw files.
In the brightness/colour menu there is an HDR feature and one to simply optimise the dynamic range. Again, as I mentioned earlier, using DRO boosts shadow detail. It does this by applying a tone curve to shadow areas. The Auto HDR feature takes three bracketed pictures with different exposures, and then merges them together. The value by which the exposures vary can be set by the user to between 1EV and 6EV. Provided the photographic subject is stationary throughout, nice results can be achieved without causing the image to look overdone.
Sony Alpha 3000 review – Autofocus
Image: I found shooting from the hip was great. The high-speed autofocus allowed me to capture some interesting shots that other cameras may have missed
In bright conditions the focusing is snappy and quick. In challenging low-light conditions, I expected the camera to take a while to focus, but I was pleasantly surprised. Even though the Sony Alpha 3000 relies on 25 contrast-detection, not phase-detection, points, it is still very fast even in low-light. Also, a well-placed assist beam aids autofocus in situations where there is minimal available light.
I spent a few hours walking through London shooting street images, mostly from the hip. This can often be challenging for mirrorless cameras, particularly if the action happens very quickly. With the Alpha 3000 I was able to capture everything as it occurred, and the camera even performed reliably when the conditions were overcast and the light was fading. I was very impressed with its consistency.
When using multiple AF points, if there is a clear and obvious focal point inside the frame the AF points very occasionally lock onto an obscure area. For example, when aiming at a tall building, the focus point would lock onto a cloud in the top corner or, more commonly, the AF would ignore a macro subject and any other foreground object and lock focus in the background. To combat this, I set the custom function button to move the AF point, which saved me from having to dive into the menu each time. It was very easy to set a custom focus point using the direction buttons on the control pad at the back of the camera.
Sony Alpha 3000 review – Noise, resolution and sensitivity
Images: At ISO 400 the images are very clear and a lot of fine detail is resolved
Interestingly, Sony claims that the sensor in the Alpha 3000 has the same adaptive noise-reduction features as the sensor in its full-frame SLT model, the Alpha 99. The Alpha 3000 has a huge sensitivity range of ISO 100-16,000. At the lowest sensitivity of ISO 100, noise is only slightly visible at 100% and a touch more prominent in shadow areas. At ISO 800, JPEGs have obvious noise when viewed at 100%, although it would be unnoticeable on a small print or web image. For clean images, sensitivities between ISO 100 and ISO 800 are comfortable to use without any issues. It isn’t until ISO 3200 that luminance noise becomes noticeable and in-camera noise reduction begins to take much of the finer detail from the image. In comparison to other mirrorless cameras, this is a very good performance.
Overall, colour noise is excellently controlled. Only from ISO 6400 and upwards does a slight haze of colour noise become visible, mostly in shadow areas.
These images show 72ppi (100% on a computer screen) sections of images of a resolution chart, captured using the 18-55mm lens set to 35mm and f/8 . We show the section of the resolution chart where the camera starts to fail to reproduce the lines separately. The higher the number visible in these images, the better the camera’s detail resolution is at the specified sensitivity setting.
Sony Alpha 3000 review – White balance and colour
Image: Creative styles can be changed to allow high-contrast black & white images, as well as a wide range of other styles
All the expected white balance settings are available on the Alpha 3000, including AWB, daylight, shade, cloudy, incandescent, fluorescent, flash, custom and a mode that allows the user to manually change the settings to between 2,500K and 9,900K. This manual setting is great for tweaking and previewing the change in white balance using live view, although I found that much like the NEX series of cameras, the AWB setting does a good job in most situations.
A variety of creative styles can be selected in the brightness/colour menu, including vivid, portrait, landscape, black & white and standard. The sharpness, contrast and saturation can be adjusted by the user ±3. Tweaking these settings creatively often yields good results.
Image: As the Sony Alpha 3000 features full manual controls, it allows a lot of creative freedom
Sony Alpha 3000 review – Viewfinder, live view, LCD and video
One of the best features of the Sony Alpha 3000 is that it has both an in-built electronic viewfinder and an LCD screen. The QVGA Tru-Finder eye-level viewfinder offers 100% coverage and camera adjustments can be seen in real time along the bottom. This is certainly a strong selling point for any mirrorless camera.
However, at just 200,000 dots, its resolution is very poor. This is technology we would have expected to see in cameras of several years ago. To put it in perspective, the Fujifilm FinePix S2980, a bridge camera with a street price of under £100, boasts a higher- resolution EVF at 230,000 dots, while the Fujifilm X-Pro1 has more than seven times the resolution, with its hybrid electronic viewfinder having 1.44 million dots. Furthermore, Sony’s own EV1MK EVF, which can attach to the Alpha 3000 via its multiple interface hotshoe, has a resolution of 2.359 million dots.
For general use the Alpha 3000’s viewfinder is good, but not overly impressive. It refreshes quickly enough to achieve the right shots and appears colour-accurate, while in bright and sunny conditions I found it was certainly better than an LCD.
The LCD is a 3in TFT unit with a resolution of 230,400 dots. Again, this resolution is not particularly impressive – in fact, it is rather poor. Recently we have seen even low-end compact cameras with upwards of 900,000-dot screens. At least reflections in bright conditions were not much of an issue and the viewing angle was good. The big downside is lack of resolution.
Various frame rates are offered by the Alpha 3000 for shooting movies, from 24p to 50i in 1920×1080-pixel full HD. The 50i setting is great for recording slow-motion footage. An built-in microphone is in front of the hotshoe. Thanks to the quiet autofocus, audio sounds good and clear on video footage. The microphone also features a setting to cut wind noise, which is very handy when shooting video outdoors. Picture effects can also be used in video mode.
Sony Alpha 3000 review – The competition
With a street price of around £260 including an 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 lens, the Canon EOS 1100D presents strong competition for users who are looking to buy a budget camera with the look and feel of a professional DSLR. However, the Sony Alpha’s 20.1-million-pixel sensor offers better resolution than the 12.2 million pixels of the EOS 1100D. The Alpha 3000 also has a higher ISO sensitivity range (ISO 100-16,000) than the ISO 100-6400 of the Canon model.
The Samsung NX1000 has an APS-C-sized, 20.3-million-pixel sensor with high ISO capabilities and good image quality, all for a similar price to the Sony camera. The NX1000 is more compact and portable, but doesn’t have the same DSLR style feel or EVF.
Sony Alpha 3000 review – Our verdict
While the body is plastic and both the LCD and the viewfinder are well below average in resolution, the Alpha 3000 is still an excellent beginner’s camera. The autofocus is speedy, even in challenging conditions. Coupled with the wide sensitivity range of ISO 100-16,000, this camera is suited to low-light shooting and more.
Up to and including ISO 1600, noise performance is impressive, with the camera striking a great balance between detail and noise. At higher ISOs, noise is still well controlled. The white balance is consistent and accurate across a variety of scenes and different lighting. For creative purposes, the Alpha 3000 has much to offer, with auto HDR and colour profiles being exciting to use and capable of achieving great-looking images_pg_Photography.Overall, the Alpha 3000 is a trade-off between build quality and internal hardware. However, the large APS-C sensor produces great images and the camera is a match for most entry-level DSLRs at its very affordable price.
Sony Alpha 3000 – Key features
Dioptre adjustment
A small, sleek dioptre adjustment dial is featured to the left of the electronic viewfinder and is easy to adjust
Movie record
A few centimetres from the thumb grip is the movie record button, which allows users to film full HD 1080 video with continuous focus
Micro USB port
While this port connects the camera to a computer for the transfer of images and movies, it also doubles as the charging port
Playback button
This button allows users to review their images. It is positioned, rather unusually, on the top-plate of the camera
Hands-on review
Sony Alpha 3000 at a glance:
- New 20.1-million-pixel APS-C-sized CMOS sensor
- E-mount lenses
- ISO 100-16,000
- 1,200-zone metering
- RRP £370 with kit lens
It may seem like a tiny Sony Alpha SLT camera, but the new Sony Alpha 3000 confusingly uses the Sony E-mount, like the Sony NEX range of compact system cameras. Like the NEX cameras, the Alpha 3000 doesn’t use a mirror; up until now, all Sony Alpha models have had either a reflex or a pellicle mirror. It’s the absence of a mirror that allows the Alpha 3000 its diminutive stature – it’s the smallest and lightest Alpha yet – and affords it the look and feel of an advanced bridge camera, or CSC in the style of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-G6.
Sony Alpha 3000 – Features
As an entry-level camera, the Alpha 3000 has a very basic button and control layout
The sensor of the Alpha 3000 is a 20.1-million-pixel CMOS unit, based on that used in the Alpha 58 SLT camera. With no reflex mirror, images are composed on the 3in, 260,000-dot-resolution screen, or the 201,600-dot electronic viewfinder. Both of these are fairly low resolution compared to other models, but this does help to keep the price of the camera down. When the Alpha 3000 is launched, it is expected to cost around £370 with a kit lens, which is extremely competitive for an entry-level compact system camera.
With entry-level photographers in mind, the Sony Alpha 3000 has been given a simple and straightforward layout.
But don’t be deceived, the camera is powerful – its ISO sensitivity ranges between 100 and 16,000, and it has a 1,200-zone multi-metering system, as well as an extremely fast contrast-detection AF system.
In fact, such was the speed of the AF system, I had to ask whether the 20.1-million-pixel sensor used on-sensor phase detection. The AF was very snappy and my first impressions were that it is at least on a par with the fastest-focusing CSCs – it may well even be the speediest at the entry-level point.
Just like the Sony NEX cameras, A-mount lenses can be used on the Sony Alpha 3000 via the LA-EA1 or EA2 adapters, with the EA2 adapter also allowing for phase-detection autofocus. However, costing around £260, the EA2 adapter is an expensive accessory for what is an entry-level compact system camera.
Despite the name, the Alpha 3000 uses Sony E-Mount lenses, not A (Alpha)-mount lenses
Sony Alpha 3000 – First Thoughts
When I first saw the Sony Alpha 3000 I was naturally expecting it to use the Sony A-mount lenses and therefore be ‘just another entry-level camera’. However, the use of the E mount makes it stand out as a more interesting prospect. With sales of DSLRs falling, Sony has clearly spotted a gap in its CSC line-up and the introduction of a DSLR-style model is perfectly logical.
As an entry-level system camera, the Sony Alpha 3000 is certainly going to have wide appeal, but the low-resolution screen and EVF will put off more discerning photographers. It will be interesting to see how Sony develops this type of product, particularly given the speed of the AF system. I look forward to really putting it through its paces when we have the chance to test the camera fully in the coming weeks.
