How Much Was A Sony 3000a Mirrorless Camera In 2014
Summary
Sony'south Alpha A3000 is the company's most affordable mirrorless camera, and ane that aims to take business away from traditional entry-level DSLRs. Information technology features a 20 Megapixel APS-C sensor, Full Hard disk video, and a wealth of shooting modes and assistance that volition delight beginners. To hitting a depression toll betoken, Sony's had to fit a basic electronic viewfinder, but you lot can't contend with the cracking paradigm quality from a camera that costs two thirds the price of its cheapest DSLR rivals.
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Sony Blastoff A3000 review -
- Written past
Intro
The Sony Alpha A3000 is an entry-level camera styled to look like a DSLR or one of Sony's own SLT models, but within it's really mirrorless, just like the earlier NEX range. Announced in August 2013 it's positioned alongside the NEX 3 series, rather than replacing it, although the long-term rebranding of Sony's mirrorless cameras will see those labelled with NEX gradually disappear from the range. When this happens, the A3000 will get the cheapest interchangeable lens camera from Sony.
Sony'southward market place research has revealed many photographers still adopt the archetype DSLR shape and style, and then they decided to innovate one for their mirrorless Eastward-mount. Then to reiterate, despite its looks this is not a fellow member of the SLT series or a native A-mountain camera – it'due south simply a mirrorless in a dissimilar outfit.
As the most affordable model in the range you'd be forgiven for assuming it would house an older sixteen Megapixel sensor, only instead Sony has equipped the Alpha A3000 with a twenty Megapixel sensor. Equally noted above, it features an Eastward-mount for native compatibility with NEX lenses, although there's no hybrid AF organisation, only dissimilarity-based AF. Despite the size and styling in that location'south no built-in stabilisation either, although the A3000 does feature Sony's multi interface shoe and multi concluding to support the latest accessories. In add-on to a fixed 3in / 230k screen, in that location'due south a basic LCD electronic viewfinder with QVGA resolution.
If you're shopping for a budget interchangeable lens photographic camera with a viewfinder, the A3000 might just be the model that tips the rest in favour of mirrorless rather than a conventional DSLR; and then to run across how the two approaches compare in practice, I've tested it aslope this year'southward entry-level models from Canon and Nikon – the EOS T5 / 1200D and D3300 respectively. Read on to find whether the A3000 really offers a viable culling to an entry-level DSLR.
Sony A3000 design and controls
The Sony A3000 looks like a pocket-size DSLR with a slightly simpler control layout. You could also fault it for a fixed lens bridge super-zoom, though of form it takes interchangeable lenses using Sony's E mount. It measures 128x91x85mm and weighs 411g with battery and card. That'south smaller and lighter than the DSLRs I'm comparing it with here – the T5 / 1200D measures 130x100x78 and weighs 480g, while the Nikon D3300 is 124x98x76mm and weighs 460g.
Compare those dimensions and information technology'southward clear the biggest difference is in elevation, but the A3000 body is too slimmer than the DSLRs by more than the dimensions suggest – its EVF heart loving cup protrudes past around a centimetre, adding to the depth.
The size and weight difference is noticeable, but not massively so, in your hand the A3000 feels like a small DSLR, or, every bit I've said, maybe a larger span super-zoom. The lens release button is rather awkwardly located on the lower right of the body (as you hold it) which means information technology'south easier to admission from the lesser of the camera. There are no other buttons on the forepart, merely the AF illuminator in the valley betwixt the grip and the flash.
Like the Nikon D3300, the A3000'south on/off switch is on a collar surrounding the shutter release; backside it you'll find the fashion dial, and on either side of that a button for toggling between the screen and EVF and the playback button. To me, this seems like an odd place for a push that doesn't have a shooting function and it would have made more sense to swap this with the programmable soft fundamental B; I'll talk a bit more than nearly that in the handling section later.
Moving left across the top panel is the flash with twin stereo microphones inset to the rear and on the left side of it a button which pops it up ready for use. With a GN of 9.2 the Sony A3000's built-in flash has the same ability output as the Canon T5 / 1200D. Both the T5 / 1200D and D3300 have a hotshoe, every bit does the Sony A3000, but the latter is Sony's multi-interface shoe which tin additionally support other accessories including an optional microphone.
All but ane of the controls on the rear of the A3000 is situated to the right of the screen; the moving picture button is in a higher place information technology, but below the mode punch and to the correct of the thumb rest. There's a four-way control cycle used to make exposure adjustments and to admission sure camera settings with a single affect. In the default configuration these are, display overlays, ISO sensitivity, exposure bounty and drive modes. Notwithstanding, the right position is programmable as is the 2d of the soft keys A and B which past default access the bill of fare and the shooting tips guide.
The A3000 has a fixed three inch screen with 230k dots. The screen has 16:9 proportions with the 3:two native stills image area displayed on the left and a black strip on the right to display the soft key labels. Exposure and other shooting information is overlayed on the image. In utilize the screen prototype is bright, contrasty and detailed – both the Canon T5 / 1200D and Nikon D3300 have college resolution screens with 460k and 921k dots respectively; but the departure in resolution doesn't make a great bargain of divergence. However, because of the difference in proportions the active image size on the DSLRs is significantly bigger – about 60x40mm compared with 55x37mm on the A3000. I besides found the A3000's screen had a narrower viewing bending than either of the DSLRs and was less visible in very brilliant sunlight; something nosotros've noted earlier on Sony cameras with the default settings, perhaps trying to eek out longer battery life.
Of course, the screen isn't the simply means to compose shots, the A3000 likewise has a congenital-in electronic viewfinder. The 201k dot 0.2 inch panel produces an image with QVGA (320×240) resolution and a magnification factor of 0.7x with 100 pct coverage of the image area. In do it looks smaller than the optical viewfinder of the Catechism T5 / 1200D which is itself smaller than the Nikon D3300'due south. It'southward besides not nearly as bright equally the optical viewfinders on the DSLR's and the experience of looking at your subject via a modest electronic screen bears little comparison to viewing the actual reflected light.
Though modern electronic viewfinders on higher-end mirrorless cameras have come a long way, the pocket-size, cheap EVF fitted in the A3000 just isn't in the aforementioned league and in many respects is its weakest feature. That said, unless you're using information technology exclusively, in which example information technology can become very tiring on the optics, the EVF provides a skilful enough alternative to the screen, such as under bright atmospheric condition or when extra stability is desired with the camera held to your face up. It's also worth mentioning like all electronic viewfinders, it has some advantages over the optical viewfinders of the DSLRs: y'all can apply it to compose when shooting movies and information technology tin can bespeak under and over-exposure problems equally well every bit preview creative styles and picture effects.
A large door on the right side of the A3000 opens to reveal the carte slot and micro USB last for which a cable is supplied. Like all Sony models A3000 takes SD cards as well every bit Sony Memory Sticks. Note unusually the A3000 has no HDMI or AV port so can't exist connected to a Goggle box to view images and video straight from the camera. There's no Wifi either, merely then that's par for the course for other entry-level models correct now; in Sony's range you'll currently demand to go for the A5000 every bit a minimum for Wifi.
The A3000 is powered by an NP-FW50 battery that's located in a separate compartment in the base of operations of the grip, accessed from a door in the base. I was pleased to discover that (as on the Nikon D3300, but not the Canon T5 / 1200D) it was possible to remove the battery fifty-fifty when the photographic camera was fitted with a quick release plate for mounting on a tripod.
The battery is charged in the camera over a USB connectedness using the supplied cable. No mains charger is supplied although they are available equally optional extras. I retrieve this is a smart move by Sony, nearly people take a computer they can charge from or already own an Ac-USB adapter for another device like a telephone or tablet, so why pay for an AC adapter y'all don't need? A fully charged battery volition become you through 460 shots, 40 fewer than the Canon T5 / 1200D and well curt of the D3300'southward 700 shot tally – that's the price you pay for 100% electronic limerick compared to a traditional DSLR which can etch with an substantially power-costless optical viewfinder.
Sony A3000 lens and stabilisation
The Sony A3000 is equipped with an East-mount, which with the camera's APS-C sized sensor, applies a 1.5x field reduction to all lenses. At the time of writing Sony offered fifteen native E-mount lenses (nine zooms and 6 primes) with focal lengths between ten and 210mm (15 and 315mm equivalent); note iii of the 15 lenses are variations of the pop eighteen-200mm though. In addition yous can mountain whatsoever of the five native Fe lenses designed for the full-frame Alphas without an adapter, although again the one.5x crop factor still applies.
| Sony A3000 with 18-55mm wide | Sony A3000 with 18-55mm tele |
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| 18-55mm at 18mm (27mm equiv) | 18-55mm at 55mm (83mm equiv) |
The A3000 is bachelor as a kit with the E 18-55mm f3.five-5.half dozen OSS stabilized zoom in black to match the body. This is the original kit lens that shipped with the first NEX models back in 2010. The quality of construction is good, in fact its metal casing feels superior to the plastic body of the A3000. There are two rings, a front ane for manual focussing and a rear zoom ring which has a nice polish activity. With the 1.5x field reduction the equivalent range is 27-83mm – you lot can come across the coverage when fully zoomed in and out in the examples above.
The A3000 lacks born stabilisation, but when fitted with a stabilised lens such every bit the 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 OSS stabilisation can be activated from the Setup menu. There are two positions, On and Off which can be selected with the mode dial in any position with the exception of some scene modes. To exam the stabilisation I zoomed the eighteen-55mm kit lens to its maximum 83mm equivalent zoom setting and took a serial of hand-held shots in Shutter Priority mode at progressively slower speeds, showtime with the stabilsation turned off, then with it turned on. As you can run into from the results below, the A3000 is capable of being handheld at speeds down to around 1/10th – about three stops slower than convention suggests is condom with a non-stabilised lens.
| Sony A3000 Optical SteadyShot | ||||
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| 18-55mm at 55mm, 100 ISO, 1/tenth, SteadyShot off. | 18-55mm at 55mm, 100 ISO, 1/10th, SteadyShot on. | |||
Sony A3000 shooting modes
Compared with those of the 2 DSLRs, the A3000's mode dial looks relatively elementary and uncluttered. That's because Sony has resisted the temptation to include defended positions for individual scene modes, opting instead to pool them all under one SCN position and offer a screen card. The other mode dial positions include PASM exposure modes, ii car positions and Sweep panorama.
Intelligent Auto employs scene recognition to identify the subject and set an appropriate scene manner. The A3000 can tell if the photographic camera is on a tripod, assuasive longer exposure times, or if there's motion in the frame, in which instance it volition increase the ISO sensitivity and utilise a faster shutter speed to abort the movement. In Superior Machine mode the A3000 takes a flare-up of images and combines them into a single composite shot with improved dynamic range. The power to deploy scene recognition whether you're composing with the screen or viewfinder is a key benefit a mirrorless photographic camera has over a traditional DSLR for those who more often than not shoot in Auto. To be off-white, DSLRs tin can offering scene detection in live view, but it's normally slow and won't piece of work with the viewfinder. Some of the latest DSLRs can offer a degree of scene analysis with their white balance sensor, but over again this currently falls short of the experience you'll enjoy with a camera that employs 100% native electronic limerick. Shooting in Auto with the A3000 is like having the ease of use of a betoken-and-shoot photographic camera, but with the do good of a much bigger sensor and the chance to swap lenses – ideal for beginners.
Switch the mode dial to the SCN position and yous have the choice of 9 scene modes, though most people will be happy with selecting Intelligent or superior Automobile and letting the A3000 choose a screen mode for them. If y'all adopt to make the option yourself, the composite Mitt-held Twilight and Anti Motion Blur are included along with the other regulars including Macro, Portrait, Sports Action and Sunset.
Dynamic Range Optimiser (DRO) and in-camera HDR options are located on the Brightness/Color menu; the former available in Machine or set Levels of one to v, and the latter available as Auto or in increments of 1 to six EV. The HDR mode takes 3 images at the desired interval and combines them in-photographic camera into a unmarried JPEG file, and you tin can trigger it with a single shutter press or a self-timer.
Some examples of the various Picture effects are shown in a higher place. The full range includes HDR Painting, High Contrast Mono, Miniature, Fractional colour (R,Thousand,B,Y), Popular color, Posterization (colour, B/Westward), Retro Photo, Rich-tone Mono, Soft Focus, Soft High-cardinal, Toy Camera. Every bit they go, some of the furnishings are pretty absurd, and you can preview many of them on the screen or viewfinder and so you can run across what yous're nigh to get.
Pressing the left position on the command wheel accesses the A3000'southward bulldoze modes. As well as cocky-timer and continuous shooting options, hither you'll notice continuous iii-frame auto exposure bracketing up to +/- 3EV in 1/3EV intervals. The absence of Car white balance and DRO bracketing which are available on higher cease Sony mirrorless models is unlikely to be missed though.
The A3000 likewise offers Sony'southward Motorcar Object Framing feature, which makes a duplicate image that's cropped and effectively recomposed. In exercise it generally activates when shooting people in the Car modes, recognizing people's faces and switching into a portrait scene mode and creating a duplicate prototype, cropped to offer an alternative composition. Once you get over the camera making decisions about the limerick for you, information technology can be very useful and would peculiarly benefit novice shooters. The feature gives you a smartish scaled-up ingather along with the original for skillful measure.
Different the more than expensive A6000 which sports a hybrid stage / contrast observe AF organization, the A3000 is equipped with dissimilarity detect only motorcar focus. You can cull between 25-area, eye or a moveable 'flexible' spot. In that location'due south besides a tracking option which oddly is not included on the AF manner menu, simply must first be selected from the Camera menu before lining upwards the moving subject in the heart of the screen and pressing the central button on the control dial. Focus modes include AF-Southward (Single-shot AF), AF-C ( Continuous AF), DMF (Directly Manual Focus), and Transmission Focus, the latter with the pick of peaking.
The A3000 features face discover AF as well as Face up registration. You can register up to eight faces which are so prioritized for focus and exposure, just unlike on some models, you can't associate names, appointment of birth, or other information with the registered faces. Nonetheless information technology's a useful feature to have and one of the advantages, forth with scene detect motorcar modes, the A3000 enjoys over DSLRs.
Finally, we can't talk about a Sony photographic camera's shooting modes without mentioning panoramas. The A3000 features Sweep panorama, which provides several panorama modes with the maximum 23 Megapixel size measuring 12,416 x 1856. Sony was the first to include panorama features on its compacts and it remains the all-time. Its panorama modes are versatile, allowing you to shoot in portrait or mural orientation in either direction and the results are excellent.
Sony A3000 pic modes
Like other Sony models, the A3000 shoots movies in one of two formats – AVCHD and MP4. To start movie recording you simply press the red flick push just to the right of the viewfinder. The A3000 supports all the PASM exposure modes for movie shooting, and so you can prepare the exposure manually prior to recording and even modify it during shooting.
With the A3000 set to AVCHD encoding, you can choose 1080 50i or 60i (depending on region) at 24 or 17 Mbit/s, or 1080 25p / 24p (depending on region), over again at 24 or 17 Mbit/s. Switch the A3000 to MP4 encoding and you lot can choose between 1440×1080 at 12 Mbit/s or VGA at 3 Mbit/south.
You tin as well use some but non all of the Movie Effects. Toy Camera, Pop Colour, Posterisation, Retro, High Key, Partial Colour and High Contrast Mono are all available for movies, merely the more processor intensive Soft Focus, HDR Painting, Rich Tone Mono, Watercolour, Illustration and Miniature are non allowed. There'due south as well no deadening move options, merely then that'due south par for the course for system cameras and DSLRs at the moment.
The A3000 allows continuous autofocus using the dissimilarity-find AF organization and it works very well. As you can see in the example below, it adjusts focus from close to afar subjects adequately quickly and accurately, a trick DSLRs apart from Canon's EOS 70D have however to manage – Total-time AF on the Nikon D3300 is poor and the Canon T5 / 1200D doesn't offer AF for video at all. You lot can of course also focus manually and here the A3000 offers another trick unavailable on the entry-level DSLRs, focus peaking. This surrounds in-focus elements with a colour halo (which is of class invisible on the footage) and is a big help particularly in depression-lite.
Audio is recorded using the built-in stereo microphones and you tin fit an external accessory microphone to the A3000's multi interface hotshoe.
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| This prune, similar the others below was shot using the Sony A3000's 1080p25 24Mbps video mode. In spite of my rather shaky handling, most evident when fumbling for the zoom ring, the kit lens stabilisation does a good job of keeping things steady. |
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| For this tripod mounted pan I turned off stabilisation. The A3000 does a prissy job with the exposure, but this clip is marred past a big dust speck on the sensor. I didn't have to do anything to remove it – information technology was absent from immediately subsequent clips and shots, but dust on the sensor was a recurring effect with the A3000. |
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| The quality on this low-light indoor pan is good, with low noise levels and saturated colours. The exposure adjusts gently and without stepping every bit I pan by the windows and the stabilisation keeps things nice and steady. |
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| Download the original file (Registered members of Vimeo simply) | |
| To test the A3000's continuous autofocus I zoomed in a little and set the aperture as wide every bit it would get in Discontinuity Priority exposure fashion. I so started recording and panned up from the coffee cup to the bar and back several times. Despite a tiny bit of back and along on my kickoff render to the loving cup the A3000 does a skilful job of slowly and unobtrusively adjusting the focus to keep the subject precipitous. This is far superior to the Full-time AF of the Nikon D3300, the Canon T5 / 1200D lacks continuous AF for movies. |
Sony A3000 handling
Compared with an entry-level DSLR, the Sony A3000 offers a unlike kind of handling experience. Firstly, there's electronic composition; which is a very different approach to that of the DSLRs equipped with optical viewfinders and phase discover AF. Effectively the A3000 is in live view all the time, which has pros and cons. Y'all might await i of the drawbacks to be slower AF, only in near situations I found the A3000'south dissimilarity detect AF system was as fast and responsive every bit the DSLRs phase detect AF, though its low calorie-free and tracking performance lagged backside them. In live view of course, neither of the DSLR's is a match for the A3000. On the plus side with the A3000 yous also get face detection and much meliorate continuous AF for moving-picture show shooting.
The A3000 has fewer physical controls than either the Catechism T5 / 1200D or the Nikon D3300. And then where on the T5 / 1200D you accept the luxury (some would say necessity) of one punch for shutter speed and some other for aperture command, on the A3000 y'all have the more compact-style system of using the rear cycle for both, pressing the bottom exposure compensation position to toggle betwixt them. To exist off-white, this is the same arrangement as on the Nikon D3300.
With 3 soft buttons, the A3000 actually provides a lot more telescopic for customisation than either of the DSLRs. The right key on the control wheel is ordinarily assigned to ISO sensitivity simply can be reprogrammed equally a function card providing quick access to whatsoever one of vi user-defined settings. Effectively it's a customisable quick menu, something Sony has been slow getting around to but very welcome still. The lower of the two rear buttons known as soft cardinal B is also programmable and tin be assigned to ane of nineteen functions including AF mode, metering mode, ISO sensitivity, white balance, DRO/Auto HDR, Moving picture Furnishings and Artistic Styles. Then although it lacks some of the physical controls of the DSLRs, the A3000 makes up for it with a higher level of customisation.
The Sony A3000 tin shoot continuously at three.5fps in Speed Priority Continuous fashion. To examination it, I fitted a freshly formatted Sandisk UHS-i SD card rated at 45MB/s, set the prototype size to large fine JPEG and selected the Speed Priority Continuous bulldoze mode. With the shutter release held down the A3000 fired off eight frames before momentarily stalling then continuing at a slower irregular rate. The speed for the get-go 8 frames was 3.55fps, thereafter it maintained an average of ii.38fps. Set to RAW+JPEG (interestingly there is no RAW just setting), the A3000 managed three.59fps for a burst of 5 shots before stalling and continuing at a much slower stride around 0.5fps.
Both DSLRs offer ameliorate continuous shooting performance – the Nikon D3300 is faster at 5fps and the Canon T5 / 1200D a little slower at 3fps. But the DSLRs can shoot a much longer burst – 100 frames for the Nikon while the Canon T5 / 1200D can pretty much shoot indefinitely with a fast plenty card. One other thing to carry in mind is that framing and following subjects is much easier with the optical viewfinder of a DSLR than the electronic screen or viewfinder of the A3000 which lags behind the activity by one frame.
Sony A3000 Sensor
The A3000's xx.1 megapixel sensor produces images with a maximum size of 5456×3632 pixels. Images are saved as JPEGs with one of two compression settings. Large Fine JPEGs are typically effectually 5-10Mb in size. The A3000 tin also salvage RAW files in Sony's ARW format, although but with an accompanying JPEG. The shutter speed range is 30 to 1/4000 plus B and the ISO sensitivity range is 100 to 16000 ISO.
To see how the quality of the Sony A3000 measures-upwards in exercise, take a wait at my Sony A3000 quality and Sony A3000 noise results pages, browse my Sony A3000 sample images, or skip to the hunt and caput straight for my verdict.
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Source: https://www.cameralabs.com/sony_alpha_a3000/
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