Nex Cameras as reviewed by DPReview

[Danjojo_Resurrected1]

Truly remarkable....

zepzr posted a thread on dpreview.com a few hours ago which quoted Mr. Kilpatrick in his other thread on this forum

"Paul Genge...also tells me today that sales of NEX in the UK have far exceeded expectations and it is by far the most successful camera yet launched by Sony Alpha division. It will be in short supply for some time."

After a few groupies jumped in to say how you can't base anything on this, how its Paul Genge's job to say they are selling well, how you can't base anything on the outstanding sales already in Japan....the entire thread has been deleted already.

Further fuel to the fire?

Talk about the great merits of the aNEX cameras or mention how it is already being successful and you get shut down, what a message!


edit to add - keeping an eye on the forums have also noted a few other threads and posts speaking favorably of the cameras in the past few days being deleted...usually within minutes. After I posted this message I checked back in again and saw a thread with 3 or 4 posters asking where are some of the threads going? Instead of at least making up an answer about some vulgarity or personal attack (as they did when banning me) they just deleted that thread as well...

Now these are not any body attacking dpreview or being critical of their aNEX review....you have to seriously wonder why they are being deleted. For people who doubted the b.s. before, there is little wiggle room as time moves on and other people have their threads deleted and are banned just for giving very positive first impressions on the camera.

[WaltKnapp]

and Sony seemed to cave in on the top lcd as well which was really a non issue for most folks (don't care either way but if they do a top LCD do it properly not A900 style)

I recently downloaded a video of a pro seminar on using fill flash outdoors. This was using big pro units with all the trimmings. Interesting video even if of little use to me as I'd never have use for such large kit. Not portable enough.

But one thing I did notice was the pro using his camera (a Canon pro camera). It was, of course, on a tripod, mounted so he could easily work through the viewfinder setting up his shots. But when he changed settings he was standing awkwardly on tippy toes to see the top LCD for the settings. How much easier his job would have been with Sony's Fn system on the back LCD like the a700 has.

Walt

[Winedarksea]

So I think Walt's worries are a bit overblown. But **it happens, you know.

Igzactamundo

P.S. Pronouncing 'exactly' as [ig-zakt-li] is rather good English, to the contrary from [ek-zek-tli]...

Yes the dictionary I consulted (Encarta) confirms you are correct, the Encarta dictionary may be American based in phonetic interpretation, I'm fairly sure when I went to school EX was pronounced as EX, not IG. Here http://www.forvo.com/word/exactly#en the word is spoken by a male in the UK and also a female in the US.

There is nothing good or bad about either pronunciation. Both are in common usage here in the US--probably even by the same speaker.

[Winedarksea]

P.S. Pronouncing 'exactly' as [ig-zakt-li] is rather good English, to the contrary from [ek-zek-tli]...

Yes the dictionary I consulted (Encarta) confirms you are correct, the Encarta dictionary may be American based in phonetic interpretation, I'm fairly sure when I went to school EX was pronounced as EX, not IG. Here http://www.forvo.com/word/exactly#en the word is spoken by a male in the UK and also a female in the US.

You may consult Webster's, they distinguish US/UK versions if there is any; and it's still the same igzaktli. But really, there's hardly any strict norm in English - such is the nature of the tongue. (But you may always follow the Queen's version.)
As to the US English, I should say that it's not exactly English per se. If you analyse the word order in the colloquial US speech variants, it would appear to rather follow some Central-European patterns than whatever British there exists. In fact, the Oz/Nz are more English, being developed among native speakers, primarily. And it's far from that with the US English.

Remember that American English usages developed long before many modern British usages did. And certainly in some areas of the US, usage is influenced by native spakers of other languages--as British English has been over the centuries. If there is a genius to the language, it is its ability to assimilate elements of other languages fluidly.

[bfitzgerald]

I thought zepzr was a Sony employee

[peterottaway]

I thought zepzr was a Sony employee

Unimpressed Barry.

[Greg Beetham]

That sound a little sinister Danjojo, if what your saying is true, (and I don't have any reason too doubt you). Very strange behavour by the forum mods, something funny going on there it seems, unless if the camera is actually selling well and not just some 'spin' by Sony, that might be interpreted as a reflection on the dpr review as being not a true indication of the sales worthiness of the camera itself. This NEX thing is getting more interesting as time goes by....even.
Greg

[Dusty]

It doesn't matter how well something sells. If I give it an honest review and say it's poor, and it sells like hotcakes, well, I either made a bad call, and should be man enough to admit it, or the marketing outdid the poor quality of the object, and people will come to see my wisdom later. I don't need any defense except that I did my honest best on the review.

Dusty

[Danjojo_Resurrected1]

We, the Super Secret Sony Marketing Ninjas, already know it is the bad call scenario

Instead of a top to bottom review...we were presented with a twisty, turnsy, spinsy, swirly review which all in one shot informs us about a boat-load of great selling points and superlative feature set - yet leaves us dizzy with a final summary that these are crippled cameras not suitable for even the most amateur photographers among us.

The way my Sony Ninja Mind sees it....either they are indeed honest and extremely foolish.....or they are bright, slick, witty, sly, and as honest as Pinocchio.

[Greg Beetham]

There could be bigger issues at stake, 'some' review sites could be trying too preserve the 'status quo' maybe, save some institutions from a perceived threat, with a potential shrinking market and the general market situation as it is at present. Although on the face of it that seems a little farfetched, it just seems odd, this whole reaction too the NEX camera, it seems too have polarized a lot of people beyond it's apparent position in the camera world...like I say interesting.
Greg

[Danjojo_Resurrected1]

we are supposed to ignore our comparative, problem-solving gifts we received in our evolutionary development and educational upbringing and believe that the more expensive, Chinese-made m4/3 cameras with less features, poor build-quality, poor ergonomics, and less capable sensors are the best buy available.

I think besides the groupies that's a pretty hard task for them to pull off, and they can't accept viable, critical analysis of their far off-base conclusions.

In the two options I put at the end of my previous post, I don't think it is the honest-foolish scenario at play here.

[bfitzgerald]

DPR can do good reviews and they can do abysmal ones.
Their latest superzoom compact review is frankly a terrible review (how a smeary mess such as the WB650 gets a gold and comments on superb pixel level IQ is astonishing) ..but that's just my own personal opinion. The NEX one wasn't really about IQ it was handling and that's a lot more subjective and personal. With IQ comments you can simply look for yourself..handling it's erm going to mean you need to find the camera and pick it up to come to your own conclusions.

Different people do these reviews so you'll also have to bear that in mind.

[Vidgamer]

....
After a few groupies jumped in to say how you can't base anything on this, how its Paul Genge's job to say they are selling well, how you can't base anything on the outstanding sales already in Japan....the entire thread has been deleted already.

Further fuel to the fire?

Talk about the great merits of the aNEX cameras or mention how it is already being successful and you get shut down, what a message!


edit to add - keeping an eye on the forums have also noted a few other threads and posts speaking favorably of the cameras in the past few days being deleted...usually within minutes. After I posted this message I checked back in again and saw a thread with 3 or 4 posters asking where are some of the threads going? Instead of at least making up an answer about some vulgarity or personal attack (as they did when banning me) they just deleted that thread as well...

Now these are not any body attacking dpreview or being critical of their aNEX review....you have to seriously wonder why they are being deleted. For people who doubted the b.s. before, there is little wiggle room as time moves on and other people have their threads deleted and are banned just for giving very positive first impressions on the camera.

Marti58's thread asking about the deleted thread is still there, and was even responded to by Phil himself. Note that someone else posted on that thread also wondering where the other thread was gone, had his own thread asking about it deleted. I guess zepzr went to far and get (temporarily) banned, and if you start a thread, that apparently goes too -- or maybe his offense was in that thread. According to Phil, zepzr insulted someone. Or "personal attack", rather. But the fellow who asked what happened wasn't banned, his thread was deleted. I'm not sure that this is so out of line, though, as asking about why someone is banned isn't exactly on the topic of Sony Alpha cameras. Yeah, the DPR staff seems overly touchy these days, but a bunch of "where are the threads?" or "what happened to ...?" are going to make the staff look bad.. I mean, be really boring to read. Yeah, that's it.

Seriously, though, I'm not ready to assume that they are deleting just because a post is a positive Nex review. If that is the case, they're going to be seriously overworked when people start to get the cameras in their hands!

[Vidgamer]

...The NEX one wasn't really about IQ it was handling and that's a lot more subjective and

Yeah, they didn't seem to have much complaints about the IQ, which I think is interesting.

personal. With IQ comments you can simply look for yourself..handling it's erm going to mean you need to find the camera and pick it up to come to your own conclusions.

Different people do these reviews so you'll also have to bear that in mind.

I don't think the problem is that people disagree, its that according to Danjojo, you're not allowed to disagree! They seem a bit sensitive about criticisms of their review. Let's say that ALL criticisms of their reviews are completely unfounded; should people not be allowed to disagree, even if the disagreements are wrong? I mean, it is a forum for people to give their thoughts on things vaguely related to "camera talk". It doesn't seem entirely crazy to comment on the review and conclusion. As if that has never happened with EVERY camera review (or at least the Sony ones).

Rather than just say, "OK, we stand by our review, and you are free to find out by yourselves", they make weird sarcastic, sniping responses to people's criticism. Some of the criticism should have been simply ignored!

Although, in a couple of cases, I did appreciate where they did give more information on what they did or how much time they spent on the review. I don't think a lot of the online folk think about that. I'm sure Phil and company put time and thought into it. (Even if they do some cut-and-paste, as according to Pako. )

[pakodominguez]

Although, in a couple of cases, I did appreciate where they did give more information on what they did or how much time they spent on the review. I don't think a lot of the online folk think about that. I'm sure Phil and company put time and thought into it. (Even if they do some cut-and-paste, as according to Pako. )

My "copy and paste" remark was because Phil said "it takes hundreds of hours of hard work to produce one of our reviews"; what I believe is true. As true as copy and paste had been done and apparently the read-proofing guy didn't show up that day...

DPR review of the NEX5 is just another review. My problem is that they try to pass by objective what is subjective -and spent lot of time defending their vertical point of view. They have some power because the traffic on their website (and the money from Amazon) and, as in many other cases, journalist try to lobby in order to accommodate things their way, thinking that they represent (somehow) the society (people that visit their website/forums) and they know better: OMG!