First Impressions: Sony NEX 3N

Dec 03, 2023

Last Updated on 02/28/2013 by Chris Gampat

Sony recently announced the NEX 3N in the US and we were fortunate enough to join the company at the Museum of Natural History on a little tour of the area as well as some personal hands on time. The 3N and 3 series in general have always been amazingly great when it comes to ergonomics and the 3N is no exception. But the weird thing is the zoom lever now added in around the shutter release. Otherwise, the camera was very comfortable to hold and shoot with–though sometimes limiting. Despite that, this is one stylish looking camera.

We tested a pre-production version and our copy was literally right out of Japan. In fact, the menus were all in Japanese and I had to use my knowledge to try to navigate around. I was able to shoot some JPEG files but for some odd reason, the camera mostly saved the RAWs instead. However, the JPEG files I shot were final production quality–which tells us that Sony is using a previous sensor in this camera.

Specs taken from the Adorama listing of the camera

The Sony NEX 3N is small, stylish, sleek, glossy, and really quite pretty. The front is nearly devoid of controls except for the lens release, an AF assist lamp, and the grip–which we found to be quite comfortable actually.

The top of the camera features the pop-up flash dead center–which means there is no hot shoe at all. Next to this is the playback button, the on/off switch around the shutter, the zooming (W/T) slider around the shutter button, and of course–the shutter button.

The pop-up flash surely does come up very far in order to not hit a lens. The problem though is that it is quite weak in our tests. When trying to make it bounce off of a low ceiling by pointing it upward, it was a bit pathetic to say the least. But I’m willing to blame this on the pre-production unit.

The back LCD screen pops up once again and in this case, it shows off Japanese characters. However, it does not tilt downwards like the 5Rdoes.

The back of the NEX 3N has the LCD screen, flash pop-up button, two soft keys, navigational dial, and buttons along the dial to access various functions.

On the side of the camera are the ports: in this case they are HDMI, USB, and an SD card slot. The sad thing is that the cover opens up a bit too easily for my personal liking.

One thing that someone cannot complain about though is the size–the camera overall is quite small in addition to being stylish and ergonomically pleasing.

The build quality of the 3N was quite solid in many places overall. The addition of the nice grip made it really feel great in my hands during my museum tour. My only real quibble was the port door that opened up a bit too easily for my liking. The build is more than up to par for the audience that this camera is targeted towards–those literally stepping up from a point and shoot.

This camera was Japanese to me–no, literally the menus were in Japanese. Despite this and using my knowledge of the NEX systems menus, I was able to figure out a few things. However, halfway down the pipeline, my camera suddenly started shooting RAWs instead of RAWs + JPEGs like I asked it to.

Either way, it was a simple camera to use during my short time with it and think that users that leave it in auto mode will have a blast with it. Advanced users will want to keep it on aperture mode in order to avoid any more hassel due to the lack of direct controls for exposure.

Focusing with this camera was very snappy in both low light and with lots of light around me. I used the 16-50mm electronic zoom lens and the 35mm f1.8 OSS for this test. It did a great job focusing on stagnant subjects although when it came to photographing butterflies in the museum exhibit, it started to not be able to keep up with the fluttering critters.

Here's what I was able to salvage from the SD card. Once again, halfway through my shooting it suddenly switched itself from RAW+ JPEG over to RAW only. But this was a pre-production unit once again.

In my opinion, while the NEX 3N has some very nice ergonomics it still seems a bit too plain vanilla for me personally as an advanced user. But if you’re just stepping into the interchangeable lens market world, then this may be the one for you with the zoom lever, excellent image quality, and the really sweet LCD screen.

The focusing on the 3N was fast and reliable–but it still can't keep up with Olympus's FAST AF system. However, it has come a bit closer to being able to do so.

I’m personally not a fan of shooting JPEGs with any camera and this is no exception. For the best results, I’d shoot in RAW mode and process the images myself. But the consumer that this camera is going for won't mind the images at all.

Sony should have added in the WiFi feature though in order to upload the images to a phone. That indeed would have been an absolutely killer feature.

We’re still going to wait for a final product to make our overall judgements, but this one left me wanting more personally.

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