The Sony A-68. A kick in the proverbials

When you were a kid, can you remember a time when you wanted some toy or item so badly that you pestered your parents night and day to get it? And when Christmas day arrived, you were first down the stairs to find under the tree a parcel of the right size and shape. But when you opened it, rather than finding the item you wanted, you found it was a cheap knock off which despite your parents assurances you knew it would make you the laughing stock of the school and neighborhood.

If so, you will understand how I feel today after the announcement of the new Sony DSLR, the  A-68.

If you are a Canikon user, you may not appreciate that being a Sony DSLR owner has not been an easy time over the last 18 months.

When you buy a SLR camera, you are not just buying the camera, but committing to an eco-system. As you become more experienced, you commit more to it by buying myriad accessories and lenses. At the same time, you are looking to upgrade your system  as you get better and you reach limits with your present camera.

Canon and Nikon users never have an issue here. The respective companies are fully committed to the SLR line and users can be assured of a continual replacement/upgrade path.

It is not so easy with Sony.

Since the last DSLR Alpha camera release (the A-77 Mk ii), their have been mixed messages by Sony's on its long term commitment to the A-series DSLR line. These have swung between ambiguous to totally negative. At the same time Sony has embarked on an almost continual release cycle of its A7 mirrorless cameras.

To say as a Sony DSLR owner that we have felt unloved is to put it mildly. Many (including  me) felt that Sony wanted to having nothing more to do with the DSLR market and were happy to leave us in the lurch.

So you would think that we would all be letting out a huge sigh of relief  now that Sony have just announced the release of a new A-Series camera, the A-68.

Unfortunately, nothing in Sony world is ever that simple.

Maybe it is because we have been used to Sony pushing the camera technology boundaries recently with their mirrorless cameras range, but I had high hopes for this camera. This would be a chance for Sony to do in the DSLR market, what they have been doing in the mirrorless world and producing a world beating  quantum leap in DSLR camera design.

It was not to be.

What we got instead was a mis-mash of old technologies flung into a oversized camera. At the same time Sony left out key features to differentiate it from the A77 Mkii.

Basically this is what we got

• The EVF from a A6000
• The (poor) rear screen from the A-58
• The plastic lens mount from the A-58
• The sensor and (and by all accounts rather good )the AF system from the A77 mkII

This was all flung together into a plastic body, not much different in size to the rather large and hefty A77 mkII

To add to that, the camera does not support wi-fi (so no remote tethering) and its frame rate has been severely diminished from the A-58

Of these decisions, the two that really hurt is the rear screen and the wi-fi. As I have stated before, I really hate the rear screen on my present camera, and with the cost of good LCD screens continually dropping, it seemed a no brainer to get a half decent screen on it.  However someone in Sony felt we could manage with a screen that would of looked tardy on a 10 year old smart phone.

As for the wi-fi, the ability to remotely access and control a camera via wi-fi is a fantastic capability. It seems incredible that any camera produced today would not have it. But Sony in their wisdom thought otherwise.

I really had high hopes for this camera, both as a potential upgrade path to my present kit and as a sign of  commitment by Sony to the A-series DSLR family. 

This does neither. 

It produces a camera without enough advantages to upgrade to, or to attract new users to the system. At the same time, it again raises questions on whether Sony is really committed to DSLR's or would like to quietly move us to their more profitable professional mirrorless line.  If this camera had been brought out a couple of years ago, it would of been acceptable, but now it looks poor compared to competitor cameras at the same price point.

In many ways I wish Sony had never produced this camera. I would of been happier if they had just said they were killing off any more development and then we could move on to some other camera system. By producing this camera, they again shown that the company thinks more about it's bottom line than it's customers and for me again raises the question whether I want to commit my long term photographic future to such a company.

Not a good day to be a Sony user

He's making a list, and checking it twice...

It's that time of year....

As I have stated before, one of the reasons for writing this blog was to prove (to myself as much as anyone) that the quality of photography is more than just a function of how much money you can spend on equipment or locations. Instead it is more about making the best use of what you have around you and utilising the equipment to hand with imagination and skill.

However even I must admit I am not immune to camera envy. 

So as we run up to Christmas, I thought it would be a good opportunity to play camera fantasy football and think about if I won the lottery tomorrow (ignoring the basic requirement that I would actually have to buy a ticket) what camera I would get if I had the chance. (You never know maybe I've been a really good boy this year and Santa will look down fondly on me [unlikely - Ed.])

The cameras

As I have said in previous blogs, I am a Sony user.

Now the reason I bought Sony is largely lost in the mists of time put it is partly because it gave me good price per buck at the time, but over the years I have come to appreciate it's strengths (and bemoan it's weaknesses).

For example I really like the EVF (even though I think Sony could do far more with it). Many photographers say it will never be as good or as clear as the OVF. While this may be true (and they are getting better all the time), the ability to provide the information such as histograms via the eye piece, makes up for this and more. It would be something I would sorely miss on a purely optical viewfinder.

Also I like the fact I am getting live-view all the time, allowing me to see how the photo I will get in real time. In consequence, there is no need for me to constantly switch between back screen and live view. All the information is there at my eye level, so taking much of the guess work out of photography.

One of the biggest advantages is that I can use the camera almost totally without needing to wear glasses. My eyesight is not bad, but it is not as good as in my youth. I now have to wear glasses when reading,  but because I can see everything via the EVF, I can generally leave my glasses in my pocket. 

Sony has also done some interesting things in the camera sphere recently. Don't get me wrong, Nikon and Canon are fantastic camera marques, with a great history, but you wonder whether that very history is stopping them progressing.

Now dyed in the wool Nikon and Canon users may disagree with this, but I'm not the only one who thinks maybe having won the battle of the DSLR's, they are losing the next battle ground, that of mirrorless cameras.

Sony on the other hand has less to lose by shaking up the DSLR market, and they have produced some great mirrorless full frame cameras recently . The A7 range seem almost too good. Small to hold with high resolution, they have a lot to recommend themselves to photographers.

However Sony still seem to be trying to work out, what is best specification, using the same basic camera shape and configuring it for a number of different uses.

Firstly we have the A7R, with its insane number of pixels, Then the A7 with fewer pixels, but faster focusing  and frame rate.

However the most intriguing of all is the A7S. While in modern term it has a measly 12 Megapixels, each one of them is used to trap more light giving it unbelievable low light performance. The A7S fixes two things that I find irritating in cameras. Firstly, the need to use a flash in low light situations and secondly the noise the shutter makes. Because of the limited pixel count, the A7S has the option of using a full electronic shutter, which is totally silent. This is a great camera for any indoor work where you wish to be discreet, or at night when you need maximum low light performance.

Also people should not be put off by the number of pixels either. 12MP is pretty great for most situations and the photos don't seem to suffer .

The low light performance is insane, with a 3 stop performance difference against say the Nikon D810. What that means in practice(apart from the ability to take photo's virtually at night)  is that you can increase your shutter speed or uses lens with smaller maximum apertures and still get great shots.

One of the perceived weaknesses of Sony is the number of available lenses available. Sony have addressed this by offering adaptors meaning a Canon, Nikon, Leica etc user can transfer their whole lens collection to the A7 camera.

So if I had the choice, which one would I buy. Like I said, the A7S intrigues me, but in reality it is designed for video photographers where the reduced resolution is not an issue. The A7R is a great landscape camera, but not general purpose enough.

So that leaves the A7....

Except it doesn't.

Sony recently announced the A7 MkII. This combines all the good bits of the A7 (full frame, contrast and phase detection) with 5 axis optical stabilization, so improving focusing and low light performance in one step. If I had a choice this would be the camera I would get. Any one want to lend me £1600?

Also I would throw in in a Sony A6000 just for those days when a full frame mirrorless is just too bulky.

Oh darn it,  because it's Christmas, lets just throw in a A7S just for those dark winter days when a maximum  25600 ISO is just not enough.

The lenses

Of course a camera is no use without decent lens. At present I have a small range of lens, from a 50mm pancake, to a 70-300,mm zoom. However there are some significant gaps in my inventory. For example for wildlife 300mm is just the minimum, but really we need 400 or even 600mm lenses. A lens like the 150-600mm Tamron would be great, but is £1000. Even nicer is the Sony SAL70400G 70-400mm with it's F4 aperture, but now we are talking close to £2000. However until the inheritance comes in. I may just have to look at getting a 1.6x teleconverter.

At the other end, a wide angle lens would be great for landscape work. Something like the Tamron SP AF 10-24mm f / 3.5-4.5 DI II Zoom Lens would be a steal at £400 (hah!)

Of course we are not even touching the surface when it comes to lenses. If you go to the Sony Gold series lens you can end up paying upwards of £1000.

And herein lies a problem.

The A-series lenses are not compatible with the new mirrorless full-frame cameras. OK they offer an adaptor, but that means you are being treated like Canon and Nikon user, rather than a loyal  Somny user.

The truth is the success Sony has achieved with the mirror less range has put the present DSLR range in doubt. For example when I bought my camera, there was a clear upgrade path from the A37 to the A57 - to the A65 to the A99. Now there are is only the the A55 and A77 II. The A55 is entry range and the A77 is high end, so there is no clear upgrade path.

Put it another way, when I was younger I used to listen to Chris De Burgh. His songs were quirky and had good tunes. Then he got to number one with Lady in Red and spent the rest of his career writing slushy love sonnets. Sony having found professional success with there full frame cameras mirrorless range, but they haven't been showing us much love recently to us A-Series users, providing no clear strategy on where they are going in that arena

Something Else

Something else I've always had a hankering to try is infra-red. Now almost all DSLR's can see infra-red, but filters are put in place to remove that light from the sensor. But you can get your camera converted to allow it to capture that wavelength. The images produced are surreal and almost other-worldly I would love to give it a go. I also have a theory that Sony A-Series cameras are the perfect camera for this sort of conversion, because they have permanent live view due to the SLT. So when one day I do upgrade, I would seriously consider changing my present camera to shoot infra-red.

  

Anyway it just leaves me to wish you all a great Christmas, have fun with your photography and a happy photographing new year

Musings on Camera user interfaces

All cameras today come with an array of automatic, 1 click options.

A cheap camera will have a "take it all" only mode. As you go up the scale you may be able to choose between different scenes such as portrait, landscape, razzle etc (I may be wrong about the last one). Even when you get to the top of the range DSLR, you will still find 1 click modes.

Most of the time these modes are great and certainly take a lot of the effort out of taking simple photos. However they have their limitations and anyone who solely relies on them will not get the best results out of their camera. You often see people with top of the range £1000 DSLR's round their neck, who quite clearly have never moved the dial off full auto. For a cash constrained photographer, this is a pretty disheartening mode of behavior. It is the equivalent of buying a Ferrari and driving it everywhere in 2nd gear.

Cameras full auto modes are now pretty sophisticated, and weigh up a wide range of factors when taking the photo. Some will even do clever things like faces detection. However leaving all the decisions to the camera is akin to letting your mother choose your wife. You will get something broadly acceptable, but not necessarily what you want.

As you move from being a happy snapper to a photographer, it is important to envisage the photo you want and then learn how to communicate that to the camera. In order to do this you must learn to manipulate not only the aperture and shutter speed, but also controls like  the ISO level, exposure compensation, focus mode and exposure modes.

Sometimes this must be done in the split second between seeing the image you want and pressing the shutter. Which is akin to rubbing your tummy, patting yourself on the head, while standing on one leg on a high speed turntable. So it is no surprise that sometimes you get it wrong.

So why not just leave it on auto? Well the problem is that the automated modes are so good now that people think the camera has almost achieved sentience. However as a programmer, I am fully aware of the limitations of software. The algorithms the engineers use are sophisticated, but dumb. It may compare 200 parameters in a blink of an eye, but it does not have the vision of an artist, only the simulation of one.

So to get the best out of a shot we need to explore the functions and decide things like, what sort of depth of field do we need? is the background or foreground to bright? Do we need to increase the ISO to get more light at the cost of more noise in the photo?

All these features are available on a modest DSLR and even on some compacts. But accessing them in the mad half second before you press the shutter can be a struggle even when you are fully acquainted with your camera

My Sony has a number of features that help in this and some that does not.  One of the great things about the Sony DSLR range is because of the SLT technology, you get a lot more information in the viewfinder than most makes of camera. So as well things like exposure and shutter speed, you can get a histogram indicating the exposure range. I must admit however, that I have been slow to take advantage of this feature. To often I am concentrating on the subject, but used properly the histogram allows you to change the shutter speed, aperture and exposure compensation to their optimum values.

One negative feature is the movie button. Now I never really get the idea of movie mode on DSLR's. It is something that a lot of camera manufacturers push, because it sounds like a good idea. Why buy two camera when you can have it all in one? But the truth is it is a bit like having a 6th finger. Possibly useful, but more likely will get in the way when trying to do something. I think it would be far better if they concentrated on the basics like a better rear screen rather than adding all the gubbins need to to take movies.

Unfortunately on the Sony, the movie button it is very close to the exposure compensation control. When in a hurry, it is very easy to press it by mistake. Now you can disabled it, so that it only works in movie mode. But annoyingly instead of just ignoring the button press, it presents a warning dialog informing me I have pressed a disabled button. This I have to clear to carry on. This is not what you want when you are desperately trying to take that perfect wildlife shot.

However annoying this is, the truth is that the DSLR user interface has not moved on much over the years. As the number of parameters you can control increases, so does the workload on the poor photographer. It is about time camera manufacturers revisited this and thought of better ways to control their cameras.

It is surprising really that no one has come up with something better. There has been some improvements using touch screens as a way to get to parameters to indicate the focus point. However this requires taking the eye from the viewfinder to the screen. As a DSLR user, I really value the viewfinder and I want to be able to do as much as I can while my eye is stuck to it. Because the Sony system allows more information to be super-imposed on the viewfinder it is surprising that they have not been more  innovative in the use of it.

What is required is 2 things. A easier way of accessing the key parameters and better way of visualizing them. The latter is a challenge to the mechanical designers, but there must be something better than a collection of buttons and D-Pads. Maybe a trackball or a joystick or maybe just better dials. Unfortunately camera design is very conservative so it will be a brave manufacturer who attempts to mess with the standard look. Saying that, who would of predicted that the age of the push button mobile phone would end so abruptly when Apple brought in the iPhone.

The visualization process is easier to envisage. What is needed is better ways to visualize the data as we look through the viewfinder. Not only show the present aperture/shutter settings, but also the ISO and exposure compensation values, together with the exposure histogram. What could also be visualised is how these settings would change. So if I modified the ISO, what would the shutter speed change to in aperture priority mode.

Of course it would be useful if this information could be conveyed to me in the viewfinder as I compose the shot, and this is where Sony could use their SLT technology to their advantage.

Anyway those are my ideas. I'll leave the implementation details to the designers. Just send the check in the post.

Out in a flash

Last Thursday as I made my weary way to the polling station to vote for some lizards (As the late Douglas Adams said, if you don't vote for the lizards, the wrong lizard might get in) I got a text from my wife asking if I would like to take some photo's at the Brownie's pop themed party going on at that time.(There was an alternative motive here since it was both my daughters birthday that day and both were at the party. That's right I have twins who were born 5 years apart, which makes that day twice as stressful as it normally should be)

So I was faced with a tough decision. Should I go and fulfil my constitutional duty or go back and grab my cameras and spend an hour taking photos? We'll after mulling over the dilemma for at least 10 microseconds I did an about turn and rushed back to the house to grab my kit (Don't worry , concerned readers, I later managed to get to the polling station and single handedly managed to save British politics ).

Anyone reading my previous blogs will now know I have a habit of forgetting critical pieces of kit, such as memory cards, tripods etc.  So despite my rush I was very careful to check and as an extra insurance grabbed my bag of kit as well. I also grabbed my flash unit which I had only purchased a few weeks ago, determined to use it.

Now there is a fundamental problem with  Sony cameras. In many ways they are very talented engineers, but they don't want to be Sony. They want to be Apple. Apple have a history of creating a closeted walled garden into which unsuspecting punters are lured into, but then find they can never leave because all there stuff is so locked into Appleyness things the pain of leaving is too much(If Apple had a theme tune it would be Hotel California). Sony would love to do the same, but there is only room for one deity in the technology world(The 1st commandant of Jobs. You shalt have one true  technology god, and it shall be called Apple).

Unfortunately Sony forget this once in a while and try and and enforce a new standard on an uninterested and unwilling world. Here are just some of the standards that Sony have tried and failed to impose.

• Betamax(just when everyone moved to VHS). 
• Minidisk(Good but too expensive and trounced by MP3)
• Memorystick(Because there was a big need for a new memory format that had lower capacity, was more expensive and fitted virtually nothing else)
• Blue ray(just as the world was moving to digital downloads)

I bring this rant up about Sony, because it explains the issues with Sony flashes. Sony engineers could of said, well we are behind Canon and Nikon in the DSLR camera market, lets embrace open standards and allow those users to easily migrate to us. Make's sense right? Not in Sony world. In Sony world they said, we are the mighty Sony. Lets make a new flash interface standard which everyone in the world will gratefully fall upon and leave the false gods of Nikon and Canon.

The upshot is, you cannot go and buy any flash and stick it on your camera. You either have to buy one specifically for Sony (strangely enough only made by Sony) or have to get a special adapter to fit all other flashes onto your camera. This would be fine in Sony flashes were as cheap as other flashes or offered some great new capability, but they don't. An adequate Sony flash costs over £100 and up to £500 for top of the range. In comparison an adequate 3rd party flash can be got for £25. Maybe Sony flashes contain magic pixies that illuminate any scene better than other lesser flashes, but I think that is doubtful. A flash when all is done is not a particular sophisticated bit of kit. It's basically a big light with a few sensors.

Anyway being cheap economically challenged I bought a cheap flash and spent the necessary Sony tax to get an adapter. This unfortunately comes with a price. Because the Sony interface is so propriety, the e-TTL signals do not work, so you end up having to manually set the power settings.

Also I do not have much previous with flashes. All DSLR's have one built in but generally I find these useless because they have a tendency to flatten the scene too much. There is also the problem that flashes tend to be intrusive. There is nothing much worse than going to an event such as a graduation then flashing(if you don't mind the pun) all over the place. So generally I avoid flashes as much as possible.

However they do have there uses. They are best when offering extra light, such as reflecting of the ceiling to provide extra illumination  without overwhelming the subject. But this is really the 1st time I had used a flash and because it was not Sony I had to manually set it, which was another pain,

But generally the results were pretty good. After playing around with my zoom for a while i went back to my 50mm prime lens. Now I love my 50mm lens. It is the only prime I have but at £100 I think is a bit of a bargain. When it works it makes lovely results and the combination of it and the flash gave a lovely soft focus look.

With a prime lens you need to work a bit harder. Rather than composing the photo with the zoom, either you or the subject need to do the moving which comes as a bit of a shock when you initially switch. The great advantage of the 50mm prime is the narrow depth of view and the great bokeh effect. Unfortunately this can sometimes be too narrow and if you have two subjects in the shot, there is a danger of one being out of focus.

However the biggest danger with the 50mm prime is getting carried away with it.  Once I take a great portrait from it, I tend to go mad and try all sort of shots with it, most which are a disaster.

So the lesson here is to know which lens are suitable for which scene and don't be to ambitious. 50mm work great for face portraits, but anything else and you are asking for trouble

Anyway here are some of results

My Wife looking particularly gorgeous

Abba when they were young

Update

As a postscript I may of been a little harsh on Sony and flashes. It appears the inherited the standard when they to0k over Konica-Minolta and the newest DSLR's have now moved to a common flash interface. It only took 7 years to get there....

My weapon of choice..

The old and the new. My present kit next to my old film SLR

This is bit where I bore you to tears about which bit of kit I use.

At present I use a Sony Alpha SLT-37 DSLR. There are not as many Sony users out there and sometimes I get pelters from some photographers who will remain nameless for not using the more usual Nikon or Canon brands (In fact I get this so much I tend to term Nikon enthusiasts as Nikon Nazi's since some seem to think of non-Nikon users are the Untermenschen )

Up to a few years ago I used a small Panasonic compact to get my photos. It was convenient, had a good zoom range and was generally pretty happy with it.

However despite getting nice photos I decided to upgrade. The main problem was the compacts low light performance. When the sun was shining and the subject was relatively close, I could get some nice pictures. But as soon as the light dropped from optimum I really struggled. I ended up with photos too dark, too grainy or blurred because of too slow a shutter speed.

One of the great advantages of a compact is it's portability and there is a true maxim that says the worst photo you will ever take is when you do not have a camera with you. I was attracted at first to the mirrorless 4/3 cameras such as the NEX range, which seemingly combined good performance with portability. But after playing around with them in the now long departed Jessops, I couldn't stop feeling that I really needed a viewfinder(Once you have a camera with a viewfinder there is no going back). While a lot of photo's can be composed using the back LCD, you really can't beat a viewfinder, especially when tracking moving objects. But the NEX range is probably what got me thinking about Sony in the 1st place.

Anyway once I had decided to buy a DSLR (and persuaded my wife we could afford it) the problem was which one to buy. I had a limited budget which severely restricted my choice if I was buying new. Basically it was to be one of the entry level cameras from the Sony, Nikon and Canon.

The Sony at the time had a number of advantages for me. Firstly I already had some Minolta lenses which were compatible. While the lens were not great glass in modern terms, they would do the job for a while.

Because Sony had to try harder than the others (it not being the brand of choice), I also felt I got more bang for buck than the equivalents in the other brands. It was also a little bit cheaper.

But actually the main interest for me was the Sony's SLT technology.

Most DSLR's use a mirror to reflect the light coming through the lens through a set of prisms into the viewfinder. Sony do something different. There is no mirror in the normal sense. Instead the light is split by a translucent mirror with a small percentage going to a electronic viewfinder and the rest to the camera sensor.

One advantage is that when you take a shot the camera no longer has to lift the mirror before taking the photo. This is seen at it's best by with Sony's frame rate matching much more expensive camera's. Another advantage is that without the need for a large prism assembly at the top of the camera, the camera can be built smaller which improves portability. This was a big consideration  for me at the time. While the size difference is not huge it is significant.

Another factor was also to do with my personality. Basically when it comes to technology I am a masochist.

Maybe it is because I work in the technology industry, but my relationship with gadgets is one of detached interest. I severely distrust the herd instinct that makes people jump on the latest bandwagon  . For example while I appreciate the technology in Apple phones and iPads, I will never have one myself because basically the lack of control over the product.  I would rather have a product which tries a new direction with both the plus and minuses that entails.  Why go the scenic route when you can climb over sharp rocks in the hope you might find a better viewpoint that no one else has ever seen?

And so it is with the SLT technology. There is no doubt it has some advantages. Because the mirror is not being flipped up all the time, it is easier for Sony to produce a camera with a faster continuous shooting mode. You also see at all times what the camera sensor is seeing without having to flip the mirror up. One big plus for me is that you get a lot more information in the viewfinder than an equivalent DSLR, so things like histograms are available at all times while you looking through the viewfinder. Plus you get 100% coverage(although this is a can be a mixed blessing)

Then again there are those rock splinters.

Because not all the light goes to the sensor you are losing about 5% of light to the sensor. While most of the time this is not a problem, you will still suffer at little in very low light (But since at this point you should really be on a tripod anyway this is not as disaster). There is also a lag between the light hitting the camera and it showing in the viewfinder. Normally you do not notice this, but when panning fast moving objects such as cars it is apparent and you have to compensate to try and ensure the subject is somewhere in the middle of the shot which takes a bit of practice.

So after 2 years of usage how would I sum up the Sony Alpha SLT-37

The applause

Good frame rate (up to 7 f.p.s)
Excellent Sensor for the money.
Electronic viewfinder(EVF) provides extra information and 100% coverage and a better preview of what the photo will look like

The brick bats

The EVF is a mixed blessing. It make panning shots difficult and it does not have the resolution of a standard viewfinder

This being Sony, they have to put there propriety mark on the camera somewhere. The memory stick slot is OK, since there is also a SD card one. The Sony RAW format is OK  since all camera manufacturers have their own raw format. But why do they insist in having a Sony only flash hot shoe? It means if you want a external flash(and if you do indoor work, you will) you either have to buy a very expensive Sony flash or buy an adapter and miss out on E-TTL mode.

The rear LCD screen though is the real bugbear. I have a friend who bought the previous mode(alpha 35). That has a quite decent LCD. When they made the alpha 37 the designers obviously took the decision that if they were upping the sensor pixel count, they had to make economies elsewhere. The result is a LCD which is close to useless being really poor resolution and difficult to see in bright light. I tend not to bother using it and if I am reviewing my shots I tend to use the EVF. Unfortunately they appear to have done a similar trade-off with the my cameras replacement , the SLT a-58. This really is penny pinching now that decent LCD panels are a dime a dozen(Basically they are doing it to ensure there is a clear market difference between the middle tier and low end DSLRs. So basically a marketing and not a technical decision )

Would I buy Sony again?

The real proof of the pudding is given my time again and what I know now, would I buy the same camera.

The answer is probably yes. The camera is relatively small, has a good sensor and some nice features. It has it's fleas too, but so would any of the entry level models. Best of all for me, I am not following the herd and can go my own way, and perhaps find advantages over the herd.

One thing with cameras is that once you have made your choice you are stuck with it. As you build up your kit, it makes it harder to switch brands(although Ebay is your friend here ).

So what about Sony's now? Well I still think they make interesting to great cameras(The a7 and RX100 have great reviews, but come at a price) and are as good as the equivalent Nikon or Canon.

Sony always have had great engineers. However Sony as a company need to realise the advantages of standards and stop listening to the marketing men. I'm pretty sure it is the engineers at Nikon who decide the product and not the money men.