Introduction

Ease of Use

At first glance the Sony A3000 looks like a DSLR or SLT camera, with a chunky handgrip and interchangeable lens at the front, external hotshoe on top, and an LCD screen and viewfinder on the rear. Technically, however, it's actually a compact system camera that uses Sony's range of E-mount lenses, the same lens mount that the extensive NEX line-up is based upon, and it doesn't have the mechanical mirror found inside a DSLR or the translucent mirror in Sony's Alpha range of SLT cameras. With many upgraders from compact cameras opting for a DSLR-like model, especially in the USA, the Sony A3000 has clearly been designed to appeal to people who don't know what a mirrorless camera is, while actually offering some of the benefits of that system. It's also very keenly priced, at £370 / $400 sitting alongside the NEX-3N at the bottom of Sony's interchangeable lens camera range.

Measuring 128.0mm x 90.9mm x 84.5mm and weighing 411 grams, the Sony A3000 is very similar in size and weight to the now discontinued SLT-A37 camera. Although it feels a little plastic-y in hand, the A3000 is solid enough given its budget price-tag, feeling more like a super-zoom compact than a DSLR. Ultimately it's neither cheap enough to put you off from buying it, or solid enough to contend with more expensive models. The 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 OSS kit lens actually feels a little small when mounted on the A3000, but it doesn help to keep the overall weight down, and usefully features built-in optical stabilisation. Compatibility with an existing Alpha A-mount DSLR lens proper is also offered via the optional LA-EA2 accessory adapter.

Sony branding and DSLR-style lens release button aside, all we find on the A3000's faceplate is a small porthole-shaped window for the AF assist/self timer lamp, a button for releasing the pop-up flash, a large and comfortable handgrip with a textured surface for a firmer hold, plus the shutter release and On/Off buttons on the forward-sloping edge at its top.

Front	Rear

The A3000 is turned on or off via a flick of a chunky, nicely rigid switch which surrounds the shutter release. As this is an entry-level camera, there are no control wheels to change key values like aperture, shutter speed, exposure compensation and menu options, just a circular dial on the rear. Also located on the A30000's top-plate are a left and right (stereo in combination) microphone, the Multi Interface Shoe, a button for switching between the electronic viewfinder and LCD screen, a traditional shooting mode dial with a kurled edge and positive click, and a playback button. The shottoing mode dial includes standard P,A,S,M, 9-strong scene mode, Intelligent Auto and Superior Auto, plus the now standard Sweep Panorama mode.

Press the shutter release button down halfway and, after the very briefest of pauses the AF point/s are highlighted in green accompanied by an optional beep of affirmation to indicate that the user is good to continue on and take the shot. The 25-point contrast-detection AF system isn't as speedy as the Fast Hybrid AF used by the NEX-5T, but it's certainly quick enough to keep up with the action. The A3000 has a satisfyingly brief and fairly quiet shutter click, and a full resolution JPEG is written to memory in about 2 seconds. There is the option to also shoot Raw files, or even more usefully for those who wish to hedge their bets, Raw and JPEG images in tandem. These settings are accessed within the Image Size folder and are found within the Quality sub folder. You also get Fine or Normal compression levels offered for JPEGs.

Not everything on the A3000 is located exactly where you might expect it to be found. For example ISO settings are discovered within a Brightness menu option that from the look of the icon that denotes it initially appears to be for adjusting screen brightness only. One would reasonably expect ISO adjustment to be found within the Camera folder with the other key shooting options. And so there's a fair amount of familiarisation with the A3000's quirks required up front.

The A3000's backplate is a pared-down affair, the majority of it taken up by the 3-inch widescreen ratio LCD screen. This is one of the areas where Sony have cut costs, with the low resolution of 230,400 dots resulting in a rather coarse display. Similarly, the electronic viewfinder is both small (0.5cm) and low in resolution (201,600 dots), although it does at least offer 100% scene coverage, something that a no comparably priced DSLR offers. There's also diopter control for glasses wearers, although what appears at first glance to be a rubber pad around the EVF is actually made of hard plastic. Switching between the EVF and the LCD can only be achieved by pressing the Finder/LCD button - there's no eye-sensor to automatically switch between the two, which slows down the operation of the camera and discourages you from using the EVF at all.

Front	Top

Located above the LCD screen is the one-touch movie record button. Press this and the user is instantly recording video, whatever alternative shooting mode might previously have been in use, which proves essential with regard to spur of the moment filming.

To the right of the screen is a textured thumb-grip, underneath which sits a trio of controls - the top and bottom buttons unmarked until the screen is activated, at which point their purpose is detailed alongside it. The top-most control is revealed as the 'menu' button, a press of which brings up the shooting icons - five in total - the contents of we've already briefly touched on. Instead of the screen-full of text you might expect to be presented with upon press of the menu control, from top left to bottom right of screen, presented instead are Camera, Image Size, Brightness/Colour, Playback, and Setup icons.

The user moves through these options and makes selections via the scroll wheel just below the menu button, which has its own central (and again unmarked) set button. This wheel is quite responsive to the touch, which, on a positive note, means that tabbing through options is a swift process, but on the other hand it's easy to slip past the setting you actually wanted when hurrying through them as a photo opportunity suddenly presents itself.

Set at four points around this scroll wheel/pad are a means of adjusting the display, ISO speed, exposure compensation (+/- 2EV selectable) and focus point, and drive mode (single shot, continuous, continuous with speed priority, so focus/exposure fixed from the first shot) and the self timer option (2 or 10 seconds) and a bracketing control for exposure.

Memory Card Slot	Battery Compartment

Disappointingly you have to delve into the Camera main menu system to access the various flash modes. The flash options more unusually include rear sync as well as slow sync, plus the regulars of auto and fill in. Somewhat confusingly the A3000's red eye reduction setting isn't also found here - instead it has to be first enabled via the aforementioned Setup folder if you're shooting portraits with flash.

The bottom button on the camera back provides a means of calling up the on-screen shooting tips, via which Sony no doubt hopes to provide a crutch for new users trading up from a bog standard point and shoot compact. Examples of textual advice, complete with small pictorial thumbnail alongside, include 'increase the ISO sensitivity to make the shutter speed faster', and then, the thoughtful addition: 'higher ISO sensitivity may make noise stand out.' Hand-holding for those who want it then, while others may feel Sony has wasted one of its very few dedicated buttons on a feature that, like the manual, many will choose to ignore.

At the base of the camera we commendably find a metal screw thread for a tripod directly beneath the lens mount, and, in the nether regions of the grip, a compartment storing the rechargeable battery, good for around 450 images. While the right hand side of the A3000 - if viewing it from the back - features a continuation of the ridged grip but is otherwise devoid of ports or controls, the left hand flank is where users will find a large covered port for the Multi Interface port and a slot for the memory card - here Sony reaching out to a wider audience by offering SD/SDHC/SDXC compatibility alongside its own Memory Stick. Large metal eyelets on either side of the camera for the supplied strap complete the A3000's design.

Image Quality

All of the sample images in this review were taken using the 20 megapixel Fine JPEG setting, which gives an average image size of around 6Mb.

The Sony A3000 produces photos of excellent quality. Noise is very well handled, being virtually absent from ISO 100-3200 and not being too obvious at the fast speed of ISO 6400. At ISO 12800, noise is more easily detectable when viewing images at 100% magnification on screen, but the images are still perfectly usable for small prints and resizing for web use. The fastest setting of ISO 16000 looks good on the specification sheet, but proves less so in reality. The RAW samples illustrate just how much processing the camera does by default, though, as they're much noisier at all ISO values than their JPEG counterparts.

Colours were vibrant without being over-saturated in the default Standard Creative Style, and you can always choose Vivid if you want even more punch. The 11 Picture Effects quickly produce special looks that would otherwise require you to spend a lot of time in the digital darkroom, while the 6 Creative Styles provide a quick and easy way to tweak the camera's JPEG images. The Dynamic Range Optimizer and High Dynamic Range modes both work really well, although we'd advise caution over using some of the higher and more extreme levels, while Sony's now tried-and-trusted Sweep Panorama is still a joy to use.

Image stabilisation via the lens is a very useful feature that works well when hand-holding the A3000 in low-light conditions or when using the telephoto end of the zoom range. The 20.1 megapixel images were a little soft straight out of the camera at the default sharpening setting and ideally require some further sharpening in an application like Adobe Photoshop, or you can change the in-camera setting. The pop-up flash provides an adequate level of exposure and thankfully little or no red-eye.

Noise

There are 9 ISO settings available on the Sony A3000. Here are some 100% crops which show the noise levels for each ISO setting:

JPEG	RAW
ISO 100 (100% Crop)	ISO 100 (100% Crop)
ISO 200 (100% Crop)	ISO 200 (100% Crop)
ISO 400 (100% Crop)	ISO 400 (100% Crop)
ISO 800 (100% Crop)	ISO 800 (100% Crop)
ISO 1600 (100% Crop)	ISO 1600 (100% Crop)
ISO 3200 (100% Crop)	ISO 3200 (100% Crop)
ISO 6400 (100% Crop)	ISO 6400 (100% Crop)
ISO 12800 (100% Crop)	ISO 12800 (100% Crop)
ISO 16000 (100% Crop)	ISO 16000 (100% Crop)

Sharpening

Here are two 100% crops which have been Saved as Web - Quality 50 in Photoshop. The right-hand image has had some sharpening applied in Photoshop. The out-of-the camera images are soft at the default sharpening setting. You can change the in-camera sharpening level if you don't like the default look.

Original (100% Crop)	Sharpened (100% Crop)

File Quality

The Sony A3000 has 3 different image quality settings available, with Fine being the highest quality option. Here are some 100% crops which show the quality of the various options, with the file size shown in brackets.

20M Fine (5.59Mb) (100% Crop)	20M Normal (3.78Mb) (100% Crop)
20M RAW (19.9Mb) (100% Crop)

Flash

The flash settings on the Sony A3000 are Autoflash, Fill-flash, Slow sync and Rear flash sync, with Red-eye reduction available in the Main Menu. These shots of a white coloured wall were taken at a distance of 1.5m.

Flash Off - Wide Angle (27mm)	Flash On - Wide Angle (27mm)
Flash Off - Telephoto (82.5mm)	Flash On - Telephoto (82.5mm)

And here are a couple of portrait shots. The Auto setting caused a tiny amount of red-eye which the Red-eye reduction mode removed.

Flash On	Flash On (100% Crop)
Red-eye reduction	Red-eye reduction (100% Crop)

Night

The Sony A3000's maximum shutter speed is 30 seconds and there's also a Bulb mode for even longer exposures, which is excellent news if you're seriously interested in night photography. The shot below was taken using a shutter speed of 25 seconds at ISO 100.

Night	Night (100% Crop)

Steadyshot

The Sony A3000 has an antishake mechanism built into the 16-50mm kit lens, which allows you to take sharp photos at slower shutter speeds than other digital cameras. To test this, we took 2 handheld shots of the same subject with the same settings. The first shot was taken with Shake Reduction turned off, the second with it turned on. Here is a 100% crop of the image to show the results.

Shutter Speed / Focal Length	Shake Reduction Off (100% Crop)	Shake Reduction On (100% Crop)
1/13 / 27mm
1/5 / 82.5mm

Dynamic Range Optimizer

D-Range Optimiser (DRO) is Sony's solution to improve shadow detail in photos taken in contrasty light.

Off	1
2	3
4	5

High Dynamic Range

High Dynamic Range Optimiser (HDR) is Sony's solution for capturing more contrast than a single exposure can handle by combining two exposures into one image.

Off	1
2	3
4	5
6

Intelligent Sweep Panorama Mode

The Sony A3000 allows you to take panoramic images very easily, by 'sweeping' with the camera while keeping the shutter release depressed. The camera does all the processing and stitching and now even successfully compensates for moving subjects. The main catch is that the resulting image is of fairly low resolution.

Standard

Wide

Creative Styles

There are 6 Creative Style preset effects that you can use to change the look of your images.

Standard	Vivid
Portrait	Landscape
Sunset	B/W

Picture Effects

Just like Olympus and Panasonic, the Sony A3000 offers a range of eleven creative Picture Effects.

Off	Toy Camera
Pop Color	Posterization
Retro Photo	Soft High-key
Partial Color (Red)	High Contrast Mono
Soft Focus	HDR Painting
Rich-tone Mono	Miniature

Sample Images

This is a selection of sample images from the Sony A3000 camera, which were all taken using the 20 megapixel Fine JPEG setting. The thumbnails below link to the full-sized versions, which have not been altered in any way.

Sample RAW Images

The Sony A3000 enables users to capture RAW and JPEG format files. We've provided some Sony RAW (ARW) samples for you to download (thumbnail images shown below are not 100% representative).

Sample Movie & Video

Product Images

Front of the Sony A3000

Front of the Sony A3000 / Lens Fitted

Front of the Sony A3000 / Pop-up Flash

Side of the Sony A3000

Side of the Sony A3000

Side of the Sony A3000

Side of the Sony A3000

Rear of the Sony A3000

Rear of the Sony A3000 / Image Displayed

Rear of the Sony A3000 / Turned On

Rear of the Sony A3000 / Main Menu

Rear of the Sony A3000 / Main Menu

Rear of the Sony A3000 / Help Menu

Top of the Sony A3000

Bottom of the Sony A3000

Side of the Sony A3000

Side of the Sony A3000

Front of the Sony A3000

Front of the Sony A3000

Memory Card Slot

Battery Compartment

Conclusion

Designed to appeal to compact camera upgraders who instinctively want a DSLR, or at least something that looks like one, the Sony A3000 is an intriguing mix of mirrorless technology and DSLR styling that almost hits the mark. While the image quality is excellent for such a cheap camera, the handling, operation and overall build aren't quite up to scratch, with the LCD screen and electronic viewfinder in particular proving to be of low-quality. Still, we can't think of many other £370 / $400 cameras that offer interchangeable lenses, a built-in flash and hotshoe, 60/50i/25p video recording with stereo sound, and that all important DSLR look and feel, so if you can literally overlook the LCD and EVF quality, the Sony A3000 could turn out to be one of the bargains of the year.

Rather than using the 16 megapixel sensor found in most of Sony's NEX cameras, the A3000 employs the SLT-A58's 20.1 megapixel sensor. Noise doesn't rear its ugly head until ISO 3200 for JPEGs, although the A3000 does apply some pretty aggressive noise reduction to keep the files clean, resulting in some loss of finer detail. The myriad range of creative effects on offer such as HDR, Dynamic Range Optimisation, creative styles, the innovative sweep panorama mode and in-camera Picture Effects help to get the most out of the A3000, especially if you like to experiment away from a computer.

While the excellent image quality and keen price are definite plus points, the Sony A3000 lags behind when it comes to handling and performance, especially when compared against the DSLR rivals that it's trying to emulate. It's not especially speedy to start-up, and shot-to-shot times and auto-focusing speed, while respectable enough, aren't anything to write home about, and neither is the lackluster continuous shooting speed. We wouldn't call it slow, but you'll be disppointed if you're expecting DSLR-like responsiveness. And while the A3000 mimics the design and handling of an SLR, it's not that successful, with the lack of any control dials other than the rear wheel and the inability to quickly switch between the EVF and the LCD screen in particular revealing it to be something of a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Still, there's no getting away from that price-tag, which will almost certainly decrease even further, making the Sony A3000 an attractive proposition despite the shortcomings that we've identified. While certainly not perfect, this DSLR doppleganger is an intriguing entry into the market that may just prove to be a hit for Sony.

Ratings (out of 5)
Design	3.5
Features	3.5
Ease-of-use	3.5
Image quality	4.5
Value for money	5

Main Rivals

Listed below are some of the rivals of the Sony A3000.

Review Roundup

Reviews of the Sony A3000 from around the web.

Specifications

Your Comments