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Sony Sunset

Bukit Jalil - Sony

Kuala Lumpur - SOGO

Kuala Selangor Mosque - Sony

Sony NEX-5 and NEX-3 cameras

When we first heard that the Sony NEX-5 or NEX-3 can create merged images (they name it HDR) from multiple shots in camera we first expected this feature to be more of a marketing trick. It turns out to be quite real and useful instead. There are actually two possibilities to create HDR images with the NEX-5:

Create in camera merged images

Shoot bracketed photos with different exposures

Create in camera merged images

In this case the camera creates two images:

JPEG from the middle exposure

JPEG merged from 3 images. You can set the EV range from 1-6 EV. We mostly use 3 EV.

Before we show some samples lets look at the pros and cons.

Pro

NEX camera creates good quality merged images

The 7 fps of the NEX shooting helps that not much moves inside the frame during the shooting of all 3 exposures

Con

The middle exposure image cannot be saved as RAW (you have to shoot in JPEG Fine)

The processing takes some extra time. This means you have to wait to get the camera ready for the next shot

The images clearly need some post processing. Not sure this is really a con for us because it is hard to believe that the camera could do a perfect job. As the result the camera produces very soft and de-saturated images.

In the ideal world we would like to be able to get all exposures as RAW files and the merged image as well. If this would be too hard to implement then Sony should at least allow to get the middle exposure as a RAW file because we are not really happy with the NEX JPEG quality (shadows are way too much crushed for our taste).

Note: All sample photos in this article were shot freehand. Combined with the excellent NEX LCD this allows shooting positions that are hard to get with a tripod (e.g. overhead shots).