Sony Alpha 3000 review – Viewfinder, live view, LCD and video
One of the best features of the Sony Alpha 3000 is that it has both an in-built electronic viewfinder and an LCD screen. The QVGA Tru-Finder eye-level viewfinder offers 100% coverage and camera adjustments can be seen in real time along the bottom. This is certainly a strong selling point for any mirrorless camera.
However, at just 200,000 dots, its resolution is very poor. This is technology we would have expected to see in cameras of several years ago. To put it in perspective, the Fujifilm FinePix S2980, a bridge camera with a street price of under £100, boasts a higher- resolution EVF at 230,000 dots, while the Fujifilm X-Pro1 has more than seven times the resolution, with its hybrid electronic viewfinder having 1.44 million dots. Furthermore, Sony’s own EV1MK EVF, which can attach to the Alpha 3000 via its multiple interface hotshoe, has a resolution of 2.359 million dots.
For general use the Alpha 3000’s viewfinder is good, but not overly impressive. It refreshes quickly enough to achieve the right shots and appears colour-accurate, while in bright and sunny conditions I found it was certainly better than an LCD.
The LCD is a 3in TFT unit with a resolution of 230,400 dots. Again, this resolution is not particularly impressive – in fact, it is rather poor. Recently we have seen even low-end compact cameras with upwards of 900,000-dot screens. At least reflections in bright conditions were not much of an issue and the viewing angle was good. The big downside is lack of resolution.
Various frame rates are offered by the Alpha 3000 for shooting movies, from 24p to 50i in 1920×1080-pixel full HD. The 50i setting is great for recording slow-motion footage. An built-in microphone is in front of the hotshoe. Thanks to the quiet autofocus, audio sounds good and clear on video footage. The microphone also features a setting to cut wind noise, which is very handy when shooting video outdoors. Picture effects can also be used in video mode.
