As expected, Sony today announced their two mirrorless cameras, the NEX3 and NEX5. Very similar in body size to the m4/3 E-PL1 and GF1, these two new cameras use a bigger sensor: APS (Nikon's DX size). The sensor itself is a Sony Exmor 14mp sensor with a base ISO of 200 and support to ISO 12,800. One nice attribute of the NEX5: a 920k dot tiltable 3" LCD, which is a notch better than what we've seen on the m4/3 cameras so far and should help manual focus users. The NEX5 supports 1080i or 720P, the NEX3 only 720P video. Bodies come in black, silver, or blue. The base lens choices are a 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 zoom (28-80mm equivalent), and a 16mm f/2.8 prime (24mm equivalent), and Sony calls the new mount the E mount. An 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 zoom is also available. Image stabilization is done in the lenses, not the body. Estimated price is an aggressive US$649 for the NEX5 with the 16mm lens, US$50 more with the 18-55mm lens. The NEX3 is expected to be about US$100 cheaper. the cameras should be available in June.
As always with new cameras it's difficult to speculate how they will perform. But given Sony's experience with the Alpha cameras, one would have to expect A450/A550 levels of image quality. The real question marks at the moment are those of lens and focusing performance. Also, given the large lenses and petite nature of the body, I'd say there are some ergonomic issues that need to be explored, too. The design seems a little too right-handed to me (left handers and left-eye dominant photographers are constantly neglected in camera designs).
We've now got three major consumer players (Panasonic, Samsung, and Sony) and one traditional camera player (Olympus) in mirrorless bodies. As I've reported before, I'm using an Olympus m4/3 body (currently E-P2) for my "compact" photography and a Panasonic m4/3 body (GH1) for my video work. I'm not the only one that's discovered the joy of small, competent cameras. Worldwide, about 10% of DSLR sales in the last year have been mirrorless. The question, of course, is how long can Nikon and Canon continue to let the big consumer electronics players play alone.
Worse still, Sony has announced that they'll make a video-oriented version of the NEX that uses the E mount lenses and APS sensor. Thus, the window for video-wannabees like Nikon is rapidly closing. The video players have figured out that large sensor video is the next step, and they've already started moving their legs.