Sony have announced their A3000 camera which is designed to look like an SLR but is mirrorless. Strangely, even though it is named as part of the Alpha line up, it won't accept A mount lenses, instead it will use E mount lenses from the NEX series. Sony do offer an optional Alpha mount adapter (LA-EA1) to use A mount lenses, but there is extra cost.

The camera has been designed for the audience who want a camera that handles like a DSLR but who want a mirrorless, interchangeable lens camera. The layout of the camera seems excellent.

There is a substantial grip at the side to ensure the camera is practical to hold and a viewfinder is positioned just above the LCD screen which has 230,400 dots. Sony have ensured there are plenty of manual controls. It measures only 102 x 58 x 38 mm, which is much smaller than the entry level SLR cameras. The camera ships with a lens kit for $400 USD.

Internally, Sony have fitted the camera with a 20 megapixel APS-C sensor (23.2 x 15.4 mm) CMOS sensor with a BIONZ image processor. The ISO range is set to 100-16,000 and low light photos should be clear with decent low noise characteristics. It has a continuous shooting speed of 3.5 frames per second.

Autofocus is based around a contrast system with 25 points and it has full 1080 60i/24p video support.

You can buy the camera now in America for $400, and the deal features an 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 OSS lens.

Kitguru says: The size looks good, especially for people who hate porting around a full sized SLR.

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