What could have been a very good high-end amateur camera has been let down by a couple of poor design points:

- A full set of shooting modes has been included, eg Auto, AP, SP, & manual, but the limited aperture range makes the modes other than Auto fairly superfluous.

- If the user wishes to use filters, a cumbersome adaptor ring must first be screwed to the camera body, a large (74mm) filter fitted to this, and then a lens hood fitted - on the model I have, the screw thread does not even align the hood properly, so has to be left slightly loose, not much help if trying to align a polariser, for instance. Surely Sony could have designed in a screw thread to the lens housing instead of this awkward arrangement.

- When using the viewfinder as opposed to the screen, it is very easy to inadvertently alter the controls for flash, etc, due to the location of the control button and its lack of resistance to movement.

Sony is normally very good at design (as opposed to mere styling), but seem to have let their standards slip in this instance.