How about the OVF, is it bright and big enough for you to be of any use? I thought about buying an A580 but the view finder size scares me and I'm not very impressed by the sensor performance of my NEX-5N. I guess the A580 will be similar. I actually preferred my A300. lol
I find the OVF a little small, i'm coming from a canon 50D/Pentax K5 previous setups. However, it is more than sufficient for my usage and yes, it is big and bright enough for me.
What's really impressive about the A580 is the price to value ratio- it is in a category of it's own here. It is by no means perfect, but i needed the tilting screen so i gave up the very very decent K5 for this.
I'm still rather new to photography and have a lot to learn so my recommendations are largely consumer based. I have had the NEX5N for awhile and have since sold it after getting the A580 and i found the NEX5N to TAKE excellent pictures. However, battery life, lack of physical buttons and the lack of an OVF meant it could not be my "main" system. Indeed it is a secondary system for many bros here, but for me I'm happy enough with my canon S95 for now.
Back to the A580, if you can get your hands on one, hurry, as stocks will dry up soon. My chinese sources tell me so and they are very reliable. One big plus is the 2 year warranty period if you register a Chinese DSLR online. You get 1+1 warranty, which is amazing. My set comes from a well established beijing shop that I am comfortable with and know to be reliable. They provide me with 3 years extended warranty on top of the two by sony to bring the total to five. It seems like overkill but I do not trust electronics in this day and age, given the planned obsolesce that is prevalent in our economy, so warranty is very important for me. My friend who used to work for sony tells me sony DSLRs have dust problems, but then again every single DSLR has dust problems, even the dust resistant models. The tool itself is excellent. It has everything I need, sans weather seals, which I guess I am willing to give up at its price point. This is a 2010 based camera, but then again, there will always be something newer and shiner, so just hurry, take your pick, and stick it out through the millions of increasing pixels and tosh!
And a note about the ISO performance... 2nd to none in it's class!
The sensor is the very same(not exact) as the one used in the D7000 and Pentax K5, which are legendary for their high ISO performance. If i recall correctly, the nex5n also uses something similar.
