SONY A6500 First Impression

SONY A6500 First Impression

Good morning. Today, we will look at the product briefly as the first activity of the Sony A6500 experience event. The A6500 is a follow-up to the A6300, and it can be called Sony's Crop (APS-C) flagship mirrorless camera, which demonstrates even more performance with the introduction of a 5-axis anti-shake device and Front-LSI. There are a lot of improvements, and I will look into it in detail in a future review.

01 Features

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Let's take a look at some of the features that can be found in the product specifications. The detailed specification of A6500 comes to Sony homepage (www.sony.com), so I will not mention it separately and I will only look at important features. The details of each feature will be covered in a future review.

Built-in 5-axis camera anti-shake system

The biggest difference compared to the A6300. In addition, it is a part that can be differentiated from other APS-C cameras. The  size of module itself is dramatically reduced compared to that in A7 II, and it is a very nice part that the 5-axis anti-shake device is included in a small body of the same size as the existing A6300.

Finally, we can touch the screen

It is the part that is different from the A7 series as well as the existing A6300. It was a really long time ago that users asked Sony to put it in. Move focus point using touch and double tap zoom in review screen is possible. However, touch is not responsive and functions are limited. Anyway, touch screen is always welcome.

Dramatically improved buffer in burst shooting

In fact, both the old A6000 and A6300 have a very fast continuous shooting speed, but the buffer is limited and the utilization is not good in fact. However, in the case of A6500, over 300 JPG images or more  than 120 RAW images can be recorded continuously. This provides a very pleasant level of shooting experience for the wild/sports photographer.

Front End LSI

Just think of it as secondary hardware to ease the burden on the BionZ X image processor. As a result, unlike before, we can see review right after continuous shooting. It also provides additional features such as improved sensitivity processing performance by introducing algorithms optimized for a Exmor sensor.

Low vibration / high durability shutter unit

The improved braking system for second shutter is used in A6500. It is much quieter than the A7R II as well as the A7II. In addition, it has a level of durability close to that of other presses or flagship models. Officially, the shutter unit used on the A6500 has passed 200,000 release tests.

Improved grip

Different to the grip design of the existing A6000 and A6300, the grip shape design is similar to A7 second generation. The C1 button, which is next to the shutter, has been removed, and the C1 and C2 buttons have been added top of A6500. As a result, one more operation button has been added to the camera.

 

New menu UI

In the same way as the new Sony A99II, a new menu structure has been introduced. In fact, the basic structure seems to be almost the same, but there have been some changes in the menu. I do not think it's better than the previous menu, but the design looks pretty. Touch operation can not be performed on the menu screen.

I have looked at several feature points. Although not covered above, there are many other improvements that have been made in detail, such as focus point link spot metering, more diverse metering (e.g., highlight priority), Bluetooth for geo tagging, and Slow / Quick motion video. It will be handled with review from the following.

02 Exterior

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In this part, let's look at the exterior. As mentioned above, apart from the grip, there is no major difference from the existing A6300. Let's take a look at some of the features. I took pictures with the A7R II.

Front side

The front part has a metal mount and the image sensor is visible. The metal mount is very sturdy. The sensor itself is the APS-C 24 million pixel Exmor sensor of copper wiring without the BSI (back-side illuminated), which is the same as A6300.

Rear

The rear is no different from the A6300. Sony use the same 16:9 ratio LCD as before. I would like to improve the size and quality of the LCD. I look forward to it later.

Viewfinder and Top

Lettering is masked with the A6500, similar to the A6300. There is no particularly unusual part. In the viewfinder eyepiece, like the A7 series, it is changed from the top to the bottom sliding type so that it can not be peeled off under most circumstances.

Memory / Battery Insertion

A6500 uses the same batteries as the A6000 and A7 series. A6500 officially supports UHS-1 U3, but not UHS-2. UHS-2 cards can also be used, but UHS-2 is not officially supported, so there is no improvement in speed.

External ports

If you open the compartment on the left side, there are USB, Micro HDMI and microphone jack. It can be charged through a USB auxiliary battery and the video can be monitored through the HDMI port.

Tilt LCD

Tilting for high / low angle shooting is possible. For high angle, about 45 degrees, low angle can tilt more than 90 degrees. The durability of the tilt display is shown to a decent level.

Built-in Flash

There is a simple built-in flash. Built-in flash and TTL are supported, and you can also bounce to the top of your finger. I personally do not use it other than Light sync, but it is a useful part depending on the situation.

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A6500 + MD50.4 (w MD-NEX adaptor)

It shows the MD 50.4 lens mounted on the A6500 through the adapter. Most crop E-mount lenses are similar in size to the above and show a natural shape when mounted.

A6500 + FE 2470GM

Among the FE lenses, it is a large lens mounted on the FE 2470GM. It looks pretty big. It looks like it would be nice to have an advanced standard zoom lens of 16-50 F2.8 for Crop E mounts.

03 First impression

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In fact, I have a lot of upcoming reviews. Here's a summary of the advantages and disadvantages of using a product for a week or so. Overall, it's limited and less optimized, but touch-based functionality is finally available and we're looking forward to future use. It is a prominent body that has many advantages such as improved anti-shake image quality and 5-axis anti-shake. As I mentioned earlier, we will review the features of the A6500 one by one in a future review.

A6500, pros :)

- The best AF performance in CSC

- APS-C CSC first 5-axis image stabilizer

- 11 shots / 8 shots (continuous Live View) shooting with AF/AE tracking

- JPG 300 or more / RAW 120 or more cool burst buffers

- Touch-operated AF point

- Reviews and simple operations are possible even during buffer processing.

- Highly sensitive noise performance (in the best class of APS-C)

- Geo tagging function via Bluetooth

- Spot metering function, highlight priority light metering, spot range adjustment, etc. Detailed metering function

- Improved grip and added custom buttons

- Robustly improved eyepiece

- Very good 4K picture quality and image function (FHD 120fps, S-log3, S & Q function etc.)

- Shutter unit with improved quietness and durability

- Solid body build

A6500, cons :( 

- Lossless 14 bit RAW file not supported.

- AF speed and detection capability significantly degraded in low light

- I do not know why, but menu response are not fast as A7 series.

- LCD quality is worser than the competition at present

- Low frame rate rear display compared to EVF

- Unusual shutter release feeling (resistance is not linear)

- Touch UI / UX part that needs improvement in response speed, optimization and function

- Too much NR of BionZ X in JPG 

- Crop E-mount lens group and future road map

- too small an flexible spot area

- Battery efficiency needs improvement

- absence of front dial

- A little cropping occurs at 4K 30fps

- Dust removal system is not effective as its competitors