Sony Alpha A6500 review

Our Verdict

In-body image stabilization finally comes to Sony's APS-C flagship. Add tons of buffering and a touchscreen, and the A6500 arguably outperforms Sony's A7 Mark II.

For

Ultra-fast AF system

Respectable buffer capacity p>

Extended video options

Versus

Dark rear LCD

Notable rolling shutter

Still lacks a headphone port p>

Overview and Key Features

Construction, handling and AF

Performance and image quality

Verdict and competition

Sony Alpha A6500 Deals

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The Alpha A6500 is Sony's flagship APS-C mirrorless camera, and it packs a lot of tech.

Sony left it six months before updating the

Alpha A6300

with the A6500, but while it might seem like a premature update, the Alpha 6500 benefits from a number of key features, including in-body image stabilization to blur the line between APS- C from Sony and its line of full-frame Alpha 7 mirrorless cameras.

Sony A6500 Body

|

£1215 p>

£649 (including £300 cashback) at Amazon

The A6500 sits at the top of Sony's APS-C mirrorless camera series tree, and it's a particularly powerful camera for tracking moving subjects and video. And this surprisingly good offer sees its asking price almost halve; just pay £949 today and claim another £300 cash back from Sony to bring it down to just £649. Considering its £1500 RRP, that's pretty good.

See the offer

Sony Alpha A6500 (black) on Amazon for $1299.99

Sony has also outfitted its new camera with a greatly improved buffer to make it a tempting proposition for shooting action, while there's also the welcome addition of a touchscreen interface. The inclusion of these new features makes the A6500 one of the most comprehensive crop sensor cameras on the market today.

Features

APS-C CMOS sensor, 24.2MP p>

3.0-inch, 921,000-dot vari-angle touchscreen

4K video capture

While the Sony A6500 sticks with the Alpha 6300's 24.2MP APS-C sensor and 4D focus system (with 425 phase-detection AF points), there are welcome improvements elsewhere.

It's notably the first Sony APS-C camera to feature 5-axis in-body image stabilization, just like we've seen with the second-generation Alpha 7 series of cameras from Sony, like the

Alpha A7R II

. And the good news is that it not only works with Sony's unstabilized optics, but can also be used with Sony's OSS stabilized lenses.

Sony has also overhauled the A6500's buffer, delivering a huge boost in performance, the camera is capable of capturing 307 full-size JPEGs or 107 raw files, all at a fast 11 burst speed. fps - a marked improvement over the A6300's 44 JPEG and 22 raw limit.

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Nikon D500

, but it beats most cameras, including absolutely crushing the

Canon EOS 7D Mark II Buffer Capacity

of 31 raw files.

A faster Large Scale Integration (LSI) chip and image processing algorithm improves texture reproduction while reducing noise. With this new chipset and code, the A6500 specifically produces less noise in the mid to high parts of the ISO100-25,600 sensitivity range (expandable to ISO51,200).

The Alpha 6500 also gains a touchscreen (although the resolution remains the same at 921,000 dots), allowing you to change your focus point on the fly, which can be very useful when shooting video. .

Likewise, there's the same XGA OLED Tru-Finder, with a resolution of 2.36 million dots and a maximum refresh rate of 120Hz, as on the A6300, although the eyecup is a little softer.

While the Sony Alpha A6500 gains no additional video capability over its predecessor, it basically comes with everything the videographer could want.

You get 4K (3840 x 2160) recording at 25p and 30p in Super 35mm format. In this mode, the camera uses its entire sensor to capture the 6K source to avoid cropping. The oversampled video data is then downscaled to a final 4K output with enhanced depth and detail.

Full HD recording is also available if you want to process smaller files, and the ability to go up to 120p means you can capture slow motion video.

Video pros will also be pleased to know that the Sony A6500 upsamples 4K footage at 4.2.0 internally and 4.2.2 externally via HDMI. Plus, it has all the flat picture profiles you would want for later grading footage.

Despite the wealth of video features, we're disappointed to see that, like on the A6300, there's no headphone jack on this camera. In order to monitor your audio, you will need to closely monitor the levels on screen or hook up an external monitor with an audio output.

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