At a glance
- 24.2MP APS-C Exmor CMOS
- Up to 11fps continuous shooting
- 5-axis in-body stabilisation
- 3in/921k-dot tiltable touchscreen
- 2.36-million-dot EVF
Sony A6500 review – Introduction
The Alpha 6500 offers a staggering dynamic range (13.7 EV at ISO 100). It’s possible to pull back detail from shadowed areas where you thought it was lost
The A6500 is Sony’s latest flagship APS-C E-mount compact system camera and is essentially an enhanced version of the A6300 that provides a number of performance and handling upgrades for those with deeper pockets. Targeted primarily at enthusiasts and billed as an all-rounder the A6500 is a richly featured model that boasts some particularly attractive specifications for sports, action and wildlife photographers. These include a claimed focus acquisition time of just 0.5secs, extensive AF tracking options, an 11fps maximum burst speed and an significantly enhanced memory buffer. It’s extensive range of 4K, Full HD and HD video recording options also mark it out as a serious tool for videographers.
While the A6300 updated the then two-year-old A6000 with a fairly extensive list of hardware and specification upgrades, the differences between the A6300 and the A6500 are actually quite a bit more subtle. That said there are some notable changes, the most headline-grabbing of which is arguably the addition of built-in 5-axis image stabilisation. In addition the A6500 also benefits from a new front-end LSI chip for faster throughput and improved buffer performance and a touch-sensitive rear LCD display. Elsewhere, other improvements include a new shutter mechanism, the addition of Slow and Quick (S&Q) video modes, the ability to extract 8MP still images from 4K footage in-camera, and a redesigned menu system that features colour-coded tabs for more intuitive navigation.
