Sony Alpha A6500 First Impressions Review

Only 8 months after the debut of the A6300, this camera adds in-body image stabilization, and even (finally!) a touchscreen. Camera technology aside, the only snag facing these more affordable, high-performing Sony models is a slightly stale lens lineup. But that said, these excellent APS-C cameras have the speedy specs if not the pizazz of their full-frame brethren.

Design & Handling

At first glance, the A6500 looks like the NEX-6 and A6300 that came before it. It has a smallish body, an electronic viewfinder in the corner, and a tilting rear LCD touchscreen.

The styling may be uninspired but it finally puts function before form. The A6500 cribs its improved front grip from the A7 II series, meaning that it’s the first APS-C body that should feel better balanced when paired with larger lenses.

The button layout is also remarkably similar to the more recent full-frame Sonys, but look a little closer, and you’ll see that there’s only one control dial on the rear of the camera. That aside, the rear button positions are identical to the A7 family. Like the A6000, the A6500 retains a corner-mounted EVF instead of one mounted in a small faux pentaprism up top. That makes its profile significantly more compact, meaning it’ll take up less room in a bag.

Where Sony got it right is with weathersealing. This is the only E-mount APS-C body to have full weathersealing, a feature that other comparably-priced mirrorless cameras have. That means that Sony’s premium crop sensor camera can finally stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the likes of the Olympus E-M5 Mark II, Panasonic Lumix GH4, and Fujifilm X-T2.

Features

When searching for major hardware improvements in the A6500, there's one feature to look for: 5-axis in-body image stabilization. Even though in-lens stabilization is great, photographers get tremendous rewards from sensor-shift. Sony says its SteadyShot Inside system is effective for up to five stops, just as good as the IBIS we saw in the A7 II.

That means no matter if you mount a legacy or native lens to the A6500, you suddenly get protection from shakes at low shutter speeds. It’s awesome to see this proliferate to cameras outside the Micro Four Thirds system, where it rose to prominence as a feature.

Sony’s made spectacular gains in sensor technology, too and it’s not afraid to show them off in the A6500. This 24.2-megapixel APS-C sensor is still a peach, featuring super-speedy readout speeds, and a whopping 425 phase detection autofocus points across the sensor. We loved the sensor in the A6300, and if that's any indication of the image quality the A6500 is capable of, then this camera is going to be great.

The quicker sensor, paired with the fast AF and a speedy processor make 11 fps possible in its highest burst mode, with live view turned off. If you want to keep an eye on your subject, you can attain 8 fps shooting. What’s even more impressive is that the buffer inside the A6500 can hold 307 images in JPEG mode, so you can effectively burst for 35 seconds without the rate slowing down at all.

Video remains more or less the same as in the A6300, with 4K shooting in-camera to an SD card. Like the A6300, UHD is shot at 100 Mbps, downsampled from a 6K stream for 2.4x oversampling. 120p slow-motion in 1080 is also an option.

Conclusion

Impressive imaging technology

The past five years, Sony's been at the forefront of digital imaging technology, and it continues to impress. Even if the A6500 isn't the most impressive new model we've seen from Sony, it earns its place in the lineup thanks to image stabilization and a long-overdue touchscreen. I like to think that it's like an A7 Mark II without its little EVF hat, and with a smaller sensor inside. Weathersealing is essential at this price, and I was glad to see it included. Overall image quality is probably on-par with the A6300, which is nothing to sneeze at.

Its burst rate is still good, but we now have to come to grips with rates as high as 60 FPS RAW from the Olympus E-M1 Mark II, albeit with AF and AE locked. But other than touch input, improved processing power, and IBIS, you might be better off going with a marked-down A6300, just to save a little money. It's almost as good in most regards.

My main concern about the A6500 isn't its performance or its design—it's more of an ideological one. With the A7 series getting all Sony's development resources and TLC, how important is APS-C going forward? There are plenty of full-frame lenses forthcoming, and they'll be compatible with the A6500, but if the lenses you desperately need are in the 35mm system, you might be better off ponying up for an A7 II instead.