A6500 Review – Is it worth it, or wait for the next one? By Max Yuryev

More and more testers are publishing their A6500 previews. Here are the ones published the last 24 hours:

24 hours with Sony’s A6500 mirrorless camera (Engadget).
Sony A6500 review-in-progress at CameraLabs
Sony a6500 Sample Images / Early Review (Photorec).
Dan Watson images and ibis test.
Sony a6500 – Hands-on Review compared to the a6300, a7S II, Gh4 by Videomaker.
Woof! Sony a6500 sample images are here (Dpreview).

A6500 at BHphoto, Amazon, Adorama. In EU at Amazon.de, Fotomundus, Calumet.de. WexUK. PCHstore.

Althaugh the new A99II is shipping in Europe there are still no full reviews out there. All we got today is the interesting first Look Review by Max Yuryev.

Imaging Resource posted a A99II Image Gallery. And there is a German first impression review by Fotomieten.

Sony A99II preorders at BHphoto, Adorama. Amazon. PhotoPorst, Calumet Germany and WexUK.

We don’t know yet if the new Sony A6500 will be the first Sony E-mount camera suitable for serious sport photography. But in the meantime you can check out that video to learn how to set the right settings.

The A6500 is now also available for preorder in Amazon Europe stores:
A6500 at BHphoto, Amazon, Adorama. In EU at Amazon.de. Amazon.fr. Amazon.co.uk. Amazon.it. Calumet.de. WexUK. PCHstore.

The folks over at TheCameraStoreTV posted their Great JPEG Shootout. They tested the Canon, Nikon, Sony, Fuji, iPhone, Pentax, Olympus, Panasonic cameras and found that Sony was the third worse after Pentax and the iPhone. Chris said the Sony colors are very natural but this is at the same time the downside as it doesn’t look “pleasing”.

The A99Ii is now shipping in Europe and above you can watch on of the first A99II unboxing videos. And an reader who prefers to remain anonymous sent me this:

“I just received my A99II this week. A wonderful piece of hardware so far !
The only disappointment is that I intend to use it mostly for wildlife photography with my Tamron 150-600G1 (A011 Version) and apparently this lens only supports the hybrid detection AF system and not both it and the focal plane phase detection AF module, meaning that I can only use the 79 Hybrid Phase Detection AF Points…
In the menu => Camera Settings1 => AF System => Auto / or Ddc Phase AF Only, when choosing „Auto“ on the Tamron 150-600, only the 79 AF Points of the dedicated phase detection AF sensor are usable.
I guess (hopefully) the G2 version will be able to use both sensors…”

Lars also got his A99II and writes:

“Well, I got my A99II today and I tried some of the AF modes:

1. Hybrid phase detect AF works only with Sony lenses (the compatibility list was postet a few days ago). The Sony Zeiss 135mm/f1.8 works like a beauty and so does the Sony 500mm f4 with some real fast AF. For these lenses you can do the AF micro adjust for the center and for each corner. Comes in Handy, when you set your focuspoint into a corner.
2. Minolta and all 3’rd party lenses I tested work only with the 79 phase detection AF of the dedicate phase detection sensor. Autofocus is quite fast even with an old Minolta 200mm/f2.8 or 600mm/f4. AF micro adjust works here only for the center. It is disappointing, that 3’rd party glass (even new ones) are not supported by the hybrid phase detect AF.
3. Eye AF, center lock-on AF and Lock-on AF works so far with all AF-lenses I tested. Minolta and 3’rd party only within the above restriction (see 2.).”

Sony A99II preorders at BHphoto, Adorama. Amazon. PhotoPorst, Calumet Germany and WexUK.

Should you get the superb new Zeiss 50mm f/1.4 FE lens or the much cheaper Rokinon 50mm f/1.4 FE autofous lens? What’s the trade off with the rokinon? Check out those two new review:

Admiringlight tested the Zeiss and concludes:

The cons list is short, and show really the only two things that are bad about the lens: it’s quite big, and it’s quite expensive. If you can get past those, there’s absolutely nothing left to worry about. Optically, this is the finest 50mm lens I’ve ever used, and is among the finest lenses of any focal length I’ve ever used. It’s exceptionally sharp across the entire frame right from f/1.4, and somehow gets even a bit sharper at smaller apertures. The bokeh is excellent and it controls almost all aberrations extremely well. The lens handily outperforms the already rather exceptional FE 55mm f/1.8: extremely impressive.

Lenstip tested the Rokinon (Smayang) lens:

The Samyang AF 50 mm f/1.4 FE seems to be a bit less successful lens than its reflex camera brother with the same parameters.Not so long ago the Samyang AF 50 mm f/1.4 FE was the cheapest standard with autofocus available and that fact held promise of a significant sale volume. After the launch of the Sony FE 50 mm f/1.8 the situation doesn’t look so rosy anymore; it seems without a distinct lowering of the price the Samyang won’t enjoy a huge market share.

To me this sound slike: if you have the money and ened the ultimate image quality go for the Zeiss. If money is factor and f/1.4 is not really needed go for the Zeiss 55mm f/1.8!

And by the way…here are the links to ALL FE 50mm lenses:

Sony FE 50mm f/2.8 macro ([shopcountry 51065])
Sony FE 50mm f/1.8 ([shopcountry 49849])
Zeiss FE Loxia 50mm f/2.0 ([shopcountry 47047])
Zeiss FE 55mm f/1.8 ([shopcountry 37736])
Rokinon (Samyang) FE 50mm f/1.4 ([shopcountry 51066])
Sony APS-C 50mm f/1.8 ([shopcountry 51067])
Handevision Iberit APS-C manual focus 50mm f/2.4 ([shopcountry 51068])
Zeiss 50mm FE f/1.4 ([shopcountry 51069])
Rokinon (Samyang) APS-C manual focus 50mm f/1.2 ([shopcountry 51070])
Rokinon (Samyang) FE manual focus 50mm f/1.4 ([shopcountry 51071])
Zeiss Touit APS-C 50mm f/2.8 macro ([shopcountry 51072])
Mitakon FE manual focus 50mm f/0.95 ([shopcountry 51073])

Long list :)

Every week I do check the Amazon lens sales ranking (Click here) and through all the year 2016 one lens kept remaining steadily on top. It’s the Sony 18-105mm E-mount lens. Surprised?
If you wonder why this lens sells fine just read the review conclusions just posted by Photozone:

The broad zoom range is highly useful for applications such as travel photography. It’s also a natural mate to the Sony E 10-18mm f/4 OSS. And unlike Sony’s full format lenses, the Sony E 18-105mm f/4 G OSS is also surprisingly affordable (600US$/500EUR). So all in all we haven’t seen greatness in this lens but it is an attractive package nonetheless.

Reminder: Once again I ask Sony engineers and marketing guys to also focus on the development of new APS-C E-mount lenses. Thanks!