Sony Alpha A5100

COMPACT SIZED CAMERA DELIVERS MIRRORLESS FEATURES.

SONY OFFERS QUITE a huge selection of mirrorless cams and the A5100 sits around the middle of its range. And despite being in the mirrorless category, it actually feels a lot more like a compact xed-lens camera, especially with the way that Sony have the zoom lever, more commonly found on compact cameras. e lack of dials for exposure, aperture and shooting modes also adds to the compact cam feel.

Inside, it still packs an APS-C sized sensor, which is able to produce decent quality images. In ideal shooting conditions, the A5100 does perform very well. However, when it comes to shooting in low light, bumping the ISO up to anything above 3200 and the quality unfortunately starts to su er.

Video can be recorded at 1080p at 60fps. Surprisingly, when shooting video, the A5100 can still give you a large amount of control, provided you rst select the Manual Exposure mode. is is by far the camera’s best feature, as most others in this price range seem to have video exposure limited to the exposure compensation and sometimes the ISO. With these features, it makes it easier to get the right exposure on the video, rather than letting the camera’s light sensors do the guesswork.

While the A5100’s compact camera appearance may be a turn o to some people, don’t let looks fool you: this is a camera that can still get the job done, albeit in a somewhat di erent way to some of the other more traditional mirrorless options. Its wide variety of compatible lenses doesn’t hurt, either.