Review: Sony A6700 APS-C mirrorless camera

Friday 8 November 2024, 14:28 by Nando Harmsen | 13,018 views | 2 comments

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

After four years, there is a successor to Sony's popular A6600. This is the A6700, a mirrorless camera with an APS-C sensor. It gives you access to the latest technology and features, in a newly designed camera body. I was given the camera for a review.

The new APS-C mirrorless camera: the Sony A6700
The A6700 is a camera for anyone who does not need a full-frame sensor and is looking for a compact mirrorless camera. The smaller sensor makes a compact camera possible, together with compact lenses. This is of course ideal as a travel camera, vlog camera, but also for any other type of photography.

Despite its compact design, the A6700 with its newly designed camera body feels very comfortable in the hand. The camera is not too small, has a well-shaped grip and enough buttons and dials for intuitive operation.

The Sony A6700 at a glance

There are a large number of changes compared to its predecessor. Unfortunately, I cannot describe these changes from first-hand experience. I have never held that previous camera. There are a few things that stand out, one of them being the fully articulating screen.

The 3-inch fully articulating LCD screen is a considerable improvement over its predecessor.
The A6700 also has more control dials, including the dial below the shutter button. On the rear there is an AF-ON button, and the menu button has been placed on an angled part of the body.

The layout of the buttons and dials on top of the A6700. There is now also a control dial below the shutter button, which is very welcome.
There is room for a large NP-FZ100 battery in the handgrip. According to the official test reports, it is possible to take up to 570 images on a single charge. On the other side of the camera are the connections and the slot for a UHS-II SD card.

The large NP-FZ100 battery provides around 570 photos.
The connections consist of a USB-C connection with power delivery support. There is a micro HDMI connection and the option to connect headphones and a microphone. There is also a multi-interface hot shoe.

The connections on the Sony A6700. It is advisable to choose a fast V90 UHS-II SD card to make use of all the video features.
The camera is very compact at 12,2 x 6,9 x 6,4 centimetres. Its weight of 493 grams is very reasonable. The final weight will of course be determined by the lens you use. If you choose APS-C lenses, the final weight remains within reasonable limits.

A beautifully compact E4/PZ 10-20G lens or an E1.8/11mm lens provides a compact setup that is easy to take with you.

The most important specifications

So much for the camera's appearance. What about its features? Let me list the most important specifications, for both photography and video.

• 26-megapixel Back Side Illuminated CMOS APS-C sensor
  
• Bionz XR processor with A.I. engine
  
• AF tracking with subject recognition (people, animals, birds, insects, vehicles, aeroplanes)
  
• Fully articulating 3-inch touch-screen LCD with 1.04 megapixels
  
• 2.36-megapixel electronic viewfinder with 1.07x magnification
  
• Maximum continuous shooting speed of 11 images per second
  
• 5 stops of image stabilisation over 5 axes
  
• 4K 60p video oversampled from 6K
  
• 4K 120p with 1.58x crop
  
• 10-bit video with 4:2:2 S-Cinetone, S-log3 and HLG profiles
  
• Single UHS-II SD card slot
  
• NP-FZ100 battery with 570 images per charge (CIPA)
  
• 493 grams including battery
  

The presence of the Artificial Intelligence engine, which is also found in the Sony A7R V, is striking. This A.I. engine should provide improved subject recognition and AF tracking. Within subject recognition, you can set a preference consisting of people, animals, animals and birds, birds, insects, cars and trains, and finally aeroplanes.

The insect subject recognition makes the camera detect the butterfly immediately and focus on it. Unedited JPEG straight from the camera.

Autofocus and shooting speed

As with every other Sony camera, there are 7 AF areas to choose from, ranging from almost the entire image area to a single AF point. Choose one of the subject recognition settings I mentioned earlier, and the camera will get to work with the A.I. engine.

Two screens from the AF menu. Many more settings are available, which can sometimes make it difficult to make the right choice.
Once the camera has focused on a subject, the tracking works fantastically. Depending on the settings, focus remains perfectly maintained. Other subjects that enter the frame are ignored.

Once the camera has focused on the subject, all other subjects in the frame are ignored. Unedited JPEG straight from the camera.
When focusing itself, the camera can sometimes start showing a mind of its own. Despite the selected subject preference, the camera tends to focus on subjects that it considers more important, perhaps because of the A.I. engine. This also happens with subjects for which you have not set a preference.

Even with animals selected as the subject, the A.I. engine considers the person more important. The entire series of photos that followed consequently had incorrect focus. Unedited JPEG straight from the camera.

This unexpected autofocus behaviour happened mainly when the camera considered a subject in the background more important. But I also saw it when objects were much closer than the actual subject. The selected subject in the autofocus setting was then ignored.

Because the tracking works so well, the camera then continued following the incorrectly selected subject, or rather, the subject it selected itself, leaving the entire series of photos out of focus.

Despite animal AF being selected, the camera chooses the person in the background and keeps focus on that point. As a result, the dog is never in focus. Unedited JPEG straight from the camera, slightly cropped.
The Sony A6700 is not particularly fast. With both the electronic and mechanical shutter, the maximum shooting speed is 11 images per second. In general, this does not have to be a problem. Even so, an action photographer will undoubtedly want a faster continuous shooting speed.

I noticed little rolling shutter effect, which means that the sensor readout is fast enough. The camera's buffer is large enough that you will not quickly reach its limit during a burst. A fast memory card is recommended for this.

Image quality and dynamic range

The image quality of the 26-megapixel Back Side Illuminated CMOS sensor leaves nothing to be desired. Unfortunately, while writing this, the raw files are not yet supported by Adobe. I can therefore show or tell you little about the camera's dynamic range.

All the images in this article are JPEG images straight from the camera, with some images slightly edited. This is mentioned in the caption.

It is possible to show the ISO performance of the Sony A6700. The camera offers a standard ISO range from ISO 100 to ISO 32.000. This can be expanded to as much as ISO 102.400, although this produces hardly usable results.

A series of photos at different ISO values. This is approximately a 100% enlargement from the image above.

The JPEG images from the camera can be used up to around ISO 3.200. In that case, you have to accept a small amount of noise. At ISO 6.400, the noise and selected noise reduction start to become distracting. Higher ISO values are not recommended. Except in emergencies, of course.

Sony A6700 + E PZ 10-20mm G at 20mm, ISO 400, f/6,3, 1/800s, edited JPEG

Photographing with the camera

The Sony A6700 offers a number of useful options for photographers. It has taken many of these functions from the Sony A7R V, such as focus stacking and a bulb timer.

Some of the extra photography functions in the menu, including focus stacking. The camera does not combine these photos itself, you have to do that during post-processing.

There are also a number of creative settings, such as softening the skin in portraits. The question is how useful these functions are for the photographer who would choose such a camera.

Exposure compensation has a strange limitation. Although the indicator on the screen goes up to plus or minus 5 stops, the exposure simulation on the LCD and EVF only shows compensation up to 3 stops. From 3 to 5 stops, the image remains unchanged.

Sometimes a substantial exposure compensation is needed. The image in the viewfinder or LCD can show a correction of up to 3 stops. In manual mode, a greater exposure difference can be displayed. Sony A6700 + FE 55mm ZA, ISO100, f/1.8, 1/2000s, edited JPEG
If you compensate the exposure in manual mode, the difference in exposure is shown as it should be, even beyond plus or minus 5 stops. It is strange and illogical that this limit is built into the display of exposure compensation itself.

The choice Sony has made as standard for assigning functions to the control dials is not the most logical. When you use the camera for the first time, it is wise to change this immediately to suit your own preferences. The camera offers more than enough options for this.

There is no joystick, which is a shame. The AF-ON button sticks out enough to find it without looking.
The AF-ON button is clear and easy to find. If you do not use it, you can of course reassign its function. What is a major omission, however, is the lack of a joystick. It would improve the operation and speed of setting, for example, a single AF point.

Video recording with the Sony A6700

The A6700 is said to have the same sensor as the Sony FX30 cinema camera. Although the A6700 is not primarily aimed at filming, there are enough options to do so. The articulating screen also makes things much easier for vloggers.

Part of the available settings for video

The 4K image is oversampled from the sensor's 6K output. It produces a nicely sharp image. Sony offers a number of options such as 10-bit 4:2:2, S-Cinetone, S-log3 and HLG. It is possible to load a LUT so that the log image does not look flat on the LCD screen.

A short film made with the Sony A6700

The A6700's image stabilisation works reasonably well for video. With active digital stabilisation switched on, there is a significant improvement and you could film handheld without a gimbal. This does result in a 1.13x crop.

If you switch to auto framing, where the camera adjusts the frame as the subject moves, no stabilisation is available. In principle, this is mainly suitable for video recordings from a tripod, where the camera adjusts the composition according to the movement of your subject.

Conclusion

My first impression of the Sony A6700 was very positive. Personally, I think it is one of the first Sony cameras I have used where the ergonomics feel right. It sits well and securely in the hand, and most buttons are easy to reach.

The modern menu is so much better than the predecessor, and the presence of the control dial by the shutter button is a welcome addition. There are a few points that are typical of Sony cameras, though. These include the feedback when pressing the buttons and the grip of the control dial on the back of the camera. If only Sony would improve those.

The lack of a joystick is a major omission, but in its place there is a fully articulating LCD screen. Unfortunately, the resolution of this screen has not improved compared to its predecessor. It could really have done with a substantial update. The same applies to the electronic viewfinder.

Sony A6700 + E PZ 10-20mm G at 10,5mm, ISO 100, f/11, 1/100s, JPEG straight from the camera, shadows lifted

The autofocus leaves me with mixed feelings. On the one hand, I am impressed by its speed and tracking capabilities. Once it has focused, the autofocus remains perfectly on that subject, or at that distance. Even when the subject is temporarily out of the frame.

On the other hand, the autofocus does sometimes go its own way. The preference you have set, people, animals and so on, can even be ignored by the camera. The camera then fails to switch or correct quickly when the 'distracting' element leaves the frame.

Because of this behaviour, I do not have the confidence in the autofocus that you would expect, especially with the A.I. engine that is talked about so much. If your subject is obvious, it will not cause a problem. If there are several subjects in the frame, it can be a gamble what the A.I. AF engine decides to do.

Sony A6700 + E PZ 10-20mm G at 19,5mm, ISO 800, f/7,1, 1/640s, JPEG straight from the camera, shadows lifted

Unfortunately, I was only given a wide-angle lens and a wide-angle zoom lens. I managed to get hold of a 55mm ZA lens, but a telephoto lens would have been desirable for photographing animals and people. Especially to test the autofocus further.

It is a shame that Sony has not improved the resolution of the LCD screen and EVF. As far as I understand, this is unchanged compared to the four-year-old predecessor. Only the refresh rate of the electronic viewfinder has been improved. You would expect these things to have received a substantial upgrade on a modern camera as well.

It should be mentioned that no battery charger is supplied with this camera. This means you have to buy one separately, or charge the battery in the camera using a suitable USB-C cable that supports power delivery. That cable is not supplied either.

What I like about the Sony A6700

• Compact camera body that fits perfectly in the hand
  
• AF tracking works accurately and reliably
  
• AF-ON button is available
  
• Modern menu layout
  
• Control dial in the grip
  
• Auto-framing option for video
  
• Only the maximum video quality requires a V90 memory card
  
• LUTs can be loaded
  
• Little rolling shutter effect, both in photography and video
  

What I like less about the Sony A6700

• Autofocus system tries to be too clever and sometimes goes its own way
  
• No joystick
  
• LCD and EVF resolution not improved
  
• Exposure compensation is displayed up to a maximum of 3 stops
  
• Only 11 images per second
  
• No charger or USB-C cable supplied
  
• Unfortunately, no tilting LCD screen like on the Sony A7R V
  
• Not all buttons have a clear click point
  

Sony A6700 + E PZ 10-20mm G at 20mm, ISO 3.200, f/4, 1/125s, JPEG straight from the camera
Despite the sometimes unpredictable autofocus behaviour, using the Sony A6700 is a pleasure. Its small and light size is lovely to use, and the camera is perfect for both photography and filming.

The camera is not the cheapest on the market, but you get a lot in return. It costs 1,699 euros for the body only. It is not a perfect camera, but I can certainly recommend it.

Thanks to Sony Nederland for providing the camera.

» Order the Sony A6700 from Cameranu

Een eerdere versie van dit artikel is verschenen op vrijdag 4 augustus 2023, 20:20.

You might also like

• 

  Review: Fujifilm X-T50

  by Nando Harmsen

• 

  Review: Sony FE 1.4/85mm GM II

  by Nando Harmsen

• 

  Sony RX10 V bridge camera announced

  by Elja Trum

• 

  Sony FE 100-400mm f/5.6-8 OSS: affordable telephoto range for Sony photographers

  by Elja Trum

• 

  Review: Canon EOS R50 V vlog camera

  by Nando Harmsen

• 

  Review: Sony FE 16-25mm and FE 24-50mm f/2.8 G lenses

  by Nando Harmsen

2 comments

Have your say

Please note: Articles older than a week can only be commented on by signed-in visitors.
Would you still like to comment? sign in or create a free account.