Rec 709 Sony A6400

[Danel Potvin]

Despite its compact size and light weight, the a6400 delivers speedy performance and a range of fearues you'd expect from a full-frame model. Whether you're taking still shots or movies, creative compositions or everyday selfie shots, you'll enjoy beautiful images that you'll want to share, on the go.

Over the last few days I have been in San Diego testing the new Sony A6400 Camera, in the rain and sun and no, the A6400 is not weather sealed. I think it is important to remember the price point here of $899 as it is not going to have all of the fancy features of a $2000 model.

The new Sony a6400 is an Entry Level APS-C camera. There are some wonderful things about it and some average things about it but at $900 for the body only it truly does give some bang for the buck and does a lot of things very well. Focus Speed and Tracking, image quality, nice EVF, small and light, flip up LCD, touch screen and real time full time tracking capability.

When I arrived to San Diego I got to see some great friends like Ted Forbes from The Art of Photography. Ken Rockwell from KenRockwell.com, Jim Fisher from PC Mag, Gordon Laing from CameraLabs.com and Leigh from The Snapchick (YouTube) as well as many other amazing people who review cameras.

Sony has always had the a6000, a6300 and a6500 and now they have the a6400 that share the same body, same battery, same feel and usability, same sensor (I think), and well, it feels like shooting an a6300 or a6500. It does have the updates like the newer processor, the amazing tracking AF and EYE AF and soon, Animal Eye AF.

So there is no big huge dramatic evolution here, but the auto focus performance is quite special. Beats my Canon EOS-R for face tracking, and general tracking. Beats the Nikon Z6 with AF speed and tracking. Beats the A7III and A7RIII in these areas as well. Huh, and for $900? yep.

Real Time Tracking and EYE AF is here in the 6400 and in April, Animal Eye AF will come via a firmware update. Animal Eye AF may sound silly to some but this is huge for the wildlife crowd or anyone who wants to shoot their cat or dog (and we know how many do this). But imaging being out in the wild shooting wildlife. With Animal EYE AF, you can always nail the focus. Sure, we have been doing it ourselves for years but for those who want it even easier, here ya go!

I wanted to test it as a vlogging camera, a photographic tool, and I wanted to test this new real time face and eye tracking as I was pleased to hear you no longer need to hold down a button to bring EYE Af up and use it (which was always a pain IMO). Now you can just activate it in the camera via a focus mode and the camera will look for an eye, and it will find it. If the subject moves or turns around it will default to normal tracking but will keep looking for an eye or face.

Sometimes the things we think are so important are not really that important. What I mean is, for casual youtube vlogging, the built in may work for you unless you are in a very noisy environment in which case a shotgun mic would always do better because you will not be picking up all of the outside noise.

I am happy that Sony gave us a flip up LCD but I find the implementation a bit awkward and odd. Maybe I am just used to either not having them, or having them flip to the side. Not sure but I would have preferred the side swing out. Sony likes to be different, and here they did it again. It works, and I am glad to have it even if it is not as I would have designed it.

The LCD is nice, and also has a touch focus feature. When using tracking you can enable touch and press the screen to set who or what you want to track. I tried this and it stuck like glue to the subject I chose. Only the shooting basketball video did the tracking get confused for me. When a player would run in front of the other the camera would switch to the closest player.

The battery is the older W battery so it is small, and will not give anywhere near the life as the new Z batteries used in the full frame VIII models. Keeps it small I guess. I used one battery over two days for all of my shooting and testing. Never needed to dip into battery #2 (but t was close).

My experience with the A6400 was much better than I thought it would be. When they announced it, and even before that when I saw the rumor sites I was a bit disappointed. Then I used it and saw the value in this camera. It can take gorgeous images, can take fantastic video (4K), can do 120 FPS at 30p, can be used as a vlog camera with the flip up LCD and has the best AF in any camera I have used under $3000.

The Sony A6400 is not a pro camera in any way. No weather sealing, not as good as full frame in low light, is not built like a tank and most of the APS-C glass is good but not life changing good. Sure, you can shoot full frame glass on this camera but it is really designed to be a small camera, take anywhere and for personal, family, vacation, or vlog.

For me the relevant leap forward is from smart phone sensor size to APS-C sensor size (5x times linear). From there the further improvements by upgrading to full format (1.5x), then to cropped medium format (1.3x) get degressive smaller and progressively more expensive. Technical image quality of digital APS-C with contemporary lenses is ahead of film full format with vintage lenses, apart from the effect of more dept of field.

Two photos (three as there is another in the video) are with the 18-135, One with the 24mm 1.8 APS-C lens (an extra in the video and this is the original from the NEX days), a few with a 3rd party manual focus Voigtlander a couple with the 24-70 and a couple with the 70-200. I also used the 10-18 for video here and there within the video I posted. Tried to use them all but as always GLASS is the most important thing with photography, much more so than the body.

If you want much more control, Sony released the a6400 with interval shooting built in! This is something I complained about in my a7iii review, but then Sony released it with firmware 3.0. This lets you have full control over your timelapse, you can drag your shutter and get the results you want.If you want me to put together a tutorial for that, let me know in the comments section.

Currently you have JavaScript disabled. In order to post comments, please make sure JavaScript and Cookies are enabled, and reload the page. Click here for instructions on how to enable JavaScript in your browser.

Since you have aperture and shutter speed fixed, the only parameter your camera can use to adjust exposure is ISO. Since ISO can't go any lower than 100, your footage will become overexposed during bright daylight and ISO 100 (which is plausible given the timeframe you're having this issue). Try using a smaller aperture, or use a neutral density filter if you want to shoot with a wide aperture.

Not trying to be rude but maybe you should educate yourself a bit more on the exposure triangle. You can't just choose some parameters you like and expect the camera to magically fix exposure for you. It just doesn't work that way.

so you are saying sony a6400 cant handle daylight at noon lol ?? i know the exposure triangle and always use it ! but my issue happend two times when i followed everything properly. - my question is it because of the chip / sensor problem ? or anything related to lens ?? because all my in cam settings are followed correctly

Have a look at this chart: in light clouds at f/2.8, you need a shutter speed of 1/1600 sec for proper exposure at ISO 100. The only way to get proper exposure at f/2.8 and ISO 100 at a slower shutter speed is to use a neutral density filter.

You dont understand , the first setting was at iso auto mode where camera selects the iso - in this method the image appeared same as i have uploaded ! i always do iso auto because clouds come and go fast - light changes - tropical country !! i was freaked out by this and switched to iso manuel and keeped on reducing to fix this issue - but it appeared the same throughout till iso 100 , lowest iso possible in a6400 !!! i was not keeping the iso at 100 , the iso was in auto mode -

You're starting to get it: ISO 100 at F/2.8 with a shutter speed of 1/100 sec is about 4 stops over-exposed in lightly clouded conditions, or 5 stops in bright sunny daylight. Setting ISO to Auto doesn't help here: it can't go any lower than 100 so if shutter speed and aperture are fixed, the outcome will look good in darker conditions but as soon as the sun comes out, ISO drops to 100 and then hits a wall where it can't compensate for exposure anymore and your image will overexpose.

okay now i understand ! so i should adjust the aperture / shutter speed when this situation comes right ? and i always try to balance with the histogram , thats why i cranked the shutter in the first place ! anyways let me try this and ill come back - Thanks Pieter

Exactly! This is why I suggested you'd delve a bit more into the exposure triangle and why I showed you the indicative exposure values in that diagram. This diagram is not specific to the A6400, it is valid for ALL cameras and brands (disregarding some variations in ISO-calibration and lens transmission). No camera can just 'fix' the exposure if you use inappropriate exposure parameters.

As you can see, only the option with an ND-filter allows you to use the exposure parameters you so desired (aperture F/2.8, shutter speed of 1/100 sec). Any of the other options will require some compromise with regard to aperture or shutter speed.

That's a stupid software thing and becomes especially apparent under those conditions: the in-camera vignetting correction does not seem to be gradual but compensates in discrete steps away from the center. When boosting the in-camera corrected image (either in post or by extremely high ISO in-camera), these concentric rings become very clear. I believe the in-camera shading compensation is baked into the RAW-file if you do photography, which renders an otherwise nice photo useless.

c80f0f1006