{"id":9389,"date":"2019-04-07T19:36:28","date_gmt":"2019-04-08T00:36:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/?p=9389"},"modified":"2024-09-05T16:06:32","modified_gmt":"2024-09-05T21:06:32","slug":"review-sony-a6400","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/review-sony-a6400\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Sony a6400"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

With Sony’s recent emphasis on full-frame cameras and lenses, many users of Sony’s original APS-C E-mount cameras have begun to feel a bit left out. While Sony still has a long way to go with regards to native APS-C lens selection, the APS-C camera line got another injection of technology with the brand-new a6400.  While many await a ‘pro-grade’ APS-C body (akin to an A9 in APS-C clothing), the a6400 sits right between two of the now four 6000 series cameras in the APS-C line.  While the a6400 lacks the in-body image stabilization and a few features of the ‘higher-end’ a6500, it carves out its own niche very nicely with a brand new autofocus system and a ton of great features at a reasonable $899 price point.  In this review, I’ll examine the a6400 to see who this camera is for, and where it fits into the greater Sony ecosystem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sony a6400<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re not familiar with my reviews, I review from a real world shooting perspective. You won\u2019t find lens charts or resolution numbers here. There are plenty of other sites that cover those. I review products on how they act for me as a photographic tool. I am not a videographer, so my reviews concentrate on the still imaging capabilities of a camera.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Construction and Handling<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The a6400 is Sony’s fourth model in the 6000 series cameras, following the a6000, a6300 and a6500.  All four of the cameras in this series share essentially the same general body design and size, with minor differences here and there, with the biggest being the a6500’s larger grip and additional custom function button.  It seems Sony has found a form factor they like for their APS-C bodies, and is sticking with it.  For the most part, that’s not a bad thing, as the a6400 continues to be a body that is generally comfortable to handle, while providing easy reach to the controls and an extremely compact form factor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The a6400 from the exterior is most like the a6300. In fact, aside from the C2 button being labeled differently and the ‘a6400’ logo, they look identical when the rear screen is closed.  The result is a camera that will be instantly familiar to those upgrading from an a6300 or a6000.  The camera is constructed of lightweight magnesium alloy, and feels solid in the hand.  With that said, you can tell that the magnesium alloy frame is rather thin, and is not quite as robust as something like the A7 III.  Supposedly, the camera features some level of dust and moisture resistant weather sealing, though I wouldn’t trust the camera in a downpour, as the accessory port door and the battery door both lack any sort of gasketing. The front grip is relatively pronounced for such a small camera, and as such the handling is reasonably good with a few caveats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The a6400 will look familiar to previous owners of Sony APS-C bodies<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The camera is comfortable to hold when using smaller lenses, though I still think Sony could make a few tweaks to make it even better.  First, I would prefer the more rounded grip of the a6500, as the flat front grip of the a6400 is slightly awkward as it forces your fingertips up against the lens mount.  The second item, which would alleviate that issue, is that I wish they would make the body just a bit wider to allow for more space between the grip and lens mount.  That little extra space would just let the camera settle into the hand better. The current design can lead to your fingers feeling cramped between the grip and an attached lens.  As is common with small mirrorless cameras, your pinky will dangle off the bottom of the grip, but I’m used to that by now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rear of the camera has the same sculpted thumb rest that is nicely contoured to provide comfort and control on the rear of the camera.  The control dials and buttons are all within easy reach of your index finger or thumb, with a slight exception for the video record button, which sits to the right of the thumb rest.  It’s accessible enough, but because it requires you to remove your thumb entirely from the rear of the camera, and press in on the side a bit, it’s a move best done while supporting the camera with your left hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new rear screen, which can tilt up and down as well as flip forward 180 degrees for viewing while shooting selfies or for vlogging, is quite nice to use, and the mechanism that holds this screen is sturdy despite the triple-hinge design.  The flimsiness of the screen was one of the things I knocked about the a6000, so it’s nice to see a notably more robust construction on the later 6000 series cameras.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The a6400’s rear screen flipped forward 180 degrees<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I also found that while the screen mechanism is primarily designed for the forward shooting capability, it was advantageous for regular shooting as well, as it enables the screen to be pulled further away from the body, which can be helpful in some situations. Another advantage of the new hinge design is that it allows the screen to tilt downward further than on previous models, which were limited to a 45 degree downward tilt.  The a6400 can tilt downward around 80 degrees, making shooting with the camera over your head more natural in more situations.  Getting the mechanism to face forward can be a little awkward at first, but I quickly became accustomed to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Controls and Operation<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

As mentioned earlier, the a6400 borrows the control scheme almost directly from the a6300, with one key difference that I’ll get to in a moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The top of the a6400 features the shutter button on the front grip, which is surrounded by the power switch, allowing for easy access to turn the camera on and off.  Next to the shutter button sits the C1 button, which is one of many programmable buttons on the camera and can be set to a multitude of functions.  Like most of my cameras, I have this button set to enable magnification of the focus area, either for more precise autofocus or to aid in manual focus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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a6400 Top Controls<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Behind these buttons sits a standard PASM mode dial and the main thumb dial, which can be used to change exposure parameters.  This control is also programmable, though I have it set to change aperture (in aperture priority and manual modes) and shutter speed (in shutter priority mode).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rear of the camera is also identical to the a6300, and extremely similar to the a6000.  Coming from an a6000, the biggest change is the addition of the two-way switch, which changes the function of the button in the center of the switch depending on switch position.  These default to AF\/MF toggle and Exposure lock.  To the left of the switch sits the menu button and the internal flash release button.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Below the two-way switch is the now ubiquitous Fn menu button, which brings up a quick menu of 12 functions for easy access.  The Fn menu is fully programmable for your shooting preferences.  Below the Fn button sits the rear dial, which can be programmed to operate other exposure parameters.  I use it for exposure compensation.  The dial can be pressed for four additional functions, which default to display, ISO, drive mode and exposure compensation, though they can be programmed to access any function you want.  Below this dial are two additional buttons: one for image playback, and yet another programmable button. Finally, the movie record button (which is also programmable) sits to the right of the thumb grip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The rear controls of the a6400<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

With the large number of programmable buttons and dials, the camera can be set up to suit each individual shooter, though getting it set up can be a somewhat time-consuming process.  The Sony menu system is the same as in the A7 Mark III series bodies, and is still extremely detailed and huge, which can make it difficult to find a particular setting.  Thankfully, the ‘My Menu’ feature is also here, which allows the photographer to set the most accessed items to a custom menu for easy access.  The sheer number of settings in the menus can be particularly daunting for new photographers or those new to Sony, but after initial setup, the camera becomes easy to operate, with quick access to a surprisingly large number of features.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With all that said, I do wish Sony would have finally added a third dial to the camera.  Simply adding the front dial from the A7 series cameras would improve general usability a lot, and would make it so that the three exposure parameters for any mode could have instant access via dial, rather than relegating one of them to a button press and then using the rear dial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sony’s ‘My Menu’ makes its way to the a6400<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The one big change to the operation of the a6400 is the long-overdue addition of a touch screen to the 6000 series cameras.  The a6400’s touch screen allows for tapping to move the focus point, swiping through and pinching to zoom images during review, and using the screen as a touch pad to move the focus point while using the EVF.  This last feature is probably the biggest usability upgrade with the camera, as Sony has calibrated the touch pad functionality very well, making it easy to position focus points with the EVF to your eye, and much easier than using the other method of moving focus points. That alternate method involves enabling movement with a button, then moving it via the four-way functionality of the rear dial.  This method is bizarrely different from other Sony cameras, as when you press the button to move focus points, the point movement stays active even after a half-press of the shutter button. This can be a bit handy in some cases, but I find it a little annoying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the touch pad ability adds a quicker way to move focus points, even better would be the addition of a focus joystick, which is making its way to more and more cameras.  Sony could dramatically increase usability of the camera by making three changes: Move the grip about a half centimeter to a centimeter further away from the lens mount; use the extra space from that width by adding a focus joystick, and add a dial under the shutter button on the front grip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One final note: if anyone knows how to get the ‘move focus point’ reminder hint on the screen to go away, that would be helpful.  It’s unnecessary and distracting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continue: EVF, Screen and Autofocus<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Viewfinder and Rear Screen<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

One of the big knocks on the a6000 was the lower resolution finder, and the a6400 inherits the higher resolution EVFs that appeared on the a6300 and a6500.  The a6400’s electronic viewfinder is a 2.3 million dot panel with 0.70x magnification, giving a larger view than competitors like the Fujifilm X-T30, though being a bit smaller than current flagship mirrorless cameras.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The EVF showed good detail and clarity, along with good refresh.  While falling short of the best EVFs on the market today, the a6400’s viewfinder is very pleasing to use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rear screen is a 3″ 16:9 aspect ratio panel with 900k dots.  The resolution is a bit low by today’s standards, though color and contrast are quite good.  I’d still like to see a bit larger 3:2 ratio panel with better resolution, but I wasn’t hampered by the a6400’s rear screen in any way.  When flipping the screen 180 degrees forward for selfie use, the image will flip so the view appears correct when viewed from the front.  By default, when shooting stills in this position, the camera will do a 3 second self timer, including countdown, to aid in getting good self shots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Video shooters have complained that using a microphone in the hotshoe will block the forward screen, but as this is easily remedied by using a cage for the camera, it’s not a big deal in my mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The tilting rear screen of the a6400<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Autofocus<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Now we come to the a6400’s headline feature: The brand new AI tracking autofocus system. The new Eye AF system and tracking autofocus that debuts on the a6400 will be coming in full to the A9 and in part to the A7 III and A7R III.  A lot has been made about this new system, and for good reason: the a6400’s autofocus is fantastic.  The a6400 uses the same sensor (with a few tweaks) as the a6300 and a6500, with 425 phase detect AF points that cover around 88% of the image frame.  General accuracy and speed are very good, but the camera doesn’t really break any new ground with regards to single-shot AF or continuous autofocus with the standard modes, though these have had minor improvements as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where the a6400 shines is in the new Real-time Eye AF and Real-time tracking AF modes, where the camera brings general usability to a new level.  For portrait work, the new Eye AF algorithms are constantly active, and will grab the nearest eye and not let go, whether your subject changes position, temporarily blocks their face, or simply moves wildly.  The camera will continue to grab the eye when visible, and simply track the head when it becomes obscured.  It’s almost unnerving how well focus stays on the eyes, and it made grabbing candid shots of my children extremely easy, even when they were moving erratically.  The shot below was taken in a burst with the FE 85mm f\/1.8, where I asked the subject to simply ‘go crazy’ while running around.  While the camera doesn’t manage a 100% hit rate in this scenario, it was very good, yielding about 85% accuracy in this worst case scenario, and near 100% accuracy in more normal movement situations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sony a6400 with Sony FE 85mm f\/1.8 @ f\/1.8, 1\/1000s, ISO 1250<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As a result, the camera is outstanding for candid portrait work or event shooting, allowing the photographer to simply focus on composition, rather than the constant dance of focus-recompose, or the constant movement of focus points around the frame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One area where the real-time tracking proved to be exceptionally useful was when shooting macro.  Typically, hand-held macro yields a rather low hit rate of perfect focus simply because of the exceptionally shallow depth of field, which can cause shots to go out of focus simply from the natural movements of your body when trying to hold still.  When depth of field is 2-3mm, maintaining that super-stable position is very difficult.  When I shoot insects, even larger ones like butterflies, I will typically have a hit rate of around 30% in absolutely perfect focus with my other cameras. The others miss due to minor subject movement, wind or simply a gentle rocking of my body naturally while breathing or from an inability for muscles to completely lock down my body position with the camera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the a6400, when shooting butterflies, my perfect focus hit rate was near 90%.  You can simply place the focus point (in this case, expanded flexible spot with tracking) over the eye of the insect, and then the camera will track that and keep it in focus regardless of body movement, subject movement or even recomposition. For the shot below (and others like it in the image samples), I would simply lock focus on the eye, then subtly change composition until it looked just right and then snap. No need to refocus or change anything.  It made shooting macro more enjoyable and ultimately much more successful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Butterfly – Sony a6400 with Sony FE 90mm f\/2.8 Macro @ f\/2.8, 1\/250s, ISO 500<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The sum total of the autofocus improvements results in an extremely robust AF performance that is probably the second best among all Sony E-mount cameras.  The A9 still has an accuracy advantage due to the extremely fast sensor readout, and just gained the a6400’s real-time focus modes in a recent firmware update, but the a6400 is a step above the already excellent AF on the A7 III and A7R III.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Performance<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The a6400 features the same Bionz X processor as the Sony A9, giving it the processing power to perform the complex calculations for its real-time tracking features, and it also results in a fairly responsive camera overall.  Shutter lag is minimal for a camera in this price class, and overall responsiveness in the menus and camera menus and settings is on a high level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The a6400 has the same burst rate abilities of its sister cameras, with 11 fps burst shooting available with continuous autofocus, but will show the last image captured in a slide show at that rate. Lowering the burst rate to 8 fps results in full tracking with a live view.  Buffer depth of the a6400 sits in between its sister cameras. The a6400 can rattle off around 46 frames in RAW+JPEG (extra fine) or over 100 JPEG images in a single burst, which should be deep enough for most action shooting.  This slots in between the a6300’s 21 frame RAW buffer and the a6500’s large 100 frame RAW buffer. Despite the smaller buffer, it allows for a full 5 seconds of continuous shooting at 8fps before slowing down, which should be enough for the majority of shooters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, professional sports shooters would still probably want to steer away from the a6400 due to the one area where performance is hindered a bit: writing to the card.  The a6400, like most cameras at this price point and market position, features only a single card slot. This card slot is an SDXC UHS-I card slot, so it can’t take advantage of the faster write speeds capable of UHS-II cards.  As such, a full buffer on the a6400 takes quite some time to fully clear: around 40 seconds in my testing.  This isn’t going to pose an issue for most photographers, but sports shooters may find themselves running up against the buffer constraints after several bursts in a row.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continue: Key Features<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Key Features<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Connectivity<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The a6400 has the same wireless connectivity options as other recent Sony mirrorless cameras, with support for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connections, plus NFC for contactless pairing for image transfer and remote control. Most of these functions work fairly well, though there are small hitches here and there that prevent it from being a fully seamless operation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With Wi-Fi connectivity, the camera can transfer JPEG images in reduced or full size to a connected smartphone or tablet, and this process is relatively pain-free.  Images can be transferred immediately upon viewing by tapping your phone to the NFC symbol on the side (provided you’ve already installed the PlayMemories app on your phone), or multiple images can be transferred by selecting in camera on the phone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The a6400’s Remote Control works, but is still very limited compared to the earlier PlayMemories app.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Wi-Fi also has built-in remote control, but just like I noted in my A7 III review, Sony has somewhat crippled the remote shooting application.  You are able to change most shooting parameters on the remote device, but not all of them, and most infuriatingly, you can’t select your focus point on the phone.  When Eye AF is active, this works fine for portrait shooting, provided you have one person in frame, or multiple at the same plane of focus, but it is problematic when shooting group shots (one of the main reasons you’d use a remote application), and when shooting things like landscapes, where focus point selection can be critical.  I’m not sure why this feature was removed, as it was available in the enhanced remote shooting application that used to come in the PlayMemories store before they axed it.  Sony has already developed the software<\/em> for this to work, so I have no idea why it isn’t present on their current cameras…it’s somewhat infuriating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Bluetooth connection is very handy for reducing the trouble of pairing the camera for Geotagging.  In theory, one just needs to turn on geotagging in the app, turn on Bluetooth, and the camera will pair and record location for all subsequent shots.  Pairing is a bit unintuitive, as it must<\/em> be done through the app in order for it to work.  If you pair the camera with bluetooth outside the app, it will show as connected on the phone, but the app won’t see the camera.  Once that’s set up, the camera does connect seamlessly to the phone for geotagging…with one small quirk, at least on Android.  With an Android phone, you get to take advantage of the NFC connectivity above, but with the bluetooth connection, it will only connect if the screen is awake.  Once connected, you can lock your phone and shoot, but if you turn the camera off, when you turn it on, you will need to at least wake the screen to allow the camera to connect to the phone.  It’s a bit of an annoyance, but at least you don’t need to fully unlock the phone to get it to connect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Intervalometer<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

When Sony got rid of the PlayMemories store with the Mark III versions of the A7 series cameras, they got rid of some really nice software.  The advanced remote shooting mentioned above, a unique smooth reflections app that stacked multiple images in-camera to create a stacked RAW file, some filter apps that I never really found useful, and an in-camera intervalometer for time-lapse shooting.  While most of these are still gone as of now (Sony, please bring back Smooth Reflections), one of them does appear again as a built-in function, and that’s interval shooting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The a6400’s built-in intervalometer is easy to use<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Intervalometer is quite easy to set up.  You choose a start time delay, which can be as short as one second after pressing the button up to 99 minutes.  You then set the interval between photos (between 1 second and 60 seconds), and finally the number of shots to capture (up to 9,999).  Taking those 10,000 shots with a 60 second interval will take 166 hours to complete, but you can do it if you have some sort of external power source attached.   The camera also does the math for you, telling you the total time to capture the sequence at the current settings.  You can also set the camera to autofocus between frames if you like, with a sensitivity for AF changes.  It’s quite simple, and works the way you’d expect it to work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other Items of Note<\/h4>\n\n\n\n