SONY A6700
APS-C FLAGSHIP
Awesome A6700 mirrorless boasts the advantages of an APS-C sensor, but crams in the latest tech at a cut price
I t has been rather a long time since Sony launched a pure, high-end mirrorless camera with an APS-C sensor. Since the A6600 came out in 2019, there has been a flurry of full-frame Alphas, though nothing on the horizon for the more affordable and smaller crop-sensor range. But when Sony launched the £2100/$1798 FX30 cinema-style APS-C mirrorless last year, the writing was on the wall. Surely there would be an all- rounder mirrorless version using this new 26-megapixel sensor. Well here it is: the A6700. And it’s streets ahead in terms of tech compared to its older A6000 series ancestors. It’s not only the fresh back-side illuminated sensor, but also AI-powered features for video and photo users much like those found in the FX30. The new camera’s dedicated AI processing unit powers Auto Framing, as found on the vlogging ZV-E1 camera, and eye AF can now be used during Clear Image Zoom. The Auto Framing feature is ideal for one-person shooters to give the illusion that the camera is following the subject around even though it is locked onto a tripod. Essentially, this is simply a cropped area of the sensor that moves, but it’s useful for vloggers, as an example. There are now 759 phase- detection points on the improved AF for stills and 459 for video. The system offers subject recognition for people, animals, birds, insects, cars, trains and planes. The A6700 moves conventional subject recognition to brand-new levels with human pose estimation, in addition to eye and face detection for people and animals. This is the same feature set as the full-frame Sony A7R V, and the AF now works
in dark locations up to -3.0 EV – a one-stop improvement over the older models. So, while the wider world of filmmaking is running scared of the AI that threatens to replace human actors and script writers, it’s paying dividends in the AF of the A6700. This system works incredibly well, and the benefits in terms of face and eye detection are excellent. The beating heart of the A6700 is the exact same sensor as the FX30, which itself is based on the full- frame FX3, which uses the sensor and main technology of the A7S III mirrorless. So to get this in a much smaller camera shows trickle-down tech at work. All new is the Focus Map feature, which is similar to false colour except anything in focus is displayed normally, while anything in front is coloured orange/red and whatever’s behind is blue. It’s not perfect yet as there’s no adjustment available, but it will improve with more time and a firmware upgrade. Some key differences between the Sony A6700 and FX30 stick out. Compared to the more conventional mirrorless line, the FX30 is pretty different – made specifically for shooting movies, with severely limited stills modes. The FX30 is made for shooting 20.1-megapixel video in 17:9, along with full-fat 26-megapixel 3:2 stills capability bolted on to allow you to shoot some thumbnails for YouTube videos. In terms of stills, there’s no AF tracking or continuous burst shooting, no electronic viewfinder or compatibility with external flash, no uncompressed Raw files or AF illuminator. The A6700 has all these stills functions, as well as most of the video capability of the FX30 – although it tops out
“The A6700 moves subject recognition to brand-new levels thanks to human pose estimation”
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