The Sony a6500 in action

The best way to see a gadget work is to put it to use. And Sony showed us last month how a pro would put to use its new mirrorless marvel, the a6500. The Japanese company hosted a food photography workshop/live cooking demonstration with professional food and lifestyle photographer Gabby Cantero and Rustic Morning’s chef Portia Baluyut.

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While the demo itself was a pleasure to our senses, the star of the show put on display what it can do best. Sony touts this APS-C sensor-toting camera to feature the world’s fastest autofocus speed with an ability to focus in on subjects as quickly as 0.05 seconds.

As Cantero panned the camera over from Baluyut to the pot of chicken she was cooking, the camera’s 4D Focus system locked onto its subject with ease. There’s other tech working on hand here to make tracking a moving subject a quicker process such as 425 phase detection AF points (the highest for an interchangeable lens camera according to Sony) and the ability to shoot up to 11 frames per second with continuous autofocus and exposure tracking or eight frames per second in live view shooting mode.

There are no shaky images here, too. Or at least it’s so minimal that it’s negligible. The a6500 introduces in-camera 5-axis optical image stabilization—a feature first introduced in the a7 II. This’ll make shooting up to 4K resolution videos a treat on the a6500, another new feature introduced in this model. It’s fitting that the a6500 also gets a new “Slow & Quick” mode to create dramatic videos. Cantero showed off this feature during the cooking demo and it made the food that much more mouth-watering.

One other feature Cantero praises about the a6500 is how easy it is to focus using the touchscreen on this camera. It allows her to easily select the point she wants to focus on.

Sony set out to demonstrate that the a6500 is a workhorse that can handle the requirements of a professional while making it accessible to hobbyists, too. If you want to read the full specs, you can check out this link. The Sony a6500 retails for P81,999 (body only).