Best Camera for Video & Photo? Sony A6500 vs A7sii Comparison

What is the Best Camera, the Sony A6500 or the Sony A7sii? In this camera comparison, we’ll focus on both video and photo performance. Both cameras are very popular amongst filmmakers because they’re small and have a ton of capabilities. Watch us take these babies for a test drive!
We use these SONY cameras for all of our shoots and edit in Filmora. If you haven’t already, you can try it free:
VIDEO — For comparison shots we have set both cameras to the same shutter speed, iso, aperture, and white balance. Both cameras also have set on the same picture profile. However, due to varying light situations we sometimes shot with no picture profile to show the iso range and to show a straight from camera image that requires no post production work. We also equipped both cameras with the Sigma 35mm full frame lens. Looking at the 4k image of both cameras is stunning. They both capture lots of details and are very sharp. There isn’t much difference in quality, however I do notice that the A6500 image is slightly warmer. I personally like the color of the A7sii, it seems a little more saturated in the sky and it being less warm is what I like. In terms of 4K image quality, this is pretty much a tie. If I have to pick only ONE, I would pick the A7s ii because of its colors. The slow motion is captured in 1080p for both cameras. The 60FPS on both cameras is less sharp than the 4k image, which makes sense since its about half the resolution. However, the sharpness in the A6500 footage is a lot softer than the A7s ii. Almost to the point to where it’s kind of like a gross goo. When it comes to shooting at 120fps I can’t say the A6500 image looks any better. Since the A7sii has to crop in and aliasing, I feel that the A6500 shoots better 120fps. But the A7s ii shoots better 1080p footage overall. Once again, I would go with the A7sii for slow motion.

PHOTO — When it comes to photography the cameras have more differences than similarities.The A6500 has more focus points – in total it has 425. Focus points will give you a faster autofocus, and the more of them the faster the autofocus. The A7s ii has 169 focus points, so 256 less points. If you really enjoy shooting sequences, the A6500 shoots 11 frames per second, which is 6 more than the A7sii’s 5 frames per second. So shooting something with fast movement like sports, nature, and so on this will 11 frames per second will help you more than 5. The 6500 has almost two times more megapixels. A common fallacy is to directly equate image-quality and megapixels. It does aid the image quality, but its not solely responsible for it. The value of megapixels is more directly influential to the size of printing photos. Thus, more megapixels means larger prints. So when we compared raw photos of both cameras they initially both looked great. However when we zoom in the A7sii image it becomes less sharp very quickly. We can zoom in with the A6500 a lot more than the A7s ii and this due to the higher megapixel count. When it comes to just photography, the A6500 takes the cake. Woot!

CONCLUSION — both cameras are great and can do many of the same things. But before buying I suggest you ask yourself which camera suits your needs more? Are you more of a hobbyist, want to save money, just starting out in video or you like printing your photos? Then the A6500 is probably better for you. If you’re looking to do video as a freelancer and shoot in all sorts of different settings from travel, weddings, corporate videos, vlogs… the A7s ii can work in pretty much all lighting conditions settings and can give that oh so loved look with the shallow depth of field. I went with the A7s ii. When I bought this camera, I saw it as an investment, and it paid itself off in no time. I’m a pretty big guy, the size and ergonomics of the camera make me feel a lot more comfortable handling it. Lastly, since I do a lot of run and gun filmmaking, I needed something that will work in any lighting condition.
Hope this camera comparison helped you guys pick a camera. Thanks for watching, and don’t forget to subscribe, like, and comment! How about you let us know which camera you want to get!? See ya next time!