After a full year with my Sony a6500, I sat down in the Puglia sunshine (spritz in hand) to answer one question: in 2018, is it still worth buying? Here are the problems, the fixes and the things I love.
The cons, and how I work around them
No flip-out screen. That's the big one if you want to vlog. The screen only tilts up and down, which is handy for low or high angles, but in bright light it's almost useless. I had to put a matte filter on it. I use a 5-inch external monitor and it does the job, but the setup gets big and you lose one of the camera's best features: portability. The body is so small it almost fits in your pocket.
Rolling shutter. This is the main problem, and honestly it's awful. You can fix it in post, and there have been firmware updates, but it's still not good. I don't understand why Sony hasn't solved it.
Battery life. Everybody complains about it, but I didn't have big issues. I bought non-original spares on Amazon for 10–15 bucks and a couple of them are even better than the original.
The pros
1080p at 120 frames per second, which is amazing for slow motion. Low light performance is crazy: during a photoshoot I filmed at ISO 5000 in very dim light and got no visible noise or grain. Even the photographer said the camera sees in the dark. The autofocus is simply great and very fast, something you can really rely on.
It's light enough to balance easily on my Zhiyun Crane V2, and the metal body feels really solid. I played with a Canon M50 the week before and it felt plasticky in comparison. Part of me misses Canon colours, but there are guides online to make the a6500 look closer to them.
My verdict
Yes, it's still worth buying. It takes great pictures and great videos, and for anyone starting a YouTube channel or getting into photography, the performance is really good for a relatively affordable price.