Sony Drops Another Awesome, Absurdly Fast-Focusing Shooter

The Alpha a5100 is a direct descendent of the original NEX-5, which is the camera’s great great grandfather. It looks like a worthy successor, too.
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Back in 2010, Sony’s first NEX model showed just how compelling a mirrorless camera could be. Much smaller and sleeker than a DSLR, the modern-looking Sony NEX-5 showed that compact interchangeable-lens cameras could rival a DSLR's image quality and do it with style.

But just a few years later, it came time for the NEX lineup to ride into the sunset... sort of. Sony unceremoniously killed off the NEX series, if only in name. The bloodline lives on in the form of the Alpha a5100 and its siblings.

The Alpha a5100 is a direct descendent of the original NEX-5, which is the camera’s great great grandfather. It looks like a worthy successor, too. It has the same 24-megapixel APS-C sensor and absurdly fast autofocus system as Sony’s higher-end a6000. In its 6fps continuous-shooting mode, the system uses 179 phase-detection points (as well as 25 contrast-detection points) spanning the width of its sensor to keep fast-moving objects in focus. It won’t fear the dark, thanks to ISO settings that ramp up to 25,600.

The new a5100 also continues Sony’s big push toward the XAVC-S video codec, which supports a beefy bitrate and has been used for 4K capture in recent cameras and camcorders. There’s no 4K with the a5100---video resolution tops out at 1080p at 60fps and 24fps---but the camera does make use of its 50Mbps capabilities with a full-sensor readout. It can also capture a full-resolution XAVC-S and a 720p MP4 video simultaneously; you’ll have both a high-quality and an easily shareable version of the same video at the same time.

That sharing can be done directly from the camera, as the a5100 will have built-in Wi-Fi and NFC. There’s a pop-up flash right over the lens mount, but there’s no eye-level viewfinder or hot shoe as there is in the higher-end a6000. The a5100’s 3-inch adjustable LCD flips all the way up to face frontward and help with selfies. Sign of the times.

This solid interchangeable-lens shooter will cost less than the Cyber-shot RX100 M3, too. Due in September, the a5100 will sell for $700 as a kit with a motorized 16-50mm/F3.5-F5.6 zoom lens or $550 for the body only.

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