Sony a6400 Review – Is the End of Manual Focus Lenses Near?

We took the new Sony a6400 for a spin and came up with a solid finding. This little camera has one of the best autofocus systems out there.

[thebadmanreturns]

Best review ever about A6400

Finally someone gets it

The AF seems to be working really good. I myself love the a6500 AF for mounting on the ronin and doing some b-roll. However, no matter how good AF will get, it will never be one thing: purposeful, and that's why, at least for some types of work, it will remain the only choice. Nonetheless I'd love to have a go with this even better AF for Sony. Good job!

[scottgmaclean]

Good thoughts raised and some excellent footage at the end to make your point! Nice action and reaction shots and great music choice. This type of review with lots of practical footage is harder to make but so helpful - thanks Johnnie

[VickGeek]

I miss the intro with that guy sounding cinematic everytime when he says 'Cinema 5D at .... is brought to you by...' I just love to watch and hear that intro.

[kane]

Great video - lovely short Johnnie - fantastic results !
Although while AF is getting incredible and definitely will be the choice for a LOT of productions, doco's & certain circumstances - there will always be a place for manual lenses - as artistic creative vision and story-telling can be made through human choices in focus & focus pulling to evoke a feeling or an emotion conveyed in various scenes / circumstances via a human touch. AI and AF lenses definitely have their place - but having full manual override ( electronic or manual ) of a lens' focus is what allows filmmakers to tell their films story or scene with, even once object based AI algorithms work completely and AF is 100% accurate - human creatives will still need to manually input what that they want in focus and for how long and how / when to pull focus over what time etc.... (ie to shift from object X and at what speed to a character E's face etc... ) arguably it would be an AF lens with manual AI control then though :)

[tekguyphoto]

Question: If I was to take this camera with a 18-135 lens to Europe as a travel camera taking pictures and some videos how many batteries should I take with me or need during a day. Average 100-200 photos and perhaps 15-20 short 3 min videos. The camera would be in EVF mode with auto off.

[Photographicelements]

Thanks for this video. I'm glad Sony has improved, and possibly, perfected autofocus. There will always be a need for manual focus lenses; eg, focusing on whichever person is talking is not something cameras can do, (yet). I like how Fuji lenses give you the option to switch from auto to manual focus. The focus system on the a6400, and future Sony camera cameras, has immediate, helpful applications, but does cover everything. I look forward to testing this camera's focus system.

[raredreamfootage]

Does the AF start to struggle at a shallower DOF like at F1.8? And does it start to struggle at higher iso / low light due to the noise perhaps tricking the AF system?

[MattDe]

Very impressive samples of autofocus, and I hardly see any rolling shutter on this footage, which I'm guessing is handheld. If it's handheld, you must be rock steady. Or was there some kind of stabilization outside of the camera and the lens used?

[raredreamfootage]

Do you know if the superior autofocus that you speak about will also be in the A7iii/A7riii/A9 in the new firmware upgrade? Or is this exclusive to the A6400 for now?

[skyphotography]

Thank you for this useful info, can't wait to get my hands on one.

[iRizer]

Which lens was the footage taken with? I was assuming the 18-135 given it was shown in the review, but just wanted to confirm

[AhsanZafar]

Can you please compare the footage and auto focus with sony a6300 ? please

[shubhdeepkhanna]

Very useful info and very true of changing times

[raredreamfootage]

"Manual Focus Lenses will be Obsolete"
- What about racking focus with intention? Such as between objects of importance? And at different speeds for emotional effect? I'm not sure that Auto Focus can do this quite as well yet. For one, when you tap the screen it causes more screen shake than when physically racking focus. They need to figure out the interface deficit before true manual focus can be replaced. In terms of speed, I assume this is restricted to the "speed setting" as well as how confident the AF system is in hitting its mark.

[VickGeek]

Nice video. Definitely there is a significant improvement in the algorithm ! Great job Sony 👍 What lens was used to shoot the video to test AutoFocus ?

[JooWorks]

At 2:34 the boy has a hat with a label that says in the Finnish language "Minced meat, Fashionable, Pervuuj (doesn't mean anything), Privat messages, enjoy life" :-D

Was a bit of a WTF when I saw it the first time,

[samuelanderson]

5:13 that lady is like "wtf is that shiii?"

[AlexYu]

Wow it is really nice movement. I wanna buy it....

[MarceloTezza]

Quite funny on your videos i forget about the testing and get hooked to the images, i really love japanese culture. Thanks.
On the AF matter i guess manual focus will still be used because sometimes you want the focus to be already in a specific distance that not necessarily is focused on anything but the actor will be the one to enter in focus. Still for the amaetur an non professional person this af seems to be good enough, hope to see your tests on the A9 and other cameras that will receive the firmware update later, and obviously the the af with animals as well. It might be a reason alone to go for the system.