Sony A5100 :: The Best Deal In Photography?

The Sony A5100 is perhaps one of the best deals in cameras right now in terms of bang for the buck. Its not the perfect camera, but what you get in terms of image quality for both still photos and videos is what makes it incredible. Especially at this price point.

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Ted Forbes
The Art of Photography
3100 Main St #135
Dallas, Texas 75226

My name is Ted Forbes and I make videos about photography. I’ve been making photographs most of my life and I have a tremendously deep passion for photography that I want to share with you on YouTube.

The Art of Photography is my channel and I produce photography videos to provide a 360 degree look into the world of making images. We all want to get better so lets do this together!

I make videos covering famous photographers, photography techniques, composition, the history of photography and much more.

I also have a strong community of photographers who watch the show and we frequently do social media challenges for photographers to submit their own work. I feature the best and most interesting on the show when we do these so come check it out and get involved!

So come check it out! If you’re a fan of DigitalRev, Fro Knows Photo (Jared Polin), Matt Grainger (That Nikon Guy) or Tony Northrup - you’ll love The Art of Photography. I make video’s giving you a deeper dive into photography techniques, composition and history to compliment the other channels you love to watch.

New shows come out every Sunday, Tuesday and Friday.

[mikeletterst]

My wife and I love this camera. We travelled to Italy recently and the pictures this camera produced were outstanding! Highly recommended..

[heyitsgerard]

With the announcement of the 6100, this camera is still clutch for the amateur/beginner. Love mine.

[maereanm]

You have to mention the ISO sensitivity: while NEX-5 shoots at a maximum of 1600 ISO in non-manual modes, A5100 shoots at a maximum ISO of 6400 (with the same level of noise). That means a full 2 stops, meaning that with the same f/3.5 lens the camera shoots with an exposure that is 4 times faster, producing much sharper images especially in low light situations (indoors, in the evening etc).

[jonnypanteloni]

Thanks for being honest, the biggest issue I have with youtubers is "overly loyal" response to a sponsor. What your doing is more than ethical, and also useful.

[CarlosChavez-gsld]

Just a quick FYI- 8 Years after you made this video, and I am STILL using my NEX-5 "Into the ground" as you say. A friend of mine got a used A5100 camera, and has asked me for some help getting her going on it. I had no idea when I started watching this video that you would compare this camera to the NEX-5, which I still use an average of a few times a week. It is going fine. I had to open up the battery charger and give it a kick in the pants (tweak a pot in there), and I have to "Clean" the contacts on the lens a bit by simply hold the release button and rotating the lens a few times back and forth- but that is easy to do, and always takes care of any minor connection issues between the lens and the body. The NEX-5 has well over 1, 200 hours of use on it, and has still never been to the repair shop. 🙂

[bazli]

I have been using it for a few weeks. I got mine on sale with an second lenses. Picture is nice, it good to be able to charge using a micro USB cable, touch to focus is nice. It's actually quite easy to use for an amateur like me. NFC is convenient, Wifi transfer is good after your download PlayMemories. Recording video is great, the continuous auto focus works great. The downsides for me, is that it won't charge and record at the same time but the deal I got with my camera, came with a second battery. Another thing, it said that I would be able to record at least 20 minutes at 40 C, but I manage until 15 minutes of recording time at 32 C, the temperature warning came up at 8 minutes. It is not a deal breaker for me, since the videos I record is less than 10 minutes but it is something people should reconsider when shooting video. The camera got warm after a few hours of continuous photos but it never shuts down.

[thephotovideoshow]

I really wish I had access to that new codec. But I bought the a5000 just before they released the a5100. I just couldn't pass it up though for $185!

For YouTubers, the selfie screen is absolutely invaluable! I know that for me and my show, I get twice the work done in half the time. Especially because of the AF face tracking! It's been a godsend!

Thanks for the video, Ted!

[GeoffBosco]

Just bought a used NEX 3N for $225. Two years ago this kit was $500. I absolutely love it. The kit 16-50 lens is a very decent lens to boot.

[Shortfusefilm]

The Nex-5n was my first "serious" camera purchase 2 years ago, a perfect introductory camera to someone who wants to delve deeper into the world of photography :) I bought a nikon-f adapter for it and have never looked back since!!!

[BVargas]

I just got this camera and I had no idea what I bought. But I am completely happy to see so many people giving it good reviews!

[JoeSzilagy]

I find it kind of odd that (in 2019, almost 2020 as of today), that some of the other more recent reviewers of this camera, state that the A5100's 'looks' are getting "kind of old." 
Huh?!
Meanwhile, when it comes to any of the newer Alpha cameras (in this series), they gush over how great they are, and don't mention a thing about them looking at all 'dated', even though they look basically the same as the A5100!

[thankyouknots]

I just ordered this camera I can't wait to get it on Wednesday!!!

[SebastianTramsen]

Ted please don't "waste" your time with this kind of videos. You are an artist and have so much knowledge you are willing to share with us. Anybody can do gear review, gear unpacking, buyers guide nonsense videos. Don't take it negativ please. Greetings!

[kizzume]

I love my A5100.  This is a decent video going over some of the cool options on this camera.  You are incorrect about the zoom on the built-in lens though when you said you have to use that little lever to zoom in and out.  If you have the focus set for any of the automatic modes, you can use the ring to zoom in and out.

I ONLY have three complaints about this camera:

First complaint is that the manual focus adjustment using the lens it comes with isn't so great.  There's no way to adjust it via anything but the ring (and I confirmed this when I talked with Sony for a good hour or so), which acts differently depending on how fast you move the ring, it's like "acceleration mode" on a mouse but on steroids, so you can't count in any way on the focus adjustment being the same physical placement when you move around the ring in one direction and then the other direction, and there's no meter that tells you in any decent amount of detail what exactly the focus is adjusted to.  This makes it very time consuming to adjust the focus manually--and when there's no focus assist, like when you're actually recording video where they disable focus assist, it's almost impossible to adjust the focus manually--but since it does have a number of decent auto-focus modes, that's not always an issue.

Second complaint is that it splits up video files at around 2gb, and when it splits them up, it mutes the sound right during the transition between the files, so if I wanted to make a 20 minute video at 60p (I love high framerate, Cameron is planning on filming Avatar 2 in 60fps and I'm really excited about it) using AVCHD, it's split into two, and even when I put it into a video editor, there's always this point where you can tell that something has happened in the middle of the video.

Third complaint is how quickly it gets too hot when filming video and it shuts down.  I don't even know if it would let me film a 25 minute video if I wanted to.

I haven't tried the XAVC S mode yet as I didn't initially get a card fast enough for it, but I may try it out in the near future (I'm about to order a new card from Amazon), it would probably solve my issues around when I use a video editor how the quality gets so degraded when I re-encode it.

Anyway, great video.  I learned a few more things about my camera from it.  Thanks.

[Eric_Rossi]

So I've been debating the 6000 and totally forgot about the 5100 being newer so you peaked my interest and made me question myself. But I just feel Sony stripped a lot of great features from the 5100 over the 6000.

[justforrfunnn]

Can't believe I've actually stumbled on your video about a year ago. It's only now that I stumbled on more of your videos and subscribed :). Anyways, this helped me decide on buying this camera and I still love it to this date! I might upgrade soon though to a waterproof camera but need to save up for that first.

[limlim]

I just bought this camera in 2019. And i am a novice in cameras..i love the camera. And for my usage it's has an average battery life. Great video sir! It's really helpful.

[diragusa]

Sorry I haven't been catching up on the show. I love this episode. Thanks again for your hard work!

[MISSPHOTOGENICBABY]

So happy I bought this camera 😍☺️ I can't wait to play with it! I wanted better makeup pictures and this has been raved about 🤗

[GallaghersGrub]

Thank you for the great and informative review! I purchased this camera and absolutely love it. I've started a YouTube channel using the flip up screen and would recommend it to anyone over the a6000 looking to do the same. Plus it's more pocketable. Great, great, great camera and review.