The Sony A5100 produced images of excellent quality during the review period. The Sony A5100 has an extensive and very usable ISO range of 100-25600. ISO 100-800 is noise-free, whilst ISO 1600-6400 produces more than acceptable results, and even ISO 12800 and the fastest setting of 25600 are OK for emergency use. The RAW samples illustrate just how much processing the camera does by default, though, as they're much noisier at all ISO values than their JPEG counterparts.
The effective Dynamic Range Optimizer function extracts more detail from the shadow and highlight areas in an image, without introducing any unwanted noise or other artifacts. The High Dynamic Range mode combines two shots taken at different exposures to produce one image with greater dynamic range than a single image would produce. It only works for JPEGs and for still subjects, but does produce some very effective results. Sony's now tried-and-trusted Sweep Panorama is still a joy to use. The 13 creative Picture Effects quickly produce special looks that would otherwise require you to spend a lot of time in the digital darkroom, while the 7 Creative Styles provide a quick and easy way to tweak the camera's JPEG images.
The Sony A5100 has 2 different image quality settings available, with Fine being the highest quality option. Here are some 100% crops which show the quality of the various options, with the file size shown in brackets.
The flash settings on the Sony A5100 are Autoflash, Fill-flash, Slow sync and Rear flash sync, with Red-eye reduction available in the Main Menu. These shots of a white coloured wall were taken at a distance of 1.5m.
The Sony A5100's maximum shutter speed is 30 seconds and there's also a Bulb mode for even longer exposures, which is excellent news if you're seriously interested in night photography. The shot below was taken using a shutter speed of 30 seconds at ISO 100.
The Sony A5100 allows you to take panoramic images very easily, by 'sweeping' with the camera while keeping the shutter release depressed. The camera does all the processing and stitching and even successfully compensates for moving subjects.
Just like Olympus and Panasonic, the Sony A5100 offers an extensive range of eleven creative Picture Effects.