Sony Alpha a5100 – world’s smallest swapable lens camera

Sony has just proudly uneiled the new a5100 camera on its website as being “the world’s smallest interchangeable lens camera”.

The Sony a5100, part of the Alpha range, comes packed with a 24.3-megapixel APS-C sized Exmor CMOS sensor and BIONZ X processor. The ISO (the level of sensitivity of your camera to available light. The lower the ISO number, the less sensitive it is to the light, while a higher ISO number increases the sensitivity of your camera) tops out at 25,600 so it should be versatile enough to work in most situations.

The Alpha 5100 body (109.6mm Wide x 62.8mm High x 35.7mm Deep) is bundled with a 16-50mm f/3.5-5.6 lens kit and uses a Fast Hybrid AF for quick focusing using 179 focal plan phase-detection with touch shutter release. All this means, according to Sony, is that you can acquire and snap a subject cleanly as fast as 0.07 seconds.

The battery should be good for around 400 shots before it needing some more go juice.

The a5100 has NFC baked in so you can hook it up quickly to other devices such as Sony’s range of smartphones. And since it shoots HD video recorded as MP4 files it should be easy to transfer and play them on a mobile using Wi-Fi Direct.

If you want to watch your snapping efforts right there on the camera it offers a 180-degree tilting LCD screen. This is a 921k touchscreen display.

All these features being shoehorned in to the less than 37mm thick “world’s smallest interchangeable lens camera” you would expect to pay a premium but you should be able to nab one up for around £550, with 16.50mm lens kit, from mid September in the UK.

There will be a pricier option which comes with both a 16-50mm lens plus a 55-210mm lens at £760. Body only will be £420, which is handy if you’re already kitted out with some E-mount glass.