Welcome Sony A6700
And suddenly I started reading headlines about the Sony A6700 like this:
“Sony didn’t hold back”
“It’s the best APS-C camera you can buy”
“The best hybrid camera for the money”
And since a firm believer of the fact that competition is great for customers, I started looking into the Sony A6700 hoping that it would indeed outperform Fujifilm.
Because if the A6700 would really be better than anything Fujifilm offers, then Fujifilm would be forced to catch up for example by releasing tons of Kaizen firmware updates to close the gap, or by speeding up the release of other cameras they have in the pipeline.
But the more I looked into the details (that many influencers – not all – somehow missed out to mention) the more disillusionment kicked in and I came to the preliminary conclusion that the Sony A6700 just shows us even more how amazing the Fujifilm X-S20 actually is.
Let me quickly explain by sharing a few facts.
- A6700 has no joystick
X-S20 has a joystick
- A6700 LCD screen has about half of the resolution of the X-S20
- A6700 has about half the fps bursts of the X-S20 (11 fps vs 20 fps)
- A6700 has not the fully automatic subject detection mode
X-S20 detects all sort of subjects automatically
- A6700 has no option for external cooling
X-S20 is compatible with the cooling fan
- A6700 has few native APS-C lenses, you must buy the more expensive and bigger Full Frame lenses if you want more options
- A6700 has no 4K DCI, no Open Gate, no 6K
X-S20 has all of that
- A6700 has no RAW video output
X-S20 has it
- A6700 is more expensive than the X-S20
Of course, these are just comparisons made on paper.
And on paper, there are areas in which the Sony A6700 wins, for example with its 4K/120p (although with a huge crop that reads out a sensor size smaller than Micro Four Thirds).
So before making any final conclusion, we certainly have to wait for real life comparisons.
Let’s just hope that those comparisons will be as objective as possible, even those that come from huge influencers that are not supported at all by Fujifilm (Fuji doesn’t send pre-production gear nor loaners to quite some of the big YouTubers that Sony instead wisely treats very well).
But what I can say for now is that for me the A6700 does not fully match the Fujifilm X-S20 in quite some areas that for many might be important. For example, a dealbreaker for me are the lack of joystick, no lovely film simulations, no internal RAW converter, lack of dedicated APS-C lens selection and so forth.
As opposed to what quite some YouTuber said, I feel that Sony did hold back with the Sony A6700 in order not to compete too strongly with their Full Frame lineup. A problem that Fujifilm luckily does not have, so they can pack it all into their APS-C cameras.
So I am personally disappointed. I was hoping for a stronger APS-C competitor that would put Fujifilm under huge pressure. Sadly the A6700, although a nice camera, is not that.
That’s my very personal opinion that has no pretension to be the truth. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.
