Mirrorless Camera Review: A Creator’s Workhorse Tested
Eight weeks, four thousand frames and twelve hours of video. The stabilisation and colour science are genuinely excellent. The menus and the battery are not.
The verdict
A genuinely excellent all-rounder for photographers who also shoot video. Buy it for the stabilisation and the files straight out of camera; budget for a spare battery and an evening learning the menus.
How it scored
Image quality
Build & handling
Autofocus
Battery life
Value for money
Who this is for
This is a camera for someone who takes photographs seriously and shoots video often enough to care about it, but not so often that they need a dedicated cinema body. If you shoot events professionally, the single card slot will rule it out on its own.
Image quality
The 26-megapixel sensor is not the highest resolution in its class and it does not need to be. What matters is the colour rendering: skin tones come out usable without adjustment, and the highlight roll-off is gentle.
Build and handling
Magnesium alloy, and it feels it. Over eight weeks it went out in rain twice and picked up a beach trip with nothing working loose. Then there are the menus — settings distributed across seven top-level tabs with no obvious logic.
Battery life
The weakest part of the package. We averaged 310 stills per charge, and roughly 55 minutes of 4K/30 video. Two spares turns it into a non-issue, but that is an unavoidable extra cost on day one.
Questions people ask
Yes, with a caveat. Full automatic mode is genuinely excellent and the stabilisation hides a lot of technique problems. The menu system is the least beginner-friendly part — budget an evening with the manual.
We averaged 310 stills or roughly 55 minutes of 4K recording per charge in mixed use. A spare battery is not optional.
Not at 4K/30 up to about 28°C ambient. At 4K/60 in direct sun we saw a thermal warning at around 25 minutes.
Eight weeks of daily use across studio, street and low-light conditions, roughly 4,000 frames and twelve hours of video. We return review units.
At a glance
- 26MP APS-C sensor
- 5-axis in-body stabilisation
- Weather sealed body
- Single card slot
- 310 frames per charge
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