The Sony A5100: A Great Value for the Price

I've spent two years with this camera and it's been my go-to on every trip. It was the camera that I would throw into my bag whenever I needed to film video or take stills. I've used it extensively, both on and off the show, and it's really started to wear out a bit. So, when the time came to upgrade, I knew I had to find something reliable to replace it.

I recently purchased the Sony A5100 and I'm thoroughly impressed with its performance. At $500, it's an excellent buy for anyone looking for a camera that can deliver great image quality and video. I wish more cameras came with names as straightforward as this one - "the A5100" is easy to understand.

One of the things that really stands out about the A5100 is its versatility. It has the ability to be used with manual focus lenses, which is a huge plus for anyone looking to expand their photography skills. And, it's got some great features that make it perfect for both stills and video shooting.

But what really sets the A5100 apart is its value for money. At this price point, you're getting an incredible amount of camera for your dollar. I've used other cameras in my line of work, and they just can't compete with the A5100's performance. And, at $500, it's a steal.

If you're in the market for a new camera, I highly recommend considering the Sony A5100. It's an excellent choice for anyone looking to upgrade their photography skills without breaking the bank.

Squarespace: Building a Beautiful Website

As I was preparing for this video, I wanted to take a moment to give a shout-out to our sponsor, Squarespace. They're an amazing platform that makes it easy to build a beautiful website, whether you're looking to showcase your portfolio or sell products online. And, the best part is, they've got everything you need right there in one place.

To get started with Squarespace, simply sign up for a free trial and browse their templates. I spent some time browsing through their selection, and I have to say, I found some real gems. One of my favorites was this template that had parallax scrolling - it looked really cool.

Once you've chosen a template, click on "view adversary" and the platform will open up in a live preview mode. This is where the magic happens. You can see exactly how your website will look, and make any necessary adjustments before committing to a design.

What I love about Squarespace is that it's both customizable and accessible to beginners. Yes, you can customize your website to fit your needs, but you also don't get stuck with a template that's too rigid. And, if you want to add in some coding or make more advanced changes, you've got access to code injection.

Another thing I appreciate about Squarespace is how easy it is to grow with your website. Whether you're just starting out or have a established brand, the platform allows you to evolve and expand as needed. And, if you need any help along the way, their support team is always available.

Right now, Squarespace is offering a deal for Artificial Feelers - if you sign up using this link, you'll save 10% off your order. Simply head over to squarespace.com, use offer code AOP at checkout, and get started with building your dream website.

Squarespace: The Easy Solution for Building a Website

If you're looking for an all-in-one solution for hosting and building your website, Squarespace is the way to go. They've got everything you need right there in one place, from templates to ecommerce features. And, the best part is, they make it incredibly easy to use.

One of my favorite things about Squarespace is how intuitive their interface is. Simply sign up for a free trial, browse through some templates, and start building your website. You don't have to be a web developer or designer to create something beautiful - Squarespace makes it accessible to everyone.

Another thing that sets Squarespace apart is how easy it is to manage your online presence. Whether you're looking to sell products, showcase your portfolio, or build a community around your brand, the platform has got you covered. And, with their ecommerce features, you can turn your website into a full-fledged store.

Right now, Squarespace is offering an amazing deal for Artificial Feelers - simply use offer code AOP at checkout to save 10% off your order. And, as always, I want to give a special shout-out to our sponsor, Squarespace, for making it so easy to build a beautiful website.

Conclusion

That's all for this episode of the Art of Photography. I hope you enjoyed learning more about the Sony A5100 and how it can help take your photography skills to the next level. And, if you're looking for an easy solution for building a website, be sure to check out Squarespace. With their amazing templates and intuitive interface, you'll be able to create something beautiful in no time.

Thanks for watching, and I'll see you in the next episode!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enHey, everybody Ted Forbes welcome back to the art of photography todayWe're talking about , and I want to share with you guys the sony A 5100is an amazing little camerathis is in the sony alpha Line which includes theA6000 which has got a lot of hype recentlyand it's a very popular camera model this one is slightly newer it has a few things that theA6000 doesn't even have yet which I'm sure will be replaced in the coming months as sony likes to pop out a camera every weekI think these days, but anyway, I really like this lineupAnd this is an evolution from the sony nex lineAnd so the nex line was kind of this first generationAnd included several models at different price ranges there was the nex three the nex the 6 and the 7 andI had several of these and the nex 5 was always one of my favoritesAnd I had one for about two yearsWore it out and recently was going to replace itandI couldn't believe the price point on these it really hadn't gone up much since it was the same kind of deal that the nex5 was and the cool thing about these cameras is they sit somewhere design-wise between a compact Point-And-shoot andThe larger full-frame mirrorless cameras or maybe a dSLr sized and I think that's really cool. I mean youThey're not going to be a compact in the sense like the RX100 where you could throw in your pocket and goBut it's a little bit bigger. It still takes up very little spaceYou can travel light then take up a lot of room your camera bagAnd it has interchangeable lenses so as long as I can find an adapter that sony E-Mount and I have several other email camerasSo I can use my adapters with all of them that this works just fine, and I really like that theyexcel very much inDoing video doing still photography and being able to flip back and forth and do kind of hybrid stuffAnd so they're not perfectbut I do think they'reIncredible when you consider the price point and let's go up and close on this because I want to show you kind of some ofThe features and why I think the the sony A5100 so cool. So come on over let's have a look okaySo we're gonna have a look at the sony a 5100 and just as a point of reference for comparisonThis is my older nex 5 which, I absolutely lovedI did a lot of B-roll for video on thisI the fact that it was a small camera could throw on the bag it easily does still photos and it was great forThe time you can see that. They're very similar in designI do have a lens on the 5100 here, so it's going to look a little biggerBut this one does not have a lensLenses are interchangeable on both they've redesigned the body very slightlyIt's got a different texture on it now dealthere's a couple other differences that I'll show you in a second the a5100 actually has a pop-up flash in itWhich is very cool the nex five you had to get an external flash and plug it into this proprietary adapter when that great?Other big differences, they're both aps-C sized sensorsbut it's been upgraded in megapixel count so the nex 5 was 16 megapixels the a5100 is 24 megapixels so you do have a bit of an image upgrade there?The bigger upgrade that I think is absolutely fantastic as the autofocus system has been completely overhauled you have a lot more versatility with itwas okaykind of frustrating at with the nexAnd the whole reason I got into the nex 5 is that I could use manual focus lenses so Auto focus wasn't even a concernof mine, but now if you've ever used the sonyA6000 the autofocus is very similar in there. It's got a very wide range. It does a lot of wonderful things with continuous AutofocusThat you can't do on dSLr even and these cameras are real small very inexpensive affordableAnd I really recommend these over dsLrs depending on what your price point is and what your budget is and all that stuffSo that's that's one thing that is considerably different the knob placements a little bit different on these two camerasThere are several kit lens as well. This is the kit . They sell with itI have another kit lens that came with the nex sixI think back in dayAnd I have that which I normally and this one is designed more like a video lens which weirdBut the on/off switch has changed on the top. It's very easy to get toAnd let me pull the Viewfinder up so you can see this other switch does the zooming for you?And it's a little strange to do on a still cameraworks pretty well for videoI don't a lot right to dial it in if you're doing street photography or event photography or something like thisit's not going to be more the most versatile thing in the world so what I would actually is you use if you needa zoom lens isUse something else that sony makes that has a collar where you can just adjust thatBecause I think this is just a little bit cumbersome when you get into that not a big deal though because I can take thislens off and put whateverI want on itBut you do have McKenna digital zoom on there if you do thatOther upgrades that this has I think one of the biggest ones that I'm really excited aboutOpen the menu here. So you can see is that the video capabilities on here the file format?We've talked about this a little bit with the RX100But Sony has new format in these cameras which is this A... excuse me the XAVCS format which is an MP4 container,but it allows you to getting much higher bitrate than the older MP4 standard or theAVCHD, and so you can get up to 50 megabits a secondI think is what I think it shoots at, which is pretty amazing you do need to have a high capacity card andSpeaking of the card has been movedaway from the battery slot and on to the side it was under the battery slot so you just pop it in andout from the sideknow not a huge difference just differentI'm always reaching for it in the battery slot because it's what I'm used toBut anyway when you get in the menu systemYou can select that the other cool thing about this too is for your record settingsI can get all the way up to 60 p on this so depending on what you'd like to shoot withdon't like 60 p for standard shootingI shoot all these videos in 24 P because aCinematic look and when you get up to the higher ones that tend to look like cheap TV?but what's really useful about those is if you're shooting at 60 p if you want to do what they call over cranking when you'reShooting video is that then you can slow that back down to 24 p and you have slow motion so it's pretty nice toBe able to do thatThe other cool thing in this camera is you can do something called dual video?Recording and you can do this in a lot of the the higher-end sony cameras now where it will basically record two videos it doesA smaller one so if you want to move that over to your and upload to instagram or something crazy like thatOr just use it as a proof you can do that. So it'll record both formats at the same timeI don't typically use that but it is thereThe other cool thing is in the manual focus mode you do have focus peaking and you will set magnificationWhich is really niceand I did a separate video on that where we use the a7 s so if you're interested in usingManual focus lenses with mirrorless cameras I would recommend you go check that outI'll link it up at the end of this, but anyway it did cover some of that anywayIt's a great little camera the image quality is fantastic. I noticed the most upgradewhen I was doing video workstills look looked really good on the anti X5, but the video is noticeably better on the outside the a5100 in a major way it really looks outstanding as I mentioned also it has a pop-up flashWhich you know it's not the greatest thing in the worldBut what is cool is just like some of the other sony cameras you can angle this with your finger and bounce the flashSo it does give you a little bit of versatility if you're in a situation where you need kind of flashAnd don't have one it is a flash that you can control and hold up and bounce if you wantSo I thought that was a really nice design feature the other interesting thing about thisThey don't want to talk about is they have added now touch capabilities, so this is actually a touchscreen nowIt's a little bit limited what you can dobut what you can do is very useful and you can see this little box already and hope you can pick that up on theVideo can touch the screen anywhereAnd it will select that what I want to be in focusAnd so for instance if I have something extreme in the foreground like this other nex cameraI can just touch the focus and it will make sure that stays in focusAnd it will track it as well and the tracking is good it's smooth when you watch the video playbackIf that's what you're using it for it works great looks awesomeYou don't see it hunting and seeking trying to find the focusWhich is really nice, and it works great for stills too. If you're in a where you're shooting somethingThat's moving like kids or sports or something like thatAnd you want to be able to use the touch screen?Now the touch screen really only does that it will not work in the menu systemknow a lot of people that's kind of a deal for but I can't for instanceFlipping the menus and scroll or anything doing the touch screen just doesn't work for that. It's for meIt's not a dealI'm glad that it does have a touch screen to do focus with because my RX100 my compact doesn't even do thatIt's a handy feature to have when you're out and aboutAlso, the other thing I want to mention is the screen it's a it's a nice looking screenbut it is just that a screen, so if you're going to be shooting outdoorsfor video or still work it gets a little hard to see depending on how bright the sunlight is andJust depends on what time of day you're shooting and all that and there is no room on here to put an oled Viewfinderso if you want an eye level ViewfinderYou're just kind of out of luck if you're doing video. You can use something like I've got one of the Saku toefocus finders so you can use something like that if that helpsother than that that is the one major drawback to this over something like the or sorry a6,000 is that you don't have a finder on it, and so that's just kind of part of the dealAnd it's just the design of these cameras, but however you can flip this upAnd you know in every whatever they call selfie mode hereI actually find this very useful particularly if I'm doing videoand I don't want to bring a lot of stuff and I'm out in the field andso or if I'm evenFilming this show a lot times I use little flip up Viewfinder so I can see if I'm in frame or notSo it's very useful for thatIt's also very useful if you're filming someone elseAnd they need a monitor and want to be able to kind of see themselves, or what they're doing it. You've got ityou don't to bring an external monitor to do that with if that's a big deal for me because I do theThe show and the way I film it that that's enormousLy useful to have the other bizarre function on here when you actually flip the screen up like thisAnd you'll love this if I just touch the screen goes into this weird selfie mode so you can see counting downand then takes a pictureGuess that's useful for people who really like selfies sure you get a little timerthere's another bizarre function in here that you can go into and you can set it so a smile will trip the shutter andI've seen other cameras that dumb have done this and this one does seem to work you have to have teeth in your smileSo you have to open your mouth a little bitBut it's weirdI keep waiting for a contemporary artist to come along and do some bizarre project ofSomething where people are tripping the shutter with teeth or something. I don't know anyway, but it is thereIt's not a huge dealit's kind of activated when you have the screen flipped up in the selfie mode like that when you're down here you use thetouch it functions as that autofocus, soAnyway, very nice camera, thoughAnd I think the biggest deals for me on here are the x ABc s video Codec the redesign sensor?Which is noticeably better than what we had before on the nex . It's really really good guys.Actually a hair better than my really expensive video camera, and I just think it's beautiful video looks wonderfulYou have lot of versatility with itI love the light weight the compact size the fact I can detach the lens and put a manual focus lens on thereYou know some of the minuses. I like the flash when you're in a jamNeed to use that the biggest minus is the screen and just the way that camera is designedI mean, it's hard to see when you're bright sunlightdon't shoot in that situation a lotbut when you doIt's kind of hardSee things you kind of have to squint and cover it and shade it and do weird things to make that workBut you know the control layout is good. can get to things pretty easily and I think for a cameraYou're getting so much bang for your buck on this. It's just ridiculousthe one last thing I want to talk about is capabilities on this you know does it compare to something like the A7 swell, no the a7 s is one of themost interestingSensors in a camera you can find in the low-light is just I mean you can shoot in the dark on that thing with veryLittle noise. This is to start to get noisy. You can shoot 1600 isoFine when you get up to 3200 start getting a little noisyThat's usable and especially if you're using manual focus lenses that have really wide apertures like a 1.8 or 1.4Or something like that you can get around that sorry just shut itself offBut you know I thinkConsidering that may not you know the low-light capabilities are not why you buy this camerait's got a lot other reasons for why you would want to buy this cameraAs I mentioned I had the nex 5 and I used this just into the groundI mean, I spent two years with this camera. It went on every tripI went on it was the camera that just thrown in my bag when I needed to film video or whatever I've used it onthe show beforeextensively, just absolutely this camera for stills and video and mine starting to wear out little bit andit was kind of time to put it out to pasture and get something I could rely on a little more just because I reallyDid use the use the bejesus out of this so anyway? I think the a51,000 I wish they'd come up more confusing names ais an Excellent buy for five hundred dollars and I'll link up in the show notes the storeYou can get one I want to take a second give a shout-out to our sponsor today who the awesome folks over at squarespace.com?If you're not familiar with squarespace it is everything you need to build a beautiful website Portfolio online storeYou name it and come over to the computerI want to show you how this works if you look at squarespace's websiteYou can browse the first thing you want to do and this is what's so awesome with SquarespaceIs that you sign up for a free trial?And you start by browsing their templates here and let's say I go through hereAnd I pick a template looks really niceAnd want to use this and so let's view adversaryAnd I'm going to go and do a live preview this and it's going to open it upAnd you're going see exactly how this looks and this one's got a lot cool things with Parallax scrollingGoing on. It's really nice, and so let's say I want to start hereI want to build my photography portfolio or want to do something with that and so you sign up for the free trial?go ahead and get started with the template and then you can go in and you can pick your fonts and your colors and yourLayout schemes and you pages, and how you want the whole thing to fit together?And what's what's really cool about squarespace is even thoughWe all kind of start from templates is customizable you do your own coding and you want to inject something in thereThey have code injection too. So you're never really boxed in with Squarespace, and what's really coolIs that you also don't get painted into a corner as your website grow, so if you want to offer ecommerceOr if you want to sell items on here products or prints or digital downloads or whatever that may be you doThat's through squarespace, and it is awesome. You just turn on the features and you go it's a monthly priceThat's about as they start at dollars a monthAnd squarespace really are the easiest solution out there that's all-in-one for hosting and building your own websiteAnd they have a deal right now for artificialFeelers if you're interested I can save you money what you want to do is head over to squarespacecomm and sign up for the free trial andOn Checkout use offer code aop that's going to save you 10% off your order that once again is offer codeaop for the art of photographyAnd that'll get you 10% off so go over there and try it now they don't require a credit card or anything just go overAnd check it out and see what squarespace will do for youAnd I want to give an extra special shout outAnd thank you once again to the awesome folks over at squarespace for once again sponsoring another episode of the art of photographySo that my friends is the sony a 5100 and think this is such an excellent camera for the moneyYou're going to spend on something like this if you're in the market get something you don't have a lot of money and youWant something that's going to get really good image quality really good video qualityHave the ability to be able to put manual focus lenses on here, and it's got some versatility to itreally recommend this series particularly the a 5100 the A6000 is a great camera in my humble opinionI think the video is slightly better on hereAnd I mean splitting hairs really because they're both wonderful cameras this one is also considerably cheaperSo I will link up to where you can find these in the show notesand I strongly recommend that you check these out asAlways if you enjoyed this episode remember to like it and share it with your friends and as always subscribeSo you'll be up to date all latest and greatest videos as they comeI'm doing a ton of stuff and if you want to stay up to subscribe, so you will never miss an episodeAnyways always folks that's been another episode of the art of photography. see you guys in the next videoyou\n"