Sony A5000 Performance

Sluggish to average performance for an entry-level model.

The Sony A5000's startup time (power on to first shot) was slower than most CSCs, and much slower than most DSLRs. Switching from Play to Record mode and taking a shot was reasonable, though.

The Sony A5000's full-autofocus shutter lag (with the subject at a fixed distance) was 0.3 second in both Single-area (Center) and 0.29 second in Multi-area (Wide) AF modes with the 16-50mm kit lens at a medium focal length. That's about average performance for a mirrorless camera.

Enabling the flash added significant delay for preflash metering, increasing lag to about 0.4s. When manually focused, the Sony A5000's shutter lag was about 0.13s, which is pretty good, though not as fast as some competitors. The A5000's prefocused shutter lag was only 22 milliseconds, much faster than most CSCs and faster than any DSLR -- we have the camera's lack of a mirror and electronic front curtain shutter to thank for that.

To minimize the effect of different lens' focusing speed, we test AF-active shutter lag with the lens already set to the correct focal distance.

Single-shot cycle times were about average for a mirrorless ILC camera, at 0.78 second for large/fine JPEGs, 0.81 second for RAW files and 1.04 seconds for RAW+JPEG frames.

Continuous burst mode performance was sluggish, at just over 3.3 frames per second in Speed Priority Continuous mode (autofocus is fixed at first frame of a burst in this mode), dropping to about 2.5 frames per second in standard continuous mode (where continuous autofocus is available).

Buffer depth for large/fine JPEGs in Speed Priority Continuous mode was fair for its class at 15 frames before the camera slowed. Note that our test target for this was designed to be difficult to compress, so burst lengths should be longer with typical subjects. Buffer depth increased to over 20 L/F JPEGs when shooting in the slower, standard continuous mode. When shooting RAW files, buffer depth dropped to 9 frames, and to 6 frames with RAW+L/F JPEG files, also fair for its class. Buffer clearing after max-length bursts was pretty fast though, ranging between 3 seconds after a max-length burst of RAW files to 6 seconds after a burst of large/fine JPEGs.

The built-in flash was able to recycle from a full discharge in 2.4 seconds on average, which is pretty fast.

Download speeds were very good, fast enough that you likely won't feel the need for a separate card reader, even with large memory cards. (Note that this test was performed with a SanDisk Pro 95MB/sec UHS-I SDHC card: Slower cards would likely show slower transfer times.)

Bottom line, the Sony A5000's performance is sluggish to just average, even for an entry-level model. Still, it's quick enough for most general purpose photography and even a bit of sports, but you might want to consider other models if capturing fast action is a priority.

Battery Life
Good battery life for a mirrorless ILC.

The Sony A5000 uses a custom NP-FW50 rechargeable lithium-ion battery pack for power, and comes with both a single battery and an AC adapter for charging in-camera via USB. Battery life is rated at 420 shots per charge which is well above average for a compact mirrorless camera. As is usually the case, though, we still recommend getting a second battery for your A5000 if you plan any extended outings.

The table above shows the number of shots the camera is capable of (on a fully-charged rechargeable battery), based on CIPA battery-life and/or manufacturer standard test conditions.

(Interested readers can find an English translation of the CIPA DC-002 standards document here. (180K PDF document))