GEAR TESTS: SONY a5000

Paul Barnett Nauticam Team Member

Never cross the streams! Never cross the streams! Aghhhh, Sony went out and crossed the streams! The A5000 is an amazing combination of size, sensor, lenses, and price that will evaporate the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man or any other compact camera around… The future of compact systems.

In all seriousness, I've been interested in this camera since the day it was announced. It's size is pretty typical of what we collectively consider a "compact camera". But then Sony went and stuck a huge APS-C sensor in its tiny body and decided to give the A5000 removable lens architecture. As if that weren't enough, the A5000 only costs $449 (with kit lens). If you're bad at math, that's only $150 more than a GoPro Hero3+ Black.

But here's the real gem, it's the most diver friendly camera around in the Nauticam A5000 housing  Meaning its excellent performance, travel friendly size, easy setup, and slew of accessories make the A5000 and Nauticam housin  an excellent choice for divers, budding underwater photographers or folks just looking for a low over-head rig (read easy to travel and dive with).

The A5000 is bundled with Sony's 16-50mm Power Zoom Lens which, by happenstance is a great all-around lens for a variety of underwater subjects. The "Power Zoom" label means the camera powers the zoom function of the lens instead of your hand turning the lens barrel. The bonus of the Power Zoom in the Nauticam housing is that a zoom gear is no longer required. No zoom gear means the camera can drop in the housing with ease; go from shooting topside into the housing without any additional camera modifications.

To round-out the ease of setup, the Nauticam A5000 housing features an ergonomic rotating latch with a positive lock indicator making sealing the housing simple. The housings's port system lock is a scaled down version first introduced on Nauticam DSLR housings, no rotating ports to attach, simply press in position and flip the port lock up for an easy setup. The Nauticam A5000 is also standard with Nauticam's Vacuum Check system (a vacuum valve is still required for full functionality). After sealing the housing and a few quick pumps, the Vacuum Check system's green light indicates the housing is correctly sealed and that it's ready to dive!

For my test dives, I set up a single A5000 with the Inon D-2000 strobe to shoot photographs and a pair of FIX Neo 2000 DX SWR lights to shoot video with the Sony 16-50mm kit lens behind a Nauticam flat port. The A5000 syncs at 1/160th which combined with a good power strobe like the D-2000 was perfect for freezing the behavior of the Jaw Fish photo. Dual FIX Neo lights used for video provided nice even lighting for a similar behavior clip of the same subject. 

Chris Parsons Nauticam Team Member

The Sony A5000 is easily my favorite camera for carrying around in my dry bag to take snapshots on the boat. It is so amazingly small and light, despite using a large APS-C sized sensor and interchangeable lenses. For anyone considering a compact camera or action camera - STOP! Make sure you take a look at the A5000. For about the same amount of money, the A5000 will a) get you way better image quality and b) grow with you. And did I mention the money part? You seriously need to check out the price of this camera and lens. It is an absolute bargain. 

What do I mean by "grow with you"? First, I think it is important to keep in mind that the camera is only about half, or maybe even less, of the equation when it comes to getting great photos. What's the other half? The lens of course. 

The A5000 comes with a really versatile and fun to use lens (a 16-50mm power zoom). This is a great start, and an ideal lens to walk around with. It is lightweight, has a really useful focal range, and has this cool power zoom feature that is great for zooming while shooting video. A lot of people will start out with this lens and use it forever. But the really cool thing here is that as your skills grow, you can add lenses to express yourself and get the perspectives that you want. For example, if you decide you really want to focus on macro, you can add the Zeiss 50mm macro lens. If getting beautiful shots of people, sharks, wrecks etc. is your thing, the 10-18mm lets you get really close to your subject, giving you an ideal perspective without the distortion of fisheye. And speaking of fisheye, if you want the dramatic super wide angle look of a close-focus-wide-angle shot, the 16mm pancake plus fisheye conversion lens gives you that look.