Sony a3500 Video Review

Well, I created this short video to test out the capabilities on the Sony a3500. There isn't much in the way of example videos for this budget camera so I made one that has clips from a range of lighting situations. I used the Manual setting on the top selection dial and have also kept the same internal settings from the menu for all shots:
White Balance- 4700 Kelvin
ISO- 400
Movie Codec- 25p 17M FH

The reason I picked 4700 for my white balance and didn't use auto-wb is because it's the one I use the most on my Sony A7 when I film promotional footage. It renders pretty nicely and it's not too yellow or cyan.

The lighting was either bright sunshine or dark shade so I chose ISO 400 for this reason. I felt like 800 was a bit high and required shutter speed to be about 2500 in sunshine. Because the camera has quite bad rolling shutter, I tried to make the shots as steady as possible. Even some movement from breathing makes the video a bit 'warpy'. So no whip pans! I did a panning shot but I didn't use it because it was horrible. I did include an improvised tilt shot (no tripod, just tilted down with my arms) which was okay. I also did some spinning shots pointed up at some trees but even though they weren't too bad they didn't fit the video so I didn't include them.

I picked the lower resolution movie codec because most people who buy this camera are going to be beginners and they really won't need a higher resolution movie codec. There is the option of 25p 24M FX setting but when I did a side by side test when I first got the camera the 24M setting was only marginally better anyway regarding blocky pixels. I'm sure it would allow a better colour grade though. I also maybe forgot a little bit to get a formatted SD card and had to conserve a little space. No biggy, I just made my project 720p instead of 1080p to compensate. YouTube does also compress it further on upload so it's blockier here than in QuickTime.

I edited this clip in Final Cut (as always) and did a custom colour balance that removed some saturation/contrast and added a fake widescreen bar at the top and bottom because I like how it looks. I also used a third party film plugin that looks like old 16mm film footage. Complete with the occasional hair and line through it. I used 5% grain to cover some of the noise the camera produces and 15% sepia tone to give it an old film look. I also fiddled with some of the clips that had bright sunlight and dark shadows in it and stacked them with a Luma Key to do a basic workaround colour grade and lift the blacks so that they weren't so, well, black and dark. Looks okay but really shows the limitations of the camera in terms of pixellation.

This camera costs about $500 AUD but it's been on sale for $300 AUD a couple of times since it got released. I've used it for a C-Roll camera on occasion- when I need something like a normal angle in a 'dangerous' situation, like hanging it out of the van window to get road travel footage in the middle of regional Queensland! My ActionCam would have been blown out of my hand. I also use this camera to get behind the scenes footage or lend it to people with limited camera knowledge. It's great to give to kids as a learning tool. And ergonomically, it handles nicely. Like a smaller a99. The buttons are in good places. There's also a flash and an actual really real viewfinder, although the screen and finder are super low res. I guess this keeps the price down.

I think if you're poor but a bit clever you could totally make a short film on this camera but you would need an external sound recorder. I don't recommend this camera to professionals as it clearly will not offer the same features as any of the professional models such as the a99 or Canon 5Diii or Nikon D810.

I am not a Sony employee.