Published: January 17, 2017
The Sony Alpha 6300 is a 24.2-megapixel APS-C mirrorless digital camera. It is capable of continuous shooting up to 11 frames per second. The autofocus system uses 169 contrast and 425 phase detect points, an improvement over the previous A6000 model. Like the previous model it features a 3-inch tilting LCD and the electronic viewfinder has been upgraded to 2.36 million dot OLED.
The A6300 features a single SD card slot and supports UHS-I cards. Although UHS-II cards can be used in the camera, it will only operate in UHS-I mode. The memory card performance of 85 SD cards were tested in the camera. The write speed results were compared shooting RAW images. Additional tests results show the number of images taken in 30 seconds of continuous shooting using RAW+JPEG, RAW and JPEG image modes. Additional information about the tests is included in the analysis. Recommended SD cards for the A6300 are provided for the fastest and good value memory cards.
The test is conducted with a detailed test scene under controlled lighting. The A6300 camera is mounted on a tripod and controlled by a remote release timer for 30 second intervals. A manual lens is used and the focus and aperture are set and locked. Average write speed is determined using continuous shooting after the camera has reached buffer capacity. To calculate write speed, the total amount of bytes written to the card are divided by the time. Write speed is in MB/s (1 MB = 1,048,576 bytes). The write speed results are provided using RAW image format (RAW+JPEG and JPEG modes result in reduced write speed).
The continuous shooting results show the number of images taken in 30 seconds with the A6300 set to continuous high drive mode. The time does not include buffer clearing time. Three image modes are used: RAW+JPEG, RAW, and JPEG. The JPEG setting is fine quality, large image size. The average file sizes are 24.1MB RAW and 9.7MB JPEG.
Like its predecessor, A6300 is limited in write speed. It measured up to 35.5 MB/s average write speed during continuous shooting of RAW images. The previous A6000 reached 35.9MB/s maximum write speed. Although write speed is limited, the A6300 has a decent buffer which makes the camera feel responsive during high frame rate bursts shorter than seven seconds regardless of the memory card used. Because the camera is write speed limited the difference between memory cards in this camera is not as pronounced as other cameras.
The buffer allowed continuous shooting at full frame rate for 21-25 images in RAW+JPEG mode, which is similar to the previous model. However in RAW mode the A6300 improved by allowing up to 28 shots, while the previous model only captured 24 at full frame rate. The range for JPEG mode was 33-50 shots at full frame rate before it slowed, which is a slightly larger range than the 46-49 shots of the A6000. The range is largely a result of the write speed, with fast cards able to clear the buffer faster during shooting which allows extra shots.
The performance of memory cards is most apparent after the buffer has reached capacity. In RAW+JPEG mode the frame with the buffer full was 1 fps using the fastest card and 0.3 fps with the slowest card. In RAW mode the range was 1.5 fps to 0.6 fps. The frame rate with the buffer full in JPEG mode was as high as 1.7 fps and as low as 0.9 fps. This an improvement over the A6000 which was about 1.2 fps for nearly all cards. The the number of JPEG images captured in 30 seconds improved to 118 over the 79 of the previous model with the fastest cards.
While the A6300 supports UHS-I it does not support the fastest SDR104 mode (104 MB/s) which requires a high bus speed. The A6300 does not have the UHS-II interface, but UHS-II cards can be used because the cards revert to UHS-I mode using the standard card interface. Using a UHS-II card offers no speed benefit over UHS-I cards in the A6300, but UHS-II cards will allow faster image downloads when used in a UHS-II card reader.
The fastest cards in the A6300 were SanDisk Extreme Pro 95MB/s UHS-I 32GB and Lexar UHS-II cards, both the 1800x UHS-II microSD and 2000x UHS-II SD. These cards were only slightly faster in write speed than several others. The performance in terms of shots in 30 seconds for may cards was the same as shown in the table above. Overall, 32GB cards tended to provide slightly faster write performance; however the difference was generally so slight it did not affect the number of shots in 30 seconds. Again, UHS-II cards are not required and offer no speed benefit in the camera over fast UHS-I cards, but can offer a higher download speed when used in a UHS-II card reader.
Because the A6300 is limited in speed the absolute fastest card is not required. Several cards offer moderate write speed which is fast enough for the A6300 and thus provide good value for their performance. Use the tables above to compare current prices, which are updated daily. The tables can be sorted by clicking on the headings, and also limited to a particular size card by clicking the capacity at the top.
The A6300 has an integrated USB port to transfer images to a computer directly from the camera. The port is USB 2.0 which is limited to about 35MB/s as a theoretical maximum. Using the fast SanDisk Extreme Pro UHS-I 95MB/s 32GB card and transferring 3GB of 113 RAW images from the camera averaged 23.8 MB/s and took just under two minutes (USB Mode Mass Storage). Using a separate USB 3.0 card reader provides much faster downloads. Such transfers average about 90MB/s read speed when copying RAW images with UHS-I, while UHS-II cards can reach above to 250MB/s read speed in UHS-II card readers. The actual speed may vary depending on the memory card, card reader, connection type (USB 3.0) and computer hardware (hard drive or SSD). A bottleneck in any individual element can decrease the transfer speed. See the Card Reader Reviews for benchmark tests using various cards and card readers.