Sony’s powerful, portable enthusiast mirrorless camera hits the lab. See our Sony A6300 First Shots

posted Tuesday, March 22, 2016 at 11:45 AM EDT

The Sony A6300 sports the same resolution and processor as the immensely popular Sony A6000 from 2014, but it's important to note that it's not the same sensor, as this newly configured chip has been designed for speed and performance in both burst shooting and 4K video arenas. And while still dubbed a Bionz X processor inside, the algorithms are said to be updated to lower noise as the ISO rises.

So the big question is, did they achieve all this? We'll be taking a much closer look at the performance characteristics for you, and in the meantime we present our lab test First Shots in order to let you get a closer look at how the Sony A6300's image quality stacks up against the competition.

You can begin your own analysis on our A6300 Lab Samples page, and with our Comparometer to compare side-by-side images against the competition as ISO rises. To whet your apetite, below are 1:1 crop comparisons from our Still Life test target beside the A6000, in addition to a popular Micro Four Thirds competitor in the Panasonic GX8. And lastly, we'll take a look beside the A6300's full-frame big brother, the Sony A7 II.