The Sony A6500 APSC mirrorless camera among many excellent photography features can record video in 4k. 4k video is 3840 x 2160p at either 24 fps or 30fps @ 60Mbps or 100Mbps. The 24fps (24p) setting is also called “Super 35MM”.

The meaning of Super 35MM is that the a6500 will capture that video in 6k and then downsample it. Downsampling is the process of squashing the footage into a smaller resolution which should give sharper results in situations.

Is Super 35MM an advantage?

I did a test with the a6500 to see if the difference was noticeable in quality. In the end both of the video settings outputs 4k but one is downsampled from 6k.

From  the video example you can see the Super 35MM mode shoots wider, noticeably wider.

It’s hard to tell if Super 35MM mode is sharper from the stills. I imagine this would be more effective from real case video footage.

Sony 60M vs 100M

I also did testing to compare all 4 of the 4k recording settings side by side. Super 35MM mode in 100Mbps & 60Mbps and regular 4k in 100Mbps & 60Mbps.

Unless you’re pixel peeping hard its no noticeable difference. This may differ if youre shooting a lot of moving objects but for this simple test if you want to save on storage stick to 60Mbps.

The bitrate difference would be something worth it for high fps but 24/30 isn’t high frames per second so any advantage of the A6500 100Mbps would be closed down.