Sony a6500 Memory Card Recommendations

If you just want some quick recommendations, here you go.

These SD cards meet the needs of the a6500’s features, have a strong track record of reliability, are readily available, and are usually cost-effective. Any of these makes for a good choice for the a6500, and if you’re after more detail, you can find it below.

You can see some of the photos I’ve taken with the Sony a6500 in these posts:

– Sony a6500 Sample Images (general sample images under different conditions)– Sony a6500 High ISO Sample Images (focusing on high-ISO images in lower light conditions)

The a6500 has a single UHS-I SD card slot, and it’s compatible with SDXC, SDHC, and SD cards.

I’m focusing on memory cards that will let you use all of the a6500’s features. It doesn’t make much sense to me to get a memory card that will only let you use some of the a6500’s features.

A memory card is an essential accessory for the Sony a6500. Without it, you’re not going to be able to take many photos or shoot much video. That’s because the Sony a6500 doesn’t have internal memory that is directly user-accessible. (It does technically have internal memory, but it’s used for storing settings and as a buffer for writing data to the memory card.)

But the Sony a6500 doesn’t come with a memory card as standard. So it’s treated as an optional extra, even though there’s really not much optional about it.

There are some bundles that retailers put together that might include a memory card, but chances are it’s something you’re going to have to pick up separately. Or maybe you want something bigger with larger storage capacity—the cards that are included in bundles are often on the small side and might fill up quickly, especially if you’re on a trip. So which card should you get?

That’s where this post comes in—hopefully, to help you get out shooting sooner and taking full advantage of all the features of your new camera rather than spending your time searching the web and trying to make sense of cryptic technical codes.

I’ve been buying and testing numerous SD cards for several years and have put many of the most popular SD cards on the market through their paces. You can find my main SD card tests here.

The Sony a6500 is a 24-megapixel camera in Sony’s Alpha line of APS-C interchangeable lens mirrorless cameras. Like the exceedingly popular a6000, and also the a6400, it combines powerful video and photo capabilities in a surprisingly small and mobile package. It’s a camera I really enjoy shooting with, and you can see some of the photos I’ve taken with it here.

There are several variations when referring to the Sony a6500. You can also see it referred to as the Sony α6600, Sony Alpha 6500, and Sony ILCE-6500. All refer to the same camera.

So which SD card should you get for your Sony a6500? Here’s a more detailed explanation.

The a6500’s instruction manual is pretty confusing when it comes to guidance on a memory card for this camera. That’s partly because it provides different guidance for the various video shooting settings, and partly because it includes Sony’s proprietary Memory Stick format.

I’m also focusing here on Secure Digital (or SD) cards.

The a6500 is also compatible with Sony’s own Memory Stick format cards, but I consider them less useful for three reasons:

By contrast, it’s quite easy to find SD cards that will work well in the Sony a6500 and allow you to use all of the a6500’s video modes. They’re faster, more widely available, better value, and there’s much more choice.

So what I’m aiming to do here is provide some practical recommendations on which SD cards to get for the Sony a6500 so you can spend less time searching online and more time out shooting. I’m not trying to list every SD card that works in the a6500–there are others that will work just fine as well. I’m focusing here on ones that offer a good combination of meeting the requirements of all of the a6500’s features, are readily available at major retailers, are cost-effective, and come from major manufacturers with track records for good-quality cards. I’m also basing this on my own SD speed tests.

So here’s more detailed information on these cards, along with some others.

Delkin Devices have recently come out with a range of new SD cards of varying speeds and specs. While they're not as well known as some of the other brands, they've actually been in the memory card game a long time, and their recent efforts are paying off and getting noticed amongst those who use high-performance memory cards.

This is one of their mid-range cards that is rated for V30 video recording speeds.

Find them at Amazon and B&H Photo

This card from Lexar, one of the leading makers of memory cards, is a fast, reliable option. It's rated for video recording speed rating of V60. It comes in sizes up to 512GB.

Buy at: Amazon

SanDisk's Extreme range are good bets for many cameras, and that's true here too. SanDisk has faster ranges like the Plus and Pro lines, but the Extreme line is both quick enough for most cameras and usually less expensive than those faster lines.

One thing to note with SanDisk cards is that they recycle their model names. So you can find Extreme cards that are older and slower. You'll probably find those older versions work just fine--it really depends how far back you go--but you can tell the latest version because it's labeled with both U3 and V30, both of which are speed ratings specifically related to recording video. These cards are often good value, and you can sometimes find them sold in 2-packs.

Buy at: Amazon or B&H Photo

Kingston is another brand that isn't as well known as some of the others, but they've been making reliable memory cards for a very long time. As a brand, they don't tend to focus on the cutting edge speeds but rather on reliable and good-value memory cards.

This particular card (model SDG3 Canvas Go Plus) isn't the fastest in Kingston's range, but it's fast enough to work well in this camera. It's available in sizes from 16GB through 512GB.

Buy at: Amazon

PNY aren't as well known as some of the other brands, but they've been around for quite some time and make reliable, cost-effective memory cards. It comes in sizes from 64GB up to 512GB.

Buy at Amazon

The a6500 is compatible with SDHC and SDXC cards. That means you can use cards from 4GB all the way to the largest cards currently available, which are 512GB and 1TB cards.

There’s really no right answer when it comes to what size, or storage capacity, to get–it’s mostly a matter of convenience so that you don’t keep running out of space. As is probably obvious, you can fit twice as many photos on a 64GB card as on a 32GB card. And with a 128GB card, you can fit four times as many photos as on a 32GB. And so on. And that’s especially handy when you’re traveling; even more so if you’re shooting any video. The most logical sizes for this camera in terms of convenience and price are probably the 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB sizes. But if you want to use a larger or smaller one, say 64GB or even 1TB, go right ahead–they’ll work just fine because of the way that the SDXC spec is designed.

Sony has put together some estimates of how many photos and how much video you can fit on SD cards ranging from 8GB to 64GB; you can find those on pages 45-48 of the manual. But my inclination would be to aim in the 128GB to 512GB range–you can find cost-effective options in those sizes quite easily.

A better memory card is not going to help you take better photos or improve image quality. But it can let you take advantage of all of the camera’s features. A card that’s not fast enough to keep up with the camera can cause issues like locking up, dropped video frames, and overheating.

There’s also the issue of reliability. There are plenty of junk memory cards on the market. Not only do they have flaky performance, but they’re also more likely to fail. And that means the risk of losing your photos and videos.

At the same time, you don’t want to pay extra for a high-performance SD card that’s overkill for the camera.

I have a more detailed guide on how to format an SD card in a Sony a6500 separately, but here’s a quick version.

It is best practice to always format memory cards in the camera that you’ll be using them in. That sets the card up with the filesystem, folder hierarchy, and, in some cameras, a database file, so that the card is just how the camera expects. That greatly reduces the risk of unexpected errors and unpleasant surprises.

Always be sure you’ve backed up everything you want from the card, because formatting it will wipe everything. (If you’ve formatted accidentally, it still might be possible to recover data from the memory card, but it’s not always guaranteed, and it can incur the expense of buying recovery software; more on that below.)

On the Sony a6500, you can find the format function under:

If you enjoyed this, these might also be of interest:

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