philip_pj
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Far be it for me to suggest what anyone should do, and it's likely to not matter 'much' in gentle shooting conditions. But more needs to be said. Crop cameras are very limiting IF you do, or may in the future decide to do any work in very low light or where you want the best results at any ISO.
Since it is personal, I just did a later winter trip to the deep remote Himalaya, which stretched the DR of my 'best in class' FF cameras to the point of needing significant recovery - due to slanting low angle light, deep ground shadows and ultra bright, high altitude snow. I like well-drawn shadow and highlight detail, it is the essence of sound photography IMO.
These are the best light conditions to shoot in there, and the SBR ambient levels effortlessly filled out the regular gamut of these great DR Sony sensors. Compared to the a6400/6500 you have over one full stop at base ISO levels - see below.
But one often has to shoot at small apertures meaning ISO levels over 1000, in broad daylight. At ISO 1600 that amounts to 1.4 stops difference, so your comfort zone vanishes fast. The APS-C units are now almost down at Canon levels of DR. But it is even worse than it looks because at ISO 1600 even the stronger DR sensors are way down in absolute terms - three full stops from their own base.
Had I used a 6400, I would have given up up to 4.4 stops in my conditions, which were the whole reason for the trip. Not possible in this kind of work without an image quality nose dive, when quality matters a lot.
It was bad enough before Sony dramatically ramped up sensor DR, first seen in the groundbreaking a99v1 (still a superb camera). The a900 had literally cost me many hundreds of otherwise memorable images, so I can't afford to be blase about this; the a900 was the best in its day though, which is how I came to go with Sony after a short entry with the joke D200 (four stops down at base ISO!).
The (IBIS) a99v1 was a 2012 camera - and it still defeats the new 6500 comfortably in terms of DR; and it has the same DR at ISO 50 as the a7rII. It was the camera that told Sony they would never win with the rusted on DSLR crowds, no matter how good their FF sensor was (and since they provided Nikon with sensors). Within a year, Sony announced the a7/a7r, and the rest is history.
Real World DR was, is, and always will be the gold standard to the serious landscape shooter community. Down 4.4 stops, I may as well be condemned to using a phone. As for low light (EV under 3-4) with an APS-C .. please. It's a no-go format for that use too, even in 2019. The 6500 makes the same DR at ISO 2500 as the 7rII at ISO 6400. So that rules out these devices for my two major (albeit extreme) activities, in one fell swoop. I have not mentioned that getting the best DR cameras has wins all over the place - people in shadows that need serious light balancing, enhanced creative choices for final image tonality, use of very high contrast lenses, etc. You win all the way through, whatever it is you do. IBIS will help the 6500, but the FFs have it too, it's why I bought an a7rII.
PS. My 10 year experience in digital work lines up very closely with Bill Claff's DR data, shown below.
blue - a7rII; green - a6400; black - a6500.
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