Is the A6000 from Sony a decent camera still? The common idea is that Sony cameras
in the menus are a little confusing... As long as you understand the Fn button,
the menu button... basically you've got the tabs you got the sub-tabs.
And finding stuff can be a challenge. Besides that it can be decently logical.
You've got the c1, c2 and you can adjust those to some degree, but not every option is available.
ISO button on the side of this back dial. Press that, you can either go into auto or
adjust it specifically. Then you have two dials
to adjust the other settings so full manual is really not that challenging with this camera.
Like any camera of this type, adjusting the focus point is okay. It's not super
fast or anything but it works. You've got the main back dial
inside there you have the button you press the button it toggles the focus adjustment as long
as you're in the single point focus mode. But if you want to change focus modes you
have to go into the Fn area or the main menu, but in the Fn area you can adjust
which type of focus mode you want... It's basic.. it works
as long as you understand how to get where you need to go there's no real issues with it.
The included lens definitely has its quirks. Like I said you've got the ring here to just
zoom and then on the side here. Lens quality is not amazing.
Considering the age of this camera autofocus is actually very nice. It uses a mixture of
contrast and phase detect points. We've got 11 frames a second burst mode if
you want to use that with the continuous shooting. It seems to slow down a little bit so I'm not sure
if that's like a true to life amount but still pretty fast which will give you an example...
Once you shoot a lot of frames the camera basically locks up.
You can't get into the menus or anything. If you leave it in the default brightness
mode it's pretty dark in these conditions. There is a sunny mode option that you can turn on
to improve the situation, or you can use the EVF. It has a small although functional EVF. It's
low resolution it's like one point something million dots, which isn't great, but it's there!
Build quality feels good in the hands. The grip is small but it's not uncomfortable really.
Maybe with a really big lens you'll have some issues eventually, but it's not terrible.
My hand tends to angle downward which is good similar to the M50 cameras, but it does work okay.
Of course it does have a pop-up flash... used it...
It has 1080p 60 frames a second maximum. It does do clean HDMI out
which has a few interesting benefits. You can do the webcam stuff if you
have a capture card for the HDMI. You'll want some type of battery
replacement for the ac adapter thing. The HDMI out... what you can do is you
can still record in the camera up to 30 minutes per clip while outputting the clean HDMI out.
So if you have a recorder, which is kind of an extreme case but
I do have one... and you'll be able to do the mix of recording through the HDMI plus recording in
the camera which not all cameras can do that. So that's pretty cool at least
for 30 minute chunks of video. Besides that it's okay for video just
don't expect like spectacular stuff. Especially since you can't rotate the screen forward.
You can of course output the HDMI with information to a monitor or something as well.
With video on this camera there is a dedicated button you can use,
but there is also a dedicated mode. Go into that mode for more features with the video itself.
Press that to start recording... and it's going! I have Steadyshot on,
Program mode for the video... With this specific lens you can
zoom while it's recording which is pretty neat. And it goes smoothly...
I think the camera,
there we go it is still focusing... Get an idea of what it sounds like
without any adjustments. Test one two three testing one two three.
If you want to upgrade to the more recent model of the A6100, it does have the flip forward screen.
Looks similar to the M6 Mark II right here. It comes forward right above the lens
so you need some type of adapter. A few ergonomic quirks with this camera.
The battery door is fine, but the memory card is in there and it's in the
joint area between the door itself and the battery which makes it difficult to access.
That'll depend on you and your finger size and all that.
Doesn't have any type of touch screen which can be a negative depending on how you use
cameras these days, but sometimes it's positive really depends...
The grip is definitely a personal preference thing. Might work for you
might not it is pretty compact and small. The A6000 uses micro USB which is okay
it functions it works and you can charge through the camera.
It doesn't actually include any type of charger in the box, so you definitely need to charge
to the camera. Using a computer if you don't have like a dedicated USB charger and of course
you could probably buy an accessory charger for these batteries which are the NP-FW50,
super classic well-known batteries. Not a ton of charge but they're okay.
I wouldn't say that the camera is super customizable because when I was looking for
the HDMI out feature to apply it to a button I don't think it was able to do that so...
Overall I think it was a nice camera when it came out and it's still a nice camera.
If you can find one for a very low cost either used or old stock something like that might as
well check it out at least if you're into e-mount and all the lenses that are included in that.
Of course if you're just going to use the kit lens this specific kit lens is not great.
Just keep that in mind. Although it does offer you some interesting stuff with the powered zoom
in video and such. These days I think
it's a good camera. Still check it out! Scott of Photography Banzai, thanks!