This camera is so much cheaper than other mirrorless cameras. ($245) I realize the additional lens costs as much as the camera, but I'm still wondering if this is a good way to enter the mirrorless camera market. It is #1 best seller at Amazon, I'm guessing because of the price. Currently I use a Nikon P510 which has a better zoom capability but I am intrigued about the features of the mirrorless camera. Any insights would be appreciated.
I had a chance to fiddle with the Sony Mirrorless line in a store the other day. To me, the A6000 had the feel and controls that a DSLR user would recognize, use, and want. The two smaller ones in the line the -a5000 and the a3000 - felt cheap, and were missing options and controls that I find essential. This is just my opinion, and it's only from handling them. I didn't get to photograph anything.
I know nothing about the A3000 but I've had a Sony A6000 for six months now and I wouldn't swap it for anything. Mine was around £500 for the body and 16-50mm zoom lens and I guess it may well be a bit cheaper now.
I too have an a6000 and love it. The a3000 is really inexpensive, and might be okay, but I don't think it will give you a fair idea of what the newer mirrorless cameras can do. If you really want to move your photography to the next level I think you would want to upgrade from the a3000 in a relatively short time and, although quite a bit more in cost than the 300, the 6000 is IMO still a real bargain in terms of what it delivers.
Sony abandoned the strategy of making "mirrorless" look like a DSLR body (with lots missing versus the Rebel and D3xxx/D5xxx lines) and adopted the NEX form factor and thus you have today's a5000/a5100 and the a6000. And significantly moved the technology forward in two years. The big APS-C 24mp sensor of the a6000, a superb autofocus system, 11 frames/second, a darn decent EVF, video that leaves most DSLRs in the dust and the sleek, thin and light body make it, for me, a great enthusiast entry-level camera I would heartily recommend. Except for a decent implementation of Auto ISO, it has every feature I would need or want from an APS-C camera. I have shot with it for a few days (rental), and am very impressed. For a lot less than the Nikon D7200 and significantly less than half the price of the Canon 7D Mark II. It easily trumps the lesser function Canon Rebel line and the Nikon D5500, in my opinion. Here's what DPReview said about it. http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sony-alpha-a6000
Thank you all for your thoughtful responses. Especially to @frankhymus for giving me the background on the development of the camera. Now I have a better understanding of the price difference and what is involved. I'm not sure I can justify such a large expenditure for the A6000, but now I know buying the cheaper model is a false economy.
Frank, I'm really hoping this book will be available soon in UK; so far it's only published in US. I'm still gleaning info about my a6000 from 'here and there'!
Frank, thank you, that is beyond kind and I might take you up on that - it's just a question of postage costs. I'll wait a bit to see if it becomes available on Amazon UK in the next few weeks.
I think the a6000 is probably the best value on the market regardless of mirrorless or not. I really think it is one of the best crop sensors you can buy.
I shoot the with the Sony A7 line and would not hesitate to shoot with the a6000.
@allie912 I trust you will have a great time with it! I hope you got the 16-50 kit lens and not the 18-55. It's a significantly better lens, but you will be eager to try even better lenses as you grow with the camera.
Warning again, the documentation that comes with the camera is dreadful! Do look at some other resources. The Busch book I mentioned above ($24 at Amazon) for instance...
Allie, I read all this with interest! I'm showing all this to Ken as it looks like a good move to the next level... To all who replied to you, a big Thank You!
Not being on FB (or any other "social media") and not "tweeting" or "texting", I love the caring and helpful nature of the everyone here, and the quality of the conversations (when people have a few free minutes!)
It's awfully special. How cool is it, that without actually ever having met (in most cases) we know one another well enough through our conversations to know with whom we'd like to spend some time. AND...that it was never contrived to be something more than each relationship became... (did that make sense?) In a word, "Nice..."
@frankhymus Now that I have taken delivery of the a6000 with the additional 55-210 lens , I realize I also want a better macro lens. I am confused by all the options. I know I don't want to mess with extension tubes. Do you have any experience or suggestions as to the best choice. One I saw combined macro and wide angle. The price range was wide. Naturally I'd like to be frugal, but not at the expense of decent pictures.
@allie912 Your kit 16-50 focuses down to a distance of 10 inches, that is 10 inches from the plane of the sensor, not the front of the lens. Have you tried that?
There is a 30mm f/3.5 macro lens for less than $300, and a 90mm f/2.8 for $1,000 in the lens lineup that I see. I have not shot with either so I have no first hand experience.
The 90mm would be the focal length I would prefer for a macro, I like the telephoto length so I can step back a little and still be "close." I have a 90 Tokina on my Nikons for instance. The Sony is a full frame lens, but will work fine on your a6000. It weighs about 21 ounces so you might find it a little heavy, but undoubtedly it would be a fine lens.
The 30 I would be wary of. The minimum focus distance is comparable with your kit, and its reviews mention it not being super-sharp. In keeping with the price and the fact that it is only an APS-C (cropped) lens, I'd say it would perform only on a par with the kit, although as I said I have never shot with it, nor with the 16-50 "close up."
I would suggest that you commit to neither at this stage though. Stick with your 16-50 close up, and try your long zoom even at its minimum focus distance of 4 feet and see where that gets you, especially if you crop it down small which the large, fine 24mp sensor will allow you to do.
I do not like extension tubes and such "extenders." I have never been able to make them perform as I would want, and gave up on them early on. Others may have a different experience, but the quality of the image will always suffer some, exaggerated even more "close up" of course.
@frankhymus Sorry to keep bothering you, but I need some encouragement to persuade me my new purchase is worth the investment, compared to my Nikon Coolpix 510. If you would check these images, perhaps you can give me suggestions as to how I can improve the use of the Sony. The Nikon is able to get both those pictures without switching lenses. https://www.flickr.com/photos/28722085@N08/sets/72157654827576034
Thanks for any help you can give me.
Well, if you are going to take the jpegs straight from the camera, not do post processing on the raw files of the Sony, and display on the internet/PC greatly cropped down if only by the browser/viewer, then you won't see much difference between the two.
Where you do see the difference are in areas like this...
Low light (the Sony will be excellent through ISO 6400 even 12800, the P510 will choke out much above 1600).
Fast continuous shooting with subject tracking, sports sort of thing. The Sony with 11 frames/second with good focus tracking across almost all the frame, P510 with about 7/second but nothing resembling focus tracking.
The P&S AF is often slow or sloppy, and will fail in low light. And probably no option for manual focus on the P510?
If you don't mind the limited f/stop fixed lens of the P&S and don't plan to explore DoF flexibility, background blurring or good bokeh, the little P510 (and its newer P530) will do fine and without changing lenses. Even have special software to emulate "macro" closeup that (usually) only good glass on an interchangeable lens camera can exceed.
And if you don't need "advanced" features, like automatic exposure bracketing, automatic tone correction, in-camera lens distortion correction, advanced flash (high speed synch or off-board wireless support). The a6000 on-camera flash I should point out can be angled with your finger, nice touch if you want to bounce the light off a near wall, reflector or ceiling rather then the dreaded DMV (deathly straight on stark portraits like on your driver's license). Then by all means don't pay for what you won't use...
Lastly, if you mostly display on the Internet rather than printing, (Facebook, Instagram, 365 project or similar), then perhaps an interchangeable lens camera is not for you... And as I said, if you are not into post-processing, the raw capability of something like the Sony will mean little to you.
And yes, the HUGE zoom ranges of these little fixed lens P&S are the big selling point. Such zoom ranges are possible only with large, expensive and heavy lenses on a large sensor ILC (interchangeable lens camera), and you will never find an all-in-one to go the whole range from 10mm to 600mm or more. Albeit, the quality will be infinitely better on the ILC as you "pixel peep" and want to print at more than 6x4, perhaps to frame or display. But for snaps in an album?
Perhaps you should think to return the Sony to Amazon, they have a stellar no-questions-asked policy. And if you really wish to "upgrade" from you older P510 and still keep to all-in-one, check out something like a newer Coolpix (Nikon) or PowerShot (Canon) or Lumix DMX (Panasonic) or CyberShot (Sony) The low light handling will be better and the lens (probably) better too. Make sure they have the zoom you want, and they don't get too big for your hands. It just depends exactly what it is that you want photography to do for you.
Or if you don't return the a6000 just yet, try one of the many good instruction books out there and give a little investment in time to work it out a little more. Something like the David Busch book I have mentioned before. There's an amazon.com link above. If you ultimately don't find it what you want, you can resell on eBay and get back probably 90% or more of your investment right now. The a6000 is a hot seller there and kits are going for close to the (currently discounted) MSRP.
All the best, whatever you decide to do. And please, ask me anything I might be able to help you with at any time, even if it is not with respect to ILC's.
@frankhymus Well I am getting the hang of settings for close ups and I have to say I do like the clarity of those images. http://tinyurl.com/pashsra I'm going to buy the video that @jbucovetsky suggested and see what that does for me. I'll keep trying and see what I can do.
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I know nothing about the A3000 but I've had a Sony A6000 for six months now and I wouldn't swap it for anything. Mine was around £500 for the body and 16-50mm zoom lens and I guess it may well be a bit cheaper now.
Sony abandoned the strategy of making "mirrorless" look like a DSLR body (with lots missing versus the Rebel and D3xxx/D5xxx lines) and adopted the NEX form factor and thus you have today's a5000/a5100 and the a6000. And significantly moved the technology forward in two years. The big APS-C 24mp sensor of the a6000, a superb autofocus system, 11 frames/second, a darn decent EVF, video that leaves most DSLRs in the dust and the sleek, thin and light body make it, for me, a great enthusiast entry-level camera I would heartily recommend. Except for a decent implementation of Auto ISO, it has every feature I would need or want from an APS-C camera. I have shot with it for a few days (rental), and am very impressed. For a lot less than the Nikon D7200 and significantly less than half the price of the Canon 7D Mark II. It easily trumps the lesser function Canon Rebel line and the Nikon D5500, in my opinion. Here's what DPReview said about it.
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sony-alpha-a6000
If you want to move up to a large sensor camera capable of supporting superb interchangeable lenses for wonderful quality shots, I'd do for the a6000. A bargain at less than $1,000 including a pretty good kit lens (16-50). Its supplied documentation is *dreadful* however, so you would want something like the David Busch "how to" book for everything you'd ever want to know.
http://www.amazon.com/David-Buschs-ILCE-6000-Digital-Photography/dp/130526357X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1438658028&sr=8-1&keywords=david+busch%27s+sony+alpha+a6000+ilce-6000+guide+to+digital+photography
Frank, I'm really hoping this book will be available soon in UK; so far it's only published in US. I'm still gleaning info about my a6000 from 'here and there'!
Frank, thank you, that is beyond kind and I might take you up on that - it's just a question of postage costs. I'll wait a bit to see if it becomes available on Amazon UK in the next few weeks.
I shoot the with the Sony A7 line and would not hesitate to shoot with the a6000.
Just my two cents.
Warning again, the documentation that comes with the camera is dreadful! Do look at some other resources. The Busch book I mentioned above ($24 at Amazon) for instance...
Gary Fong has an instructional tutorial that may help out.
http://www.garyfong.com/videos/unleashing-power-your-sony-a6000
It is $13us.
Not being on FB (or any other "social media") and not "tweeting" or "texting", I love the caring and helpful nature of the everyone here, and the quality of the conversations (when people have a few free minutes!)
It's awfully special. How cool is it, that without actually ever having met (in most cases) we know one another well enough through our conversations to know with whom we'd like to spend some time. AND...that it was never contrived to be something more than each relationship became... (did that make sense?) In a word, "Nice..."
There is a 30mm f/3.5 macro lens for less than $300, and a 90mm f/2.8 for $1,000 in the lens lineup that I see. I have not shot with either so I have no first hand experience.
The 90mm would be the focal length I would prefer for a macro, I like the telephoto length so I can step back a little and still be "close." I have a 90 Tokina on my Nikons for instance. The Sony is a full frame lens, but will work fine on your a6000. It weighs about 21 ounces so you might find it a little heavy, but undoubtedly it would be a fine lens.
The 30 I would be wary of. The minimum focus distance is comparable with your kit, and its reviews mention it not being super-sharp. In keeping with the price and the fact that it is only an APS-C (cropped) lens, I'd say it would perform only on a par with the kit, although as I said I have never shot with it, nor with the 16-50 "close up."
I would suggest that you commit to neither at this stage though. Stick with your 16-50 close up, and try your long zoom even at its minimum focus distance of 4 feet and see where that gets you, especially if you crop it down small which the large, fine 24mp sensor will allow you to do.
I do not like extension tubes and such "extenders." I have never been able to make them perform as I would want, and gave up on them early on. Others may have a different experience, but the quality of the image will always suffer some, exaggerated even more "close up" of course.
Good shooting with your new baby.
Thanks for any help you can give me.
Where you do see the difference are in areas like this...
Low light (the Sony will be excellent through ISO 6400 even 12800, the P510 will choke out much above 1600).
Fast continuous shooting with subject tracking, sports sort of thing. The Sony with 11 frames/second with good focus tracking across almost all the frame, P510 with about 7/second but nothing resembling focus tracking.
The P&S AF is often slow or sloppy, and will fail in low light. And probably no option for manual focus on the P510?
If you don't mind the limited f/stop fixed lens of the P&S and don't plan to explore DoF flexibility, background blurring or good bokeh, the little P510 (and its newer P530) will do fine and without changing lenses. Even have special software to emulate "macro" closeup that (usually) only good glass on an interchangeable lens camera can exceed.
And if you don't need "advanced" features, like automatic exposure bracketing, automatic tone correction, in-camera lens distortion correction, advanced flash (high speed synch or off-board wireless support). The a6000 on-camera flash I should point out can be angled with your finger, nice touch if you want to bounce the light off a near wall, reflector or ceiling rather then the dreaded DMV (deathly straight on stark portraits like on your driver's license). Then by all means don't pay for what you won't use...
Lastly, if you mostly display on the Internet rather than printing, (Facebook, Instagram, 365 project or similar), then perhaps an interchangeable lens camera is not for you... And as I said, if you are not into post-processing, the raw capability of something like the Sony will mean little to you.
And yes, the HUGE zoom ranges of these little fixed lens P&S are the big selling point. Such zoom ranges are possible only with large, expensive and heavy lenses on a large sensor ILC (interchangeable lens camera), and you will never find an all-in-one to go the whole range from 10mm to 600mm or more. Albeit, the quality will be infinitely better on the ILC as you "pixel peep" and want to print at more than 6x4, perhaps to frame or display. But for snaps in an album?
Perhaps you should think to return the Sony to Amazon, they have a stellar no-questions-asked policy. And if you really wish to "upgrade" from you older P510 and still keep to all-in-one, check out something like a newer Coolpix (Nikon) or PowerShot (Canon) or Lumix DMX (Panasonic) or CyberShot (Sony) The low light handling will be better and the lens (probably) better too. Make sure they have the zoom you want, and they don't get too big for your hands. It just depends exactly what it is that you want photography to do for you.
Or if you don't return the a6000 just yet, try one of the many good instruction books out there and give a little investment in time to work it out a little more. Something like the David Busch book I have mentioned before. There's an amazon.com link above. If you ultimately don't find it what you want, you can resell on eBay and get back probably 90% or more of your investment right now. The a6000 is a hot seller there and kits are going for close to the (currently discounted) MSRP.
All the best, whatever you decide to do. And please, ask me anything I might be able to help you with at any time, even if it is not with respect to ILC's.