Sony A6000 review – Stuck in Customs

Sony A6000 review

Since my review, Sony has released the a6100, a6300, a6500, a6600 and a6400 which are revised versions of the a6000 series. The current direct replacement for the a6000 is in my opinion the a6400, so feel free to ignore everything below and instead head over to my Sony a6400 Review :).

Check The Latest Prices

Sony a6000 Mirrorless Camera

Starting at below $600, which includes an 16-50mm lens.

My Sony Goodies and Lenses

You can pop over to my camera equipment page to see all my goodies, and I’ll mention some in the review below.

Sony a6000 Review – A Great Camera!

This camera is so good that I paired it with my Sony a7R (Sony’s full-frame offering) on a month-long trip to Africa. I don’t just recommend it on our recommendations page, but I actually use it! To see more about the latest version of the a7R check out the Sony a7R III Review here on the site.

Note that I only review stuff on the site that I actually use. This is not like other camera review sites that talk about everything. I’m a very practical dude, and I assume you are busy like me and just want to know the facts. So my reviews are very simple and focus on the key elements of the camera, rather than the more obscure stuff that hardcore nerds get off on. I’m more of a geek than a nerd, let’s start by saying that.

These reviews are also “living” in that I will continually come back and update them as time goes on! The A6000 is pretty new in my arsenal, so I expect to be using it quite a bit!

Sony A6000 Sample Photos

Throughout the review, you’ll see many samples of photos, like the one I took below. I think sample photos are a great way to show what the camera can do. Note that I unapologetically post-process my photos! Regulars here on the site are very forgiving (welcoming, in fact!) of this notion, but purists don’t like it. That’s okay. But, if you are new and interested in more about this style of photography, check out my free HDR Tutorial!

At 11 Frames per second, I was able to get more than enough photos to make sure I got this once-in-a-lifetime expression

 

Alone In The Desert

One great thing about a zoom lens for landscape photography is it allows this nice effect called “compression,” where you can do effects like this: Bring in the two layers of sand dunes from beyond and make them look nice and overpowering.

 

And the 24 megapixels means I can make giant prints with no worries…

 

Hey look, a non-animal photo!

 

The Painted Wolf

Don’t get used to it. This is the extremely endangered wild dog (or Painted Wolf) in Botswana. BTW, you’ll see a lot of special effects on my final shots — that is not the camera, that’s my post-processing.

 

Sony a6000 – Why I love it

It’s small, fast, high-powered, and has a ton of lenses available for it. I can’t believe something so small can shoot a 24 megapixel photo and do it at 11 frames per second! I used to really enjoy my NEX-7 a few years ago, and this one takes all the best parts of that system and makes them even better.

Huge Sensor

It is indeed a cropped sensor, but you still get 24 megapixels, which is more than enough. This sensor size is still much bigger than the Micro Four-Thirds system, which I find much too small for low-light shooting.

Interchangeable Lenses

There are ton of lenses for this system. It uses the E-mount lenses, and now Sony has been making these for many years. I’m still using some of my older E-Mount lenses from my NEX-7, and they work just fine.

Small

This camera is about 5x smaller than the Nikon D4. Also the lenses are nice and light… it’s not a burden at all to carry this stuff around.

Inexpensive

I think the value for the performance makes this an absolute steal. I’ll have it there on my recommended list for a very long time!

Incredible Autofocus.

The a7r, which is the other main camera I use, only has 25 focus points using contrast-detection AF. The a6000 adds 179 points using phase-detection AF. Phase-detection is way better… and, well, as you can see from the sample photos, I had very few blurry ones!

Amazing EVF

I’m so addicted to Sony’s Electronic Viewfinder! It’s just remarkable how clear and sharp everything is. There are a lot of HUD-gizmos on there for making sure your horizon is aligned, checking the histogram, focus-peaking, and more. Really, one of my favorite things about it is reviewing the photos after you’ve taken them when it is bright outside. I hate looking at the back of the camera… looking through that EVF is so fun!

More Sample Photos

Looking sharp at 1/4000s shutter speed!

 

It was quite dark when I took this… the ISO was 800 so there was a bit of noise, but nothing too bad.

 

I didn’t do much people photography with it, but a little bit… You can see Bel there is holding the Sony A7s… she was using that to film me during the adventure.

Botswana Amaze (307 of 2505)-7

That 11 FPS helped me to get that mouth in that exact position!

 

A happy elephant family!

 

Hello pretty bird. I cropped in more on the one… the 24MP helped with that.

 

Oh Hai! You’ll notice a lot of “effects” in my photos… that’s not the camera that’s me doing post-processing, which I do without apology.

 

It’s such a fun camera!

 

I shot this one from air, hanging out of a helicopter without a door. The A6000 was plenty rugged enough! I used the 70-200mm lens here with image stabilization, which really helped.

 

Coming in for a landing… BTW, you can click on any photo then go through to see the EXIF on SmugMug – just click the little “i”.

 

It also takes black and white photos.