Help with info on Sony A6000

I am looking for a small, but quality camera that shoots good stills and good video, I have heard great things about this camera - any feed back would be greatly appreciated. This camera will be used for areas overseas that I travel where my Canon 5DMKII it just to obvious to use.

My sisters boyfriend just got her one for Christmas, when I get a chance to play with it i'll write a review.

As far as mirrorless cameras go it's one of the quickest.

I do use a NEX F3B and it's sensor was on par with the one in my Canon M, so much that I shot video from both then merged together and after grading in post I couldn't tell which one was which.

The video/image quality is there with the Sonys, Also shot a film once with a Sony NEX FS100 and the quality on that was far better than the 6D which I also shot with. Much cleaner in low light and the 6D is no slouch in that department...

The a6000 is the best bang for the buck. Period.

I have one, great little camera and fun to use with my old manual focus lenses.

Incredible value. Just make sure you get some extra batteries if you're travelling overseas, or one of those USB chargers, as the battery drain is pretty fast on all these Sony cameras.

My wife bought me one for Christmas, so I leaving for India in two weeks with it. I will give a review when I return!
I have taken a bunch of family photos but have not had time to load them to Photoshop.

Just returned from India, here are a few photos from a small town, these were taken with the stock lens 16-50, I want to get the adapter and use my canon lenses -- should make an improvement. What do you think??

Doctorh wrote in post #17401042
Just returned from India, here are a few photos from a small town, these were taken with the stock lens 16-50, I want to get the adapter and use my canon lenses -- should make an improvement. What do you think??

Can't comment on if the adaptor will help but the color, contrast, and sharpness look good on these photos.

If you get a dumb one, then you shoot wide open without IS. This can work fine but it can be a pain if you are trying to use fast glass outdoors as the a6000 will max out at 1/4000.
If you get one that does AF the AF will be quite slow compared to native lenses, and will hunt more in low light.

There are middle ground adaptors that will allow you to change f stop and have IS running, but no AF. Personally id go with one of these rather than the expensive Metabones ones.

I think A6000 is the best APS-C mirrorless value vs IQ right now. I shoot Nex 6 but by many accounts the A6000 has better Jpeg engine, better AWB (even though I shoot raw, the initial colors are important for making the workflow easier) and obviously faster AF (Nex 6 does have a nicer EVF).

I don't have nor used 1650, again going by accounts it's a decent compromise between size and IQ. Sony older kit (1855, still sold with A3000) is supposedly better than 1650, at least in corners. I learned to take criticism of Sony lenses with a grain of salt as every lens that got murdered in reviews had proven fairly decent once I got one. May be I just have low expectations

If I was buying into a Sony APS-C mirrorless system now and wanted the most versatility for least expense, I'd suggest the following, based on my personal experience:

A6000 body only
Sigma 30/2.8 $150 used, about $200 new - this is the sharpest lens available for Sony, as sharp as Canon EF-M 22/2 per DXOmark. Light, small, cheap, sharp, the only issue is a rather slow cold start time.
Sony 1855 ($70 used if you look hard) or 1650 (buy as a kit). 1855 is supposed to be slightly better optically, but almost double the size (still small, just not a pancake - almost exactly the same size as EF-M 18-55 for EOS M).
Sony 55210 - I just got one used for $150 and it's actually far better than I expected, about on par optically with Canon EF-S 55-250. Sub 5" in length and very light.
Sony 16/2.8 pancake with UWA adapter (turns it into a 12mm). Wide open, the corners are soft, but people rarely use UWA wide open for landscapes. Closed down, it's decent. The lens is tiny and even with adapter hardly takes any space in a bag. I paid $200 for both and if I waited I'd get them for $170.

So, for the cost of body + about $540 you can get a system that covers 12 to 210mm and is very small with decent IQ.

From there, you may want to consider these lenses:

Sony 50/1.8 OSS ($200 or less used) - a great portrait lens, sharp wide open, very good bokeh, stabilized and fast. The low light AF speed is OK on my Nex 6, probably faster on A6000. The good light AF speed is good. It would make an excellent general purpose prime if you can live with focal length.

Sony 35/1.8 OSS - this would make a much better general purpose prime, at $400 new though it's a bit pricey. Optically, close to 50/1.8, and with surprisingly good bokeh for it's FL. For many people, this is _the_ lens they use 90% of time. It would make much more sense for me if it was just a bit wider, say 28mm. It could probably replace both 30/2.8 and 50/1.8 (and cost as much as both of them).

Sigma 19/2.8 - about the same IQ as 30mm (i.e. very sharp), and cheap. I sold mine as I don't quite like the FL.

Sony 18-105/4 - this is the "jack of all trades" that is especially good for video. It's only drawback is the size - it's about the length of 55-210 but bigger diameter, about the same overall size as Tamron 17-50/2.8 but much lighter. IQ is very good, if not as sharp as the f2.8 zooms available for DSLRs. Better on the longer end, with excellent bokeh. $500 used.

I used to have an a6000 and the kit lens and 35mm f1.8 OSS covered about 95% of what I would ever need to shoot. Occasionally I wished I had a telephoto lens but I knew it was inexpensive, if I ever needed one.

I wanted to upgrade the kit lens but the only option seemed to be either the expensive 16-70mm and it would only be f4. The 18-105mm has a nice range but is only f4 and is pretty big.

As a user already said, you can use an adapter but AF will be slow and be very impractical for photo use. It'll be fine for video since you usually use MF anyway. I would get a regular adapter for pretty cheap on eBay rather than an expensive Metabones. You can also get a focal reducer (or Speedbooster, as Metabones calls it) to make the lens act like a full frame equivalent lens, and also have a stop (or partial stop? Not sure) more. For example, mounting a 35mm f1.4 lens will be an actual 35mm focal length (no crop factor) and f1.0.

I loved the camera but the native lens selection was not appealing to me, so I recently sold it.