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Advice to buy: Sony a6500 or a6600?
#1
Dear all,

I'm deciding for the next buy and it should be a new APS-C camera body. In the attachment you can see the current options plus the models I already own (in bold characters). The reasons for the new buy are:

  1. the focusing touch screen, which I'd appreciate for macro photography with the Tamron 20mm f/2.8;
  2. the in-sensor stabilisation, which I'd appreciate for macro photography with all the other macro lenses  I own (manual focus) all the macro lenses (all without stabiliser);
  3. the EVF on par with other models (I'm disappointed with the EVF of the a6000);
  4. the improved AF, even though at the moment I'm not finding opportunities for wildlife subjects, but I hope things will change.
These requirements narrow the selection down to the a6500 and a6600. Now the a6600 is the more recent version of the a6500, but I'm a bit pissed off by the new battery (sure it sports much better performance, but I already have a number of NP-FW50 spares and external chargers...).

BTW it looks like it's almost impossible to find a new a6500 body only, but there are some interesting offers in the second hand market.

Thoughts?


Attached Files
.jpg   Screenshot 2021-05-31 at 12.50.34 copy.jpg (Size: 193.7 KB / Downloads: 7)
stoppingdown.net

 

Sony a6300, Sony a6000, Sony NEX-6, Sony E 10-18mm F4 OSS, Sony Zeiss Vario-Tessar T* E 16-70mm F4 ZA OSS, Sony FE 70-200mm F4 G OSS, Sigma 150-600mm Æ’/5-6.3 DG OS HSM Contemporary, Samyang 12mm Æ’/2, Sigma 30mm F2.8 DN | A, Meyer Gorlitz Trioplan 100mm Æ’/2.8, Samyang 8mm Æ’/3.5 fish-eye II | Zenit Helios 44-2 58mm Æ’/2 
Plus some legacy Nikkor lenses.
#2
I don't know much about Sony APS-C bodies. What are the main differences between the A6500 and A6600?
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#3
(05-31-2021, 12:24 PM)thxbb12 Wrote: I don't know much about Sony APS-C bodies. What are the main differences between the A6500 and A6600?

As far as I know (see https://www.dpreview.com/products/compar...sony_a6600)

  1. Boosted ISO 102400 on the a6600 vs 51200
  2. No built-in flash on the a6600
  3. Less video modes on the a6600 (some variants with limited bandwidth, a6600 has got all the hi-quality stuff)
  4. USB charging on the a6600
  5. Headphone port on the a6600
  6. the a6600 is 50 g. heavier
  7. the a6600 has got timelapse recording.
  8. And the mentioned battery thing.
So nothing relevant for me. Well, timelapse might be interesting, but in the end I've done this only a handful of times in twenty years, so...).
stoppingdown.net

 

Sony a6300, Sony a6000, Sony NEX-6, Sony E 10-18mm F4 OSS, Sony Zeiss Vario-Tessar T* E 16-70mm F4 ZA OSS, Sony FE 70-200mm F4 G OSS, Sigma 150-600mm Æ’/5-6.3 DG OS HSM Contemporary, Samyang 12mm Æ’/2, Sigma 30mm F2.8 DN | A, Meyer Gorlitz Trioplan 100mm Æ’/2.8, Samyang 8mm Æ’/3.5 fish-eye II | Zenit Helios 44-2 58mm Æ’/2 
Plus some legacy Nikkor lenses.
#4
(05-31-2021, 01:47 PM)stoppingdown Wrote:
(05-31-2021, 12:24 PM)thxbb12 Wrote: I don't know much about Sony APS-C bodies. What are the main differences between the A6500 and A6600?

As far as I know (see https://www.dpreview.com/products/compar...sony_a6600)

  1. Boosted ISO 102400 on the a6600 vs 51200
  2. No built-in flash on the a6600
  3. Less video modes on the a6600 (some variants with limited bandwidth, a6600 has got all the hi-quality stuff)
  4. USB charging on the a6600
  5. Headphone port on the a6600
  6. the a6600 is 50 g. heavier
  7. the a6600 has got timelapse recording.
  8. And the mentioned battery thing.
So nothing relevant for me. Well, timelapse might be interesting, but in the end I've done this only a handful of times in twenty years, so...).
 
  For me it's simple, I've been following the A6000 series as the models came out ..

...... the two main criteria as far as I'm concerned are; ....... the AF tracking with all it's bells and whistles including the automatic eye/ face/object tracking which now forms the basis of Sony's later A7 series ...... where the camera finds it all automatically and which Canon went on to develop with the R5/R6 ...... that only exists in the A6400 and the latest A6600 ....... I would absolutely want that!  ....... 
 ..........other models are pre-Sony AF revolution ........

..... and the other being: ...... IBIS, the A6300 (older AF system) has it, as does the A6500 ...... however, the A6400 does not ........ IBIS IMHO is also a total must have ....... which rules out the A6400 ......

....... in fact the only camera that have those two features is the A6600 ....... and a whole bunch of other stuff which you have mentioned ..... 

 So that would be my choice as the camera I would be choosing if I was looking for one of the A6000 series camera ..... 

 ... the A6600 has it all !......

As always Sony went with micro incremental updates through a series of six bodies before finally nailing it ........ shrewd huh ??

....... a nice little tickle as they say in England ....... Smile
#5
Thanks for the feedback. In the end the problem resolved by itself because I couldn't find an offer for a new a6500, and I didn't trust the offers of used items (I'm very selective on that way because the only camera I bought used was broken and I had to return it). Furthermore I found a vendor which sold the a6600 at a lower price than Amazon, thus shrinking the gap. I've ordered the a6600.
stoppingdown.net

 

Sony a6300, Sony a6000, Sony NEX-6, Sony E 10-18mm F4 OSS, Sony Zeiss Vario-Tessar T* E 16-70mm F4 ZA OSS, Sony FE 70-200mm F4 G OSS, Sigma 150-600mm Æ’/5-6.3 DG OS HSM Contemporary, Samyang 12mm Æ’/2, Sigma 30mm F2.8 DN | A, Meyer Gorlitz Trioplan 100mm Æ’/2.8, Samyang 8mm Æ’/3.5 fish-eye II | Zenit Helios 44-2 58mm Æ’/2 
Plus some legacy Nikkor lenses.
#6
(06-03-2021, 11:05 AM)stoppingdown Wrote: Thanks for the feedback. In the end the problem resolved by itself because I couldn't find an offer for a new a6500, and I didn't trust the offers of used items (I'm very selective on that way because the only camera I bought used was broken and I had to return it). Furthermore I found a vendor which sold the a6600 at a lower price than Amazon, thus shrinking the gap. I've ordered the a6600.

    A very wise decision in my opinion as it has the two main features, Sony's modern AF tracking system and IBIS ....... 

  ......... obviously the poll results pointed you towards the A6600 ...... with a landslide victory of one - nil .........  Smile

   It would be nice to hear how you find it once it turns up .......

   I wouldn't mind one myself !
#7
Sure I'll write a review as soon as possible. Actually the delivery has been super fast and I already enjoyed a first quick trip, but of course it is limited experience. Usually I practice with new camera bodies on the balcony, but currently the building where I live is going through a façade restoration and scaffolding is preventing me from doing any test - which is really unfortunate, given the pack of features that the new body sports. 

My points so far:

  1. The camera has got really a lot of new features when compared with the a6300 (my previous latest), including a new highlight-oriented exposure (I hadn't spotted it in the reviews).
  2. The menu system got huge (and of course is totally different than the one in the previous models).
  3. The AF system itself has got a great number of options - and the manual is not clear on everything, so you have to try them.
  4. While the first a6*** models were stingy with custom buttons now there are four, plus the ones on the wheel: so it's worth while spending some time trying different approaches with them; also I'm trying to keep things as much consistent as I can with the other two bodies (which requires some changes).
  5. Last but absolutely not least I'm trying a relevant change with my modus operandi. I use two presets for static and dynamic subjects; with static subjects the trigger should be decoupled from the AF, so I go with "focus and recompose". A major problem is that the option which locks the trigger to the AF is not part of custom settings, so to switch from static to dynamic I have to go through the menus. This is annoying e.g. when you spot wildlife while doing landscape and wish to perform the change very quickly. I hoped that they fixed this problem with the a6600, but... they didn't. Furthermore the menus are different, so changing the option requires different operations on the thee bodies. Too complex! So I'm trying to change approach: AF always locked to the trigger and I switch back and forth from/to MF when recomposing. Straightforward, but after twenty years in the other way I have to get acquainted with it.
I can tell you two preliminary things about the a6600:

  1. picking the focusing spot with the touchpad seems ok and it's time saving, as I expected.
  2. I got some blurry shots which I didn't expected with the IBIS activated. I need to understand this better.
stoppingdown.net

 

Sony a6300, Sony a6000, Sony NEX-6, Sony E 10-18mm F4 OSS, Sony Zeiss Vario-Tessar T* E 16-70mm F4 ZA OSS, Sony FE 70-200mm F4 G OSS, Sigma 150-600mm Æ’/5-6.3 DG OS HSM Contemporary, Samyang 12mm Æ’/2, Sigma 30mm F2.8 DN | A, Meyer Gorlitz Trioplan 100mm Æ’/2.8, Samyang 8mm Æ’/3.5 fish-eye II | Zenit Helios 44-2 58mm Æ’/2 
Plus some legacy Nikkor lenses.
  


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