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Wednesday 10 February 2016

Sony updates popular mirrorless camera

The Sony A6000 was a fantastic mirrorless camera. It was fast, built like a tank yet portable enough to lug around, and shoots amazing quality photos.

Released in 2014, it became a top choice for those looking to dip their toes into the mirrorless category, and even got a lot of folks switching from their old bulky dSLRs.

But an update to the A6000 is long overdue. In just over a year, there has been strong contenders of the A6000 coming from Fujifilm and Olympus, that are trying to make Sony's flagship look very much outdated.

Yet despite showing its age, the A6000 still holds well on its own today, and is a great value if you're looking to buy older mirrorless cameras.

Last week, Sony finally announced a follow-up to the A6000, with significant improvements in speed and power.

If you're still thinking of getting the old A6000 and save you some money, you might want to reconsider, as the newly released A6300 is set to make its predecessor as well as the other competing cameras instantly obsolete.

One crucial area that dSLRs are still better at than consumer mirrorless cameras is fast autofocus, and this is why dSLRs are still the best way to go for professional photographers and those who shoot a lot of fast-moving action.

Sony claims the new A6300 mirrorless camera has the "world's fastest autofocus" in the APS-C sized sensor class - the A6000 series use APS-C sensors instead of micro four-thirds or one-inch sensors found in most mirrorless system cameras.

This new camera features a Fast Hybrid AF system with 425 phase detection points, which can lock focus on a subject in under 0.05 seconds!

The points cover almost the entire frame which, when coupled with an enhanced 4D Focus feature, makes tracking moving subjects a lot easier.

Sony developed an entirely new APS-C 24.2-megapixel Exmor CMOS sensor which, when paired with the BIONZ X image processor, takes consistently high-quality images even wh en cranked up to 51,200 ISO.

Aside from the super fast autofocus, this camera also shoots at a top speed of 11fps (frames-per-second).

Sony also improved the video recording capabilities of this camera with 4K movie recording and double the focusing speed of the previous model. There's also a slow mo option at up to 120fps in Full HD 1080p.

And those seriously into videography will definitely be pleased to know that Sony has included a microphone line input into the A6300. The old A6000 and the RX100 series lack this feature, which is difficult for users like myself who are very particular with audio.

Weighing at just 404 grammes, the A6300 still retains the ergonomic design of the A6000, which I really like. For a mirrorless camera system, this design should be the standard (along with Wi-Fi and NFC connectivity).

Sony's also got a solid range of E-mount lenses for its mirrorless cameras, covering nearly all focal lengths from fish-eye to extreme telep hoto.

The Sony A6300 will be on sale next month with a price tag of US$1,000 ($1,405.55) for the body only.


Source: Sony updates popular mirrorless camera

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