Sony α6000 Camera Review

The Sony a6000 is very portable. Its body has a low-profile design, and it's very lightweight, making it easy to throw into a bag or take on the go. It's even more compact than newer models in the lineup like the Sony a6100, especially the higher-end Sony α6600.

Build quality is good. It's similar to the Sony a6100, though its plastic construction feels cheaper than the magnesium alloy body of the Sony a6400. The inputs and battery compartment are covered by sturdy hinged doors. The buttons also provide nice physical feedback. However, some of the inputs, like the top command dial, aren't the most responsive, with a slight delay when you change an input.

• Sony a6000 camera body
• Sony E 16-50mm 3.5-5.6/PZ OSS lens
• Lens caps
• Sensor cap
• Viewfinder eyecup
• 1x NP-FW50 battery
• Shoulder strap
• AC adapter
• Micro-USB to USB-A cable
• User manual

The camera feels quite comfortable to shoot with, though its relatively small handgrip and body can feel cramped for those with larger hands. The video record button is also strangely placed by the thumb rest, making it a little awkward to start recording in movie mode. Still, the camera feels lightweight and well-balanced. It's also easy to adjust settings with either eye to the viewfinder, though the offset EVF is better suited to right-eye shooters.

The EVF is decently sized and fairly comfortable to look through. However, its resolution falls short of newer models like the Sony a6400, meaning the image doesn't look as crisp. Thankfully, there isn't too much lag.

The camera has a tilting screen, which is great for waist-level shooting since it's discreet and easy to pop out. The screen is bright enough to see clearly in sunnier conditions, but it lacks touch capability, making it more cumbersome to navigate the menu and change settings. The lack of touch capability also means there's no option to use touch focus, as on newer models, so you're stuck with using the control wheel to manually select focus points.

The Sony a6000 uses Sony's older menu system, which is notoriously confusing and difficult to navigate. It's an even older version than you'll find on the Sony a6400 and that generation of Alpha cameras, with no 'My Menu' option to save all your most frequently accessed settings in one place. More advanced settings are buried within submenus that aren't all logically organized. However, you can set it to tile view, which makes it a little quicker to get to the right section of the menu. Thankfully, it has a lot of customization options, allowing you to configure the buttons and a custom menu to your preference, so you don't have to dive into the labyrinthine menu as frequently.

If you'd prefer a camera with a full-frame sensor, consider the Sony α7 II, which is from the same generation of Sony Alpha cameras as the Sony α6000.

Battery life for photos is decent, with a 360-shot CIPA rating. Depending on how you use it, you can get a fair amount of shots out of it on a full charge, though it still pales in comparison to most DSLR cameras. On the upside, you can keep using the camera while it charges via USB, which is great. Battery life in video mode, on the other hand, is quite good, but mostly because the camera's limited to 1080p recording, which doesn't drain the battery as fast as more demanding 4k video.

Continuous shooting is okay. It can shoot at a fairly quick burst rate in its high-speed drive mode, which is good for capturing stills of fast-moving subjects. In addition to 'Low' and 'High', there's also a 'Mid' drive mode that can shoot at 6 fps. Unfortunately, the camera has a small photo buffer, especially if you shoot in RAW format. The buffer also takes a fair amount of time to empty once full. Though it isn't the worst, it's slow enough that you could miss a key moment waiting for it to finish clearing.

The autofocus on the Sony a6000 isn't all that great by today's standards, though it was an impressive AF system at the time of its release in 2014. Like other Sony Alpha models, it uses a hybrid on-sensor AF system with both phase-detection and contrast-detection AF points, although it has fewer focus points than newer models.

It includes both face and eye detection for more precise focusing. However, the auto tracking feature isn't nearly as fast or reliable as newer models like the Sony a6400. With faster-moving subjects, you likely won't get an amazing hit rate. However, you can still get an okay usable hit rate for general-purpose and casual photography. The general subject/object tracking, on the other hand, is even less reliable and can be slow to adjust focus if the object or subject moves.

If you're sticking with the center point for continuous shooting, the camera's accuracy is disappointing. You can still capture a solid amount of keepers, especially with slower subjects, but it's a lot slower to acquire focus than newer models in the Alpha lineup.

The Sony a6000 doesn't have in-body image stabilization, but you can use an optically stabilized lens to help reduce camera shake and shoot handheld at slower shutter speeds. The Sony E 16-50mm 3.5-5.6/PZ OSS kit lens that we used for the stabilization test includes 'Optical SteadyShot', Sony's name for optical stabilization. It does a decent job of stabilizing the camera for photos. That said, stabilization performance can vary depending on different factors, including the lens, focal length, and even how steady your hands are.

The Sony a6000 has good dynamic range. While it isn't as impressive as newer, higher-end models like the Sony a6600, especially at higher ISO settings in low light, it still captures a fairly wide range of detail in high-contrast scenes. You do lose some shadow detail, but highlights are preserved quite well. That said, the camera doesn't have the best noise handling, and pushing the exposure of your RAW files too much results in noticeable noise and banding. Overall, that means you can take photos of high-contrast scenes with a fair amount of detail preservation, but you don't have as much leeway when making exposure adjustments as you might with a newer camera.

The camera's high-resolution sensor resolves an impressive amount of fine detail. You can punch in on your photos and still retain plenty of detail.

RAW noise handling is decent. It performs well at low ISO values, but noise begins to creep in as you raise the ISO, and it doesn't handle noise as well at higher ISOs than newer models do, meaning images taken in low light don't look as clean. If you want a mirrorless camera with better RAW noise handling, check out the Fujifilm X-T30 II.

The Sony a6000 can record 1080p video at up to 60 fps, which isn't as extensive a selection as newer cameras. However, it's still solid for capturing smooth action footage or incorporating slightly slowed-down clips.

Internal recording capability is good. Bit rates are more limited than newer Alpha models, so the camera can't capture as much information, but smaller bit rates result in files that are easier to transfer. Unfortunately, there's a 30-minute cap on recording.

The Sony a6000 has a decent autofocus system for video. It has a face detection feature, but no eye tracking. It does a good job with tracking human subjects, especially with slower movements, but it's not as "sticky" as the AF on newer Sony cameras, meaning there's occasionally a slight delay for the AF to catch up to your subject after they've moved or popped back into frame. The same goes for the general subject/object tracking, which can be slow to find its target after it's moved.

Video quality is decent. It isn't the sharpest or most detailed 1080p, but it's suitable for more casual recording. Unfortunately, it struggles a bit more in low light, where video looks grainy and muddy. You also lose a lot of detail in the shadows.

There's some noticeable rolling shutter effect when panning the camera from side to side, but it isn't too distracting when the camera's moving at a slower pace.

The Sony a6000 has just a single SD card slot, rated for slower UHS-I cards, meaning you can't take advantage of the faster read and write speeds of newer UHS-II cards. The card slot is in the battery compartment, located on the bottom of the camera, making it harder to switch out cards when using a tripod.

Inputs and outputs are limited to a Micro USB port and a Micro HDMI port. Unfortunately, it doesn't have a headphone jack or a microphone input, so you're out of luck if you want to record higher-quality audio with an aux mic. It's an older camera, so it doesn't support Bluetooth, but you can still transfer files over Wi-Fi if you prefer wireless connectivity.