Sony Alpha a6000 Mirrorless Digital Camera with 16-50 mm Lens 24.3MP (Silver)

Needed to upgrade from my DSLR and found this to be perfect. Great price for such great quality images. Shutter speed is pretty good but the autofocus is definitely one of its best attributes. Great mid-range camera

Mirrorless always made sense to me. Let's face it, if you were designing a digital camera from scratch, why on earth would you put a mirror box in it? DSLRs were always a transitional idea.This is a great camera, on several reviewers best in class lists, and deservedly so. I won't live long enough to figure out every feature, but fortunately, I won't have to. I took it out of the box a few hours ago and already taking perfectly good pictures (after waiting most of that time for the battery to charge). It helps that I already have a good Sony point-&-shoot. This is a lot better camera, but the concepts and terminology are similar, I can see where they improved and built on what I'm used to - but it wouldn't be hard for a beginner either, just put it on 'intelligent auto,' start shooting, and progress at your own pace. One change over the point-&-shoot is the panorama mode, which flows better and makes better pictures, but doesn't go as wide, and isn't as sharp in the details. There is also an 'intelligent auto plus' mode, which I guess is better.I got the kit lens, which will be fine for everyday daylight stuff, and the 50mm / 1.8 portrait lens, which I highly recommend. The camera uses an APS-C sized sensor, so if you grew up with 35mm as I did, multiply by 1.5 - the 16-50 kit lens will be what you'd expect from a 24-75, and the 50mm is like a 75 in the 35mm world. With my old Canon film gear, I used my 85/1.8 as much as anything, so I plan to get a lot of use out of the Sony 50mm. The attached pic is with the 50mm lens at f2.0 (reduced, the original was 3008 x 2000, which is the smallest 3x2 pic the camera will take). The camera can be set to automatically soften ('defocus') the background by various amounts, which as you can see works well with the 50/1.8. It didn't work nearly as well with the kit lens, which only goes down to f3.5 at the wide end, and f5.6 when zoomed to 50mm. An enthusiast-level digital camera that can compete with 1970s-era 35mm gear in portraiture is great if you ask me, and a long time coming.I didn't get one of the bundles, I bought only the chinese knock-offs I wanted separately, including a spare battery and desk charger, and UV filters to protect both lenses. The camera kit includes a tiny 1.5 amp charger, with a usb cable to charge the battery in the camera, but no way to charge a spare battery out of the camera. I also bought a class 10 SD card (recommended by Amazon) before seeing that the manual says class 4 or better is fine. I download to the computer often, so don't need a huge card - a 16 Gb card will hold about 900 pics at largest size (24M) / RAW+JPEG, about 8,900 at 6M (3000 x 2000) 'fine' quality JPEG, and over 10,000 at 'standard' quality. Panoramic shots will consume more space, movies a lot more. 3000 x 2000 will make decent prints on letter size paper. Brightness, in-camera processing, color, and just plain 'camera-smarts' are just about perfect, and I can't imagine anything you can't control or reset if it's not right for you. Very nice.UPDATE - Still learning. There are many tutorials on youtube, and some topic-specific user manuals (one, for example, on what the various auto-focus modes do) that will turn up in internet searches. Explore. Have fun.

It's a great quality camera.Pros: easy to change the settings, easy to learn on, the really cool thing is when you are changing the settings you can actually see the changes being made to the image on the LCD before you even take the picture. Picture quality/really great image stabilization.Low light capabilities are great and works well with scenic photography, portraits are nice too.Cons: charging and battery - you can only charge the camera by plugging the small charging cable directly into the camera, this is so inconvenient. The cable is only about 10 inches long. Perhaps there is something I can buy to make this easier.macro - it sucks, it's just not good at all, I had better macro with my old cannon powershot. Those interested in using this for bugs/flowers will have to buy a special lens for that, but that's the whole appeal of the mid level cameras I guess.flash - it's too harsh, I hardly ever use it for anythingcolor- can be dull, I tend to leave it on vivid and always post edit my photos anywayOverall - I do like this camera, but to use only with the stock lens wouldn't be satisfying enough, it's no dslr.... I'm going to try it out with a nicer lens, If I'm satisfied I'll keep it, otherwise I'd rather have a nicer dslr and also get a point and shoot for everyday use.

I have been using the a6000 long enough to have an initial opinion. Overall I am pleased with this camera and the far reaching capabilities available through settings/prefs. I am also pleased that this camera has some pre-set defaults that will many times exceed my knowledge of establishing settings for the scene being photographed.I have to admit that its tempting, however I will likely not purchase a telephoto lens for this camera at this time and continue using my Canon DSLR telephoto lens cameras for a while longer.Likely with it's digital processing capability the a6000 requires a substantial amount of current from the battery. A single battery on a photo shoot might last long enough. With the discharge rate a recharge might be necessary which one would not want to do in the field. I carry along two extra batteries just in case. They are not expensive and I recommend that you get the charger that plugs directly into the wall & vehicle utility power jack and the battery mounts directly on the charger. The included charger charges the battery in the camera. Probable one extra battery would do, however I am a conservative minded person. My rational is that I have spent, for me a considerable amount of money for a good camera and I don't want to be at the mercy of a dead battery to ruin a perfectly enjoyable day of photographing.I am pleased with this camera which yields excellent photos. In the "Superior Auto" mode this camera will sometime recompose & save a secondary photo which is superior to the shot I had originally composed. Being an old guy I feel that this is ignominious at times to think that the camera can compose a scene better than I. A picture tells all without a conscious.I like the hotspot and WIFI capabilities of the camera. The feel of this camera in my hand is good. I like the viewfinder plus the tilt screen. There are 10 major selections on the thumb-wheel and of course many options under some of the selections.Well anyway, buy one and there is a high probability you will be pleased with this entry level mirrorless Sony DSLR 24.3 MP interchangeable lens camera with the supplied 16-50 mm lens.