Two years after introducing the excellent Alpha 6000 (or a6000), Sony announced a more-powerful successor, the a6300. (Sony will continue to sell the a6000.) This mirrorless camera further closes the gap with DSLRs for performance, featuring near-instantaneous autofocus, a machine-gun shutter speed of 11 frames per second, crisp low-light images and 4K/UHD video. And it does so while costing at most only half as much as competing DSLRs.
However, all this power needs a bit of skill to fully harness, and we'll show you just how to do that.
Both cameras have a better-than average on-screen interface and layout of controls (though that's not saying much). This is the order in which you will generally encounter the controls:
Your shooting experience begins with setting the camera mode — the large dial on the top right of the camera — ranging from point-and-shoot simple to full manual.
Program (P): Program mode balances the aperture and shutter speed, which together control how much light enters the camera. For example, this mode uses a small aperture and fast shutter at noon to avoid overexposure, and the opposite at twilight to avoid underexposure. Program mode offers some ability to customize exposure, making it ideal for creative control under most shooting conditions.
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Aperture Priority (A): Aperture adjustment lets you control depth of field — the amount of the image, from front to back — that appears in focus. You set the aperture (the size of a diaphragm inside the lens) using either the control dial on the top right end of the camera or the control wheel on the back, to the right of the screen (which doubles as a four-way rocker).
M – Manual: Here, you use the control dial on top to set the aperture and the control wheel on back to set shutter speed. You're completely in control here: The camera won't help you if you mess up. Manual mode is for only very difficult lighting conditions when the camera can't determine the right exposure (such as photos of bright lettering on a dark screen in the screen shots you see here). The rear screen and electronic viewfinder show a preview of how your settings will affect the photo.
Sweep Panorama: Just like on many smartphones, you can capture an extrawide photo by holding the shutter down and sweeping the camera across a scene (you'll hear a continuous clicking sound as the camera captures dozens of individual photos that it then stitches together into one image).
Your options include:
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Black and White (B/W) can save an image that has strong light and shadow, but a poor colorcast due to the lighting source.
The sensitivity of the image sensor to light is measured in ISO, with 100 being the least and 25,600 the most (for the a6000 — the a6300 goes to 51,200). The darker the conditions are, the more sensitivity you'll want. But the higher the ISO, the more graininess you'll se, so there's a trade-off in low light. Each doubling of ISO (100 to 200, 200 to 400, etc.) doubles the sensitivity.
You can use the Aperture Priority mode to set the look of a portrait. If the setting is important to the person you are shooting — like for a chef in the kitchen — you might use a smaller aperture (confusingly denoted by a larger number) of about f13 or greater to capture both the face of the person (where you should put your focus) and some of the surroundings. If you want the emphasis entirely on the person, use a larger aperture (smaller number) to blur more of the background.
The rule for dim conditions is pretty simple: Get as much light as you can. Often, the built-in flash is not the best way to do this, because it tends to overpower your foreground and leave the background very dark — making people look like vampires. The a6000 and a6300 have a multi-interface slot on top to accept more-powerful, and better-adjustable flashes (as well as microphones). In lieu of that, you want a lens with a very large (small number) maximum aperture.
The basic a6000/a6300 kit lens, with a max aperture of f/3.5, is not ideal for low light. Affordable Sony lenses go as low as f/1.8 — a big difference, since each halving of the f number represents a doubling of light intake. You might hear lenses referred to by speed. Lenses with larger apertures are called faster, since they allow you to use a faster shutter speed and still get the same level of exposure.
The lens's built-in image stabilization helps with hand jitters, and you can steady yourself by leaning against something like a post.
Your next tool is, in fact, shutter speed (period of light exposure). While the rule of thumb is to shoot at 1/60 second or faster, you can go lower if you need to. The kit lens's built-in image stabilization helps with hand jitters, and you can steady yourself by leaning against something like a post or furniture. You can also hold the camera up to your face (easy, since the camera has a great electronic viewfinder), and hold your breath. A final trick is to set the camera on burst mode. Getting five, eight or 11 shots in a row increases the chance that one will be steady.
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Slow shutter speed won't help much if your subject is moving around a lot, such as a performer on stage. You can use a higher shutter speed if you increase the ISO (up to 3,200 yields passable quality for the a6000). You may have to play around with the balance of shutter speed and ISO to get the right result, but the best plan is to invest in a faster lens.
If none of the tricks above work, your last option is to use the flash. Press the button that has a lightning bolt icon, located on the top rear of the camera, to pop the flash up. If the light is overpowering on your subject, you can tilt the flash back (holding it with your finger) to blast less light. If you are under a low, light-colored ceiling, this method will also bounce softer light down onto your subject.
There are three light-metering modes:
Extreme lighting (such as scenes that have both very dark and very light areas) can confuse the camera, even if you tweak the Exposure mode. Instead of shooting in manual (a big pain), you can use exposure compensation to override the camera's autoexposure to slightly brighten or darken the result.
The first step to good color is to make sure the a6300 or a6000 is capturing all the hues it can. To do that, go to MENU>Camera>6, scroll down to Color Space, and change the setting from sRGB to AdobeRGB. However, you may not want to switch to AdobeRGB if you’re planning to print out photos, as many printers can’t interpret the extra colors properly.
Sony invests a lot in the video performance of its cameras, and the a6300 and a6000 are no exception. But that also makes shooting casual video clips challenging. For example, the a6000 captures 1920 x 1080 HD in a high-end format called AVCHD, which produces large files, rather than the MP4 format most other cameras and cellphones use. (The a6300 can capture 4K video, also only in the AVCHD format.) Fortunately, most basic video-editing programs can convert AVCHD to MP4 for easier online posting.
Doing this brings up a silly warning that you can't record the video to a DVD. Press OK to ignore it. The 1080p setting offers fine detail and displays motion with natural fluidity.
The a6300 and a6000 can also record at 24 fps, labeled 24p 24M (FX), the frame rate used for most movies. This has a more cinematic quality, and it's also a good choice for shooting in very low light. Going from 60 fps to 24 fps allows a faster shutter speed.
The same adjustments you make in shooting photos also apply to video. You can open up the aperture to create a shallow depth of field in video, for example, or you can film in black and white.
The a6300 and a6000 are capable cameras right out of the box, but if you can spare some more money, a few additions are worthwhile. Like with all mirrorless cameras, battery life is much lower than a DSLR's. It’s rated for about 400 shots, but that can be lower depending on how long the screen is on and if you use flash or Wi-Fi (to transfer images to a phone). Video is also a power hog. An extra Sony NP-FW50 lithium-ion battery sells for about $50. (Third-party batteries sell for less, but we haven't tested them for performance or safety.) Getting the BC-TRW W external charger for about $30 allows you to top off both batteries at once — one in the charger and one in the camera.
The built-in microphone is passable, but to capture audio worthy of the high video quality, you will need an external mic, such as the ECM-XYST1M stereo microphone, which sells for about $130, or the ECM-GZ1M Gun Zoom mic (for subjects farther away), which sells for about $100.
Even without any of these extras, the a6300 and a6000 are amazing cameras that deliver excellent, sometimes pro-level results for a very fair price. Enjoy it!
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