Sony’s Alpha-series APS-C mirrorless cameras have lengthy been widespread selections for informal in addition to fanatic photographers, due to their ease of use, excellent efficiency, and portability. Sony has been churning out new iterations of the A6000 sequence like clockwork and it launched its newest flagship digital camera, the A6600, in late 2019.
This digital camera builds upon the already highly effective A6500 with neat enhancements corresponding to a much bigger battery, even faster autofocus, a flip-up LCD show, eye autofocus (AF) for video, and lots of extra little issues which we’ll get into additional within the evaluation. Suffice to say, it is the most effective cropped-sensor mirrorless digital camera Sony has supplied so far. Along with these new options, additionally comes a barely greater value of Rs. 1,17,990 for simply the physique. Is the Sony A6600 well worth the premium? It’s time to seek out out.
Sony A6600 design
The physique of the A6600 will look very acquainted in the event you’ve used any of the earlier fashions on this sequence. However, there’s one main distinction: the digital camera grip is lots larger because of the bigger battery. For the primary time, Sony has used a battery from its full-frame mirrorless fashions within the A6600, which is claimed to supply 800 pictures per cost. This is a large step up from the earlier 350-400 pictures per cost that different A6XXX fashions have been rated for. The bigger grip additionally implies that this digital camera is extra comfy to carry for a protracted time frame. The physique is constructed from a magnesium alloy and is claimed to be mud and moisture-resistant.
The Sony A6600 has the most important handgrip within the sequence, because of the larger battery
The buttons are ergonomically laid out on the again, and most of them will be customised, together with the labelled ones. The mode dial on the highest gives the standard taking pictures modes, together with the devoted S&Q (gradual and fast) mode, which we noticed on the A6400. Sony has ditched the pop-up flash on this mannequin, however you continue to get a hotshoe for exterior flashes.
The ports on the left facet of the A6600 now embrace a headphone jack, together with the standard microphone, Micro-USB, and Micro-HDMI ports. We’re a bit of disenchanted that Sony hasn’t moved to the USB Type-C commonplace but for this sequence.
The rear 3-inch touchscreen has a 921Ok dot decision and will be flipped upwards 180 levels, making it simple to take selfies or body a shot when vlogging. There’s a three-second timer that is mechanically enabled for stills when the display screen is flipped up. It may also be tilted downwards, providing you with a good bit of flexibility when it’s good to shoot at odd angles. You additionally get a 0.39-inch OLED digital viewfinder with a 2.35 million dot decision.
Overall, the A6600 feels extraordinarily well-built and durable, simply as you’d anticipate from a premium Sony digital camera. The small physique makes it simple to slide into any bag, and at 503g its weight could be very manageable. The proportions clearly improve when you slap a lens on to the physique. Sony despatched us an 18-135mm zoom lens together with the digital camera physique. We’ve discovered it to be pretty versatile for informal taking pictures, however the aperture vary of f/3.5 to f/5.6 does not make for excellent low-light pictures. Still, as a starter lens, we did handle to get respectable outcomes with it.
Sony A6600 specs and options
The Sony A6600 contains a 24.2-megapixel cropped (APS-C) CMOS sensor with a local ISO vary of 100-32,000. This will be expanded to 50-1,02,400 and you’ll set a threshold for the utmost ISO that the digital camera can use when taking pictures. Burst taking pictures tops out at 11fps (in Hi+ mode) and 8fps within the live-view and silent shutter modes.
The buffer for holding burst pictures is not too huge, and Sony claims it may possibly maintain solely as much as 115 JPEG frames or 46 RAW information at a time. This is lots decrease than the 269 JPEGs and 107 RAW information that the A6500 was able to. The digital camera makes use of a single SD card, positioned beside the battery, but it surely solely helps as much as UHS-I speeds and never UHS-II.
One of the highlights of the A6600 is its AI focus monitoring functionality. The sensor options 425 part detection autofocus (PDAF) factors, and the identical variety of distinction detection AF factors, which is the way it’s in a position to lock focus in simply 0.02 seconds, based on Sony. This is not precisely new, since Sony’s personal A6400 which we examined a 12 months in the past had the identical setup.
Face and eye monitoring are nonetheless very dependable and instantly kick in once you half-press the shutter button. There’s real-time eye autofocus for animals too, and this labored decently after we tried it. The digital camera additionally has in-body 5-axis stabilisation to assist scale back blur in stills when utilizing a excessive zoom stage.
The A6600 has some fairly nifty video capabilities too. Besides having the ability to shoot at as much as 4K 30fps, with full pixel readout, the digital camera additionally helps superior image profiles corresponding to S-Log2, S-Log3, and HLG, for HDR workflows. This can also be Sony’s first APS-C digital camera to supply eye autofocus when taking pictures movies.
For smartphone connectivity, the A6600 helps NFC, 2.4GHz Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. Last 12 months, Sony lastly changed its Play Memories companion app with the brand new Imaging Edge Mobile, which is less complicated to make use of and arrange. You can use it to wirelessly copy pictures to your cellphone, both of their unique measurement or a lowered measurement. You may even use your cellphone’s show as a viewfinder for controlling the digital camera remotely.
Sony A6600 efficiency and battery life
The A6600 has the identical native most ISO because the A6400, which is 32,000, and the outcomes of our ISO take a look at have been comparable too. Clarity and sharpness have been preserved very nicely from ISO 100 up till about ISO 800, the place we began to see very minor grain. Jumping to ISO 3,200, we seen some gentle distortion alongside the perimeters of the pencils, however nothing too horrible. At ISO 12,800, the perimeters of the pencils started to lose definition, however as soon as once more, this was solely noticeable at a 100 % crop. Grain was seen too however no chroma noise but.
At the very best native ISO of 32,000, the picture had very seen artifacting even with no need to zoom in. Using any ISO above this stage doesn’t yield beneficial outcomes, so we would advise limiting it to about 25,600 for a very good stability between a comparatively quick shutter and low grain, when taking pictures handheld at night time.
When taking pictures outside in daylight, the A6600 hardly ever stumbled and was at all times on level when it got here to specializing in what we needed. We most well-liked to make use of the digital camera’s ‘Expand Flexible Spot’ AF mode, however the others have been dependable too. There’s monitoring AF, which labored nicely on individuals and objects alike. Landscapes had excellent particulars, and colors have been richly represented. Dynamic vary was fairly spectacular too. We did discover some gentle vignetting within the corners of body at greater zoom ranges, however contemplating that you’ve got 24 megapixels to play with, we discovered it simpler to easily crop photos to the specified body in a while.
Close-up pictures have been dealt with very nicely. Despite the marginally slender aperture vary, utilizing a little bit of zoom for our close-ups yielded some very good depth-of-field results. The massive variety of autofocus factors additionally made it very simple to seize fast-moving objects corresponding to birds. Even at full zoom, the digital camera was fast to trace our topic and keep locked on for the burst length. One factor to notice is that for the reason that buffer is not very massive, there is a good bit of ready earlier than you possibly can truly evaluation your pictures, which bought a bit of annoying generally. The touchscreen could be very responsive and it may be used to shortly change the main focus space and evaluation your photos. However, it nonetheless cannot be used for navigating the menus.
In low-light situations, the A6600 nonetheless focuses shortly and we solely seen a little bit of looking when taking pictures distant objects or at full zoom. Dynamic vary was fairly good too, and the in-body stabilisation labored very nicely, even when taking pictures from a transferring automobile. In very low gentle, we seen a little bit of grain in pictures, however that is as a result of we have been taking pictures on the highest native ISO setting. Dropping it down did yield extra beneficial outcomes.
Video efficiency is equally good. We have been primarily taking pictures at 4K and have been fairly impressed with the element and colors that the A6600 can seize. Focusing was as soon as once more very dependable and a easy faucet on the viewfinder will easily transition the main focus between topics. Faces are mechanically tracked however this may be disabled if wanted. You also can set the pace at which focus and monitoring are modified, relying in your taking pictures model.
The A6XXX sequence has usually struggled to supply nice battery life, particularly when recording video. All that adjustments with the A6600, because of its a lot beefier battery. With the digital camera in Airplane mode, we seen about 25 % left within the battery after taking greater than a 1,000 pictures. Even taking pictures 4K video does not make as huge a dent within the battery stage as we have skilled with older fashions. You can cost the digital camera (with the battery inside) by way of an influence financial institution too.
Verdict
The A6600 appears like essentially the most full APS-C mirrorless digital camera so far from Sony. It will get the most effective bits of the A6500 and the A6400, together with the bonus of a a lot bigger battery. Plus, issues just like the headphone socket, flip-up LCD, and faster monitoring autofocus make this digital camera very nicely suited to vlogging. That’s not saying it is good – we might nonetheless wish to see Sony improve to a USB Type-C port and add quick charging; allow us to use the touchscreen within the menus; and perhaps add help for UHS-II pace SD playing cards too.
Coming to the worth, the A6600 is a bit of costly. The digital camera physique and the 18-135mm equipment lens collectively are priced at Rs. 1,51,990, though you will discover them promoting for about Rs. 20,000 much less on-line. Keep in thoughts that the A6500, with the identical lens, can now be discovered for below a Rs. 1,00,000, so until you completely want the larger battery and barely faster focusing, the earlier mannequin continues to be a very good choice.
Overall, the Sony A6600 is a good choice in the event you’re in search of a do-it-all mirrorless digital camera or are merely seeking to improve from an entry-level mannequin.
Price (M.R.P)
- Body solely: Rs. 1,17,990
- With 18-135mm lens – Rs. 1,51,990
Pros
- Well-built and compact
- Fast and correct autofocus
- Very good picture and video high quality
- Excellent battery life
- Handy options for vloggers
Cons
- Still Micro-USB, no Type-C
- No UHS-II card help
Ratings (out of 5)
- Build/design: 4.5
- Image high quality: 4
- Video high quality: 4
- Software/options: 4
- Battery life: 4.5
- VFM: 3.5
- Overall: 4
This post was last modified on February 27, 2020 8:53 pm