So, the A6600 is on sale...and yeah, I bought one.

[pierces]

We're heading to Alaska later this summer and I have been putting together the photography go-bag. I considered a lot of options like lens rental but since I use my 24-105 f/4 on the A7III 99% of the time with the 70-300 G lens on the A6300 for telephoto, I decided on a different solution. When the A6600 first came out, I had recently moved to the A7III as my main camera and even though a lot of the updated features were attractive, it didn't make sense to upgrade my APS-C kit at the time. Over the last couple of years, I find that I use use my A6300 more often than expected for telephoto duty as well as the 12mm f/2 Rokinon and fisheye for different perspectives and getting an A6600's with its advanced features has become easier to justify. Upgrading to the real-time AF tracking for the telephoto and sensor stabilization for the manual lenses was the main reason. Tack on the greatly improved life of the FZ-100 battery and the convenience of being able to use the same batteries in both bodies and it just kept getting more attractive. A couple of years of looking at the images Justin (Zackiedawg) cranks out of his A6600 had already softened my resistance enough that when the body dropped $200 on promotion, I just did it. 

 

Besides, what better way to force Sony to drop a vastly improved APS-C camera body than to buy their current top-end model well after it was released! 

 

I'll post some first impressions when the smiling box appears on the porch,

 

Dave 

[pengu1n]

Congratulations!  I am still debating myself between this (and switching to a new system) or upgrading my Olympus EM10 to an OMD EM1 mark iii. I have a great collection of lenses, but still leery of what new company will do in the future.

[pierces]

Well, these things happen.

 

Crap...

 

Got the delivery today and when I opened the box, it contained an A6000 body and an NP-50 battery with A6600 paperwork in an A6600 box. Looks like somebody did a little creative shopping  by ordering both from Amazon and switched bodies before returning the more expensive model. Nice way to save $700 on some new tech if you're a complete bastard.

 

 

Amazon was fantastic as usual and it took about five minutes to get a replacement on it's way and a label to return the bogus one.

 

Waiting until Thursday now. 

 

 

Dave

 

[zackiedawg]

Wow - that's quite the disappointment!  I've heard of those things happening, but knock on wood hasn't happened to me so far.  Wonder if they'll be able to track down who did the return-switcheroo and do anything about it, such as re-charging the account holder and canceling their Amazon account.  Then again, they're such a giant company, they might just write it off as its just a tiny fly in their profit soup.

 

Glad you got another on the way - looking forward to seeing how you get on with it.  I definitely have been very happy with it, much as I loved my venerable 6300 - the 6600 just upgraded so many things I liked about the A6300, and added things I wished the A6300 had...made for a perfect APS-C camera for me.  Now we have to see what groundbreaking camera flagship they debut next week, now that they got you to spend your money on the existing model!

[pierces]

5 hours ago, zackiedawg said:

Now we have to see what groundbreaking camera flagship they debut next week, now that they got you to spend your money on the existing model!

 

Already did that with the A6300. I bought it shortly before the A6500 appeared out of nowhere sporting fancy things like IBIS.

 

There is an announcement due toward the end of the month but the rumors of a hair-on-fire APS-C flagship fizzled out and now it is pretty well confirmed that it is going to be a ILC vlogger camera called the ZV-E10. It will basically be an E-mount version of their ZV-1 camera. That info is what prompted the A6600 purchase. Now I'll wait to see if the A7IV or A7rV are enough of a technical leap that I will need* one. 

 

Dave

 

*for clarity, "need" is defined here as "really, really want".

[pierces]

Say hello to my little friend!

 

It won't quite match the 13-14 shots per second of Al Pacino's M-16 that he used in the movie, but it's pretty close...

 

Kidding aside, the darned thing finally arrived. Two days later than scheduled, but it was pristine and actually the right model this time. The timing was very frustrating since it arrived shortly before the truck from Lowe's deposited 2,500 lbs. of decking on my driveway that needed to be carried around to the back yard. After that was done, the camera seemed less important than my recliner and a soothing adult beverage. Fast forward to early today and I was able to finish the unboxing with fresh eyes and a lower heart rate. I spent an hour tackling the exploration of the menus, assigning the custom buttons, quick function menu and obligatory initial shots of random stuff across the room to verify that all the bits were working. Some of the criticism of the Sony menu system is deserved, but the My Menu option in the A7III and now with the A6600, that hour I spent setting things up will be my last interaction with the infamous menu for quite a while.

 

More to come. For now, the deck is calling and I want to get some done before it hits 100° later today.

 

Dave

[zackiedawg]

Exactly my opinion on the menus.  While there is often somewhat deserved criticism that the menus are dense and not always arranged like you'd think, the MyMenu solves it entirely.  Aside from the programmable buttons and the Fn menu, which already helped on the previous bodies, with MyMenu, I've spent almost two years now with the A6600 and have not been in the main menus once.  Every function I'll ever need has an assigned button, is in the Fn menu, or is in My Menu's pages, arranged how I want them arranged!

[BoozinCroozin]

Nice.

[pierces]

You always hear, "it's the little things".

 

Most of what I have mentioned so far has been about the big shiny stuff that influenced my decision to buy the A6600. Below it one of those little things that wouldn't influence my buying decision but made me smile when I discovered a long-time pet peeve was eliminated.

 

The eye cup on the A6000 and A6300 attaches by hooking on the top and snapping into place on the bottom. A mild breeze will knock it off and if you like having an eye cup on the camera, you buy a bag of 5 cheap aftermarket cups to keep in your bag. They actually sell them in 5-packs and aftermarket manufacturers find producing them profitable, so I assume I'm not the only victim of a poorly designed attachment. The A6600 cup (not sure about the A6500) has a traditional slide down from the top and click attachment that clings to the eyepiece like a tick.

 

Life is good.

 

Dave

 

Edited June 16, 2021 by pierces