Sony A6600 Camera Review ~ Tech Review

The Sony A6600 is the company’s most premium APS-C offering yet

Sony's Alpha-collection APS-C mirrorless cameras have long been popular choices for casual in addition to fanatic photographers, because of their ease of use, excellent overall performance, and portability. Sony has been churning out new iterations of the A6000 series like clockwork and it launched its contemporary flagship camera, the A6600, in past due 2019.

This camera builds upon the already effective A6500 with neat upgrades inclusive of a bigger battery, even quicker autofocus, a flip-up LCD show, eye autofocus (AF) for video, and lots of more little things which we will get into similarly in the evaluation. Suffice to mention, it's the best cropped-sensor mirrorless camera Sony has supplied to this point. Along with those new features, also comes a barely better rate of Rs. 1,17,990 for simply the frame. Is the Sony A6600 really worth the premium? It's time to discover.

Sony A6600 layout
The frame of the A6600 will appearance very familiar in case you've used any of the preceding models in this collection. However, there may be one essential difference: the digicam grip is lots larger way to the larger battery. For the first time, Sony has used a battery from its full-body mirrorless fashions in the A6600, that is stated to offer 800 photographs per fee. This is a large step up from the preceding 350-400 shots in step with price that other A6XXX fashions have been rated for. The larger grip additionally approach that this camera is extra comfy to keep for a prolonged period of time. The frame is constructed from a magnesium alloy and is said to be dust and moisture-resistant.

The Sony A6600 has the largest handgrip in the series, thanks to the bigger battery

The buttons are ergonomically laid out at the again, and maximum of them may be customised, including the labelled ones. The mode dial at the pinnacle offers the usual capturing modes, which includes the committed S&Q (sluggish and quick) mode, which we saw at the A6400. Sony has ditched the pop-up flash on this version, but you continue to get a hotshoe for external flashes.

The ports at the left side of the A6600 now consist of a headphone jack, in conjunction with the usual microphone, Micro-USB, and Micro-HDMI ports. We're a touch disenchanted that Sony hasn't moved to the USB Type-C preferred but for this series.

The rear three-inch touchscreen has a 921K dot decision and may be flipped upwards 180 tiers, making it clean to take selfies or body a shot whilst vlogging. There's a three-2d timer this is routinely enabled for stills when the display screen is flipped up. It can also be tilted downwards, providing you with a truthful little bit of flexibility when you need to shoot at peculiar angles. You additionally get a 0.39-inch OLED digital viewfinder with a 2.35 million dot decision.

Overall, the A6600 feels extremely well-built and sturdy, just as you would assume from a premium Sony camera. The small body makes it clean to slide into any bag, and at 503g its weight is very achievable. The proportions glaringly growth after you slap a lens on to the frame. Sony despatched us an 18-135mm zoom lens along side the camera frame. We've found it to be pretty flexible for informal capturing, however the aperture variety of f/3.Five to f/five.6 does not make for exquisite low-light photographs. Still, as a starter lens, we did manage to get first rate consequences with it.

The rear LCD display on the Sony A6600 can flip outwards and upwards by 180 degrees

Sony A6600 specs and features

The Sony A6600 features a 24.2-megapixel cropped (APS-C) CMOS sensor with a local ISO range of 100-32,000. This can be improved to 50-1,02,four hundred and you may set a threshold for the most ISO that the camera can use whilst shooting. Burst shooting tops out at 11fps (in Hi+ mode) and 8fps within the stay-view and silent shutter modes.

The buffer for holding burst pictures isn't too huge, and Sony claims it is able to maintain most effective as much as 115 JPEG frames or 46 RAW documents at a time. This is lots decrease than the 269 JPEGs and 107 RAW files that the A6500 became capable of. The digital camera makes use of a single SD card, positioned beside the battery, however it most effective supports up to UHS-I speeds and no longer UHS-II.

One of the highlights of the A6600 is its AI consciousness monitoring functionality. The sensor capabilities 425 section detection autofocus (PDAF) factors, and the identical range of comparison detection AF factors, which is how it's able to lock cognizance in only 0.02 seconds, in step with Sony. This is not precisely new, when you consider that Sony's own A6400 which we examined a year in the past had the identical setup.

Face and eye monitoring are nonetheless very dependable and right now kick in whilst you half-press the shutter button. There's actual-time eye autofocus for animals too, and this labored decently whilst we attempted it. The digital camera also has in-body five-axis stabilisation to help reduce blur in stills while using a high zoom stage.

The Sony A6600 now features a headphone socket too

The A6600 has a few pretty nifty video abilities too. Besides being able to shoot at up to 4K 30fps, with complete pixel readout, the digicam additionally helps advanced photo profiles such as S-Log2, S-Log3, and HLG, for HDR workflows. This is also Sony's first APS-C digicam to provide eye autofocus whilst capturing motion pictures.

For cellphone connectivity, the A6600 helps NFC, 2.4GHz Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. Last yr, Sony in the end replaced its Play Memories accomplice app with the new Imaging Edge Mobile, that's easier to use and set up. You can use it to wirelessly replica images to your smartphone, both in their authentic length or a discounted length. You can even use your cellphone's show as a viewfinder for controlling the digital camera remotely.

Sony A6600 performance and battery life

The A6600 has the same native most ISO because the A6400, that's 32,000, and the consequences of our ISO check were comparable too. Clarity and sharpness have been preserved very well from ISO one hundred up until about ISO 800, wherein we began to peer very minor grain. Jumping to ISO three,two hundred, we noticed a few moderate distortion along the edges of the pencils, but not anything too terrible. At ISO 12,800, the edges of the pencils started out to lose definition, but once more, this become most effective important at a one hundred percentage crop. Grain turned into seen too however no chroma noise but.

Video performance is equally correct. We had been often capturing at 4K and have been quite impressed with the element and colours that the A6600 can capture. Focusing became once more very dependable and a simple tap at the viewfinder will easily transition the point of interest between topics. Faces are mechanically tracked however this may be disabled if wished. You also can set the speed at which recognition and tracking are modified, relying on your taking pictures fashion.

The A6XXX collection has usually struggled to offer brilliant battery lifestyles, especially whilst recording video. All that changes with the A6600, way to its an awful lot beefier battery. With the digicam in Airplane mode, we noticed approximately 25 percent left within the battery after taking extra than a 1,000 shots. Even capturing 4K video would not make as big a dent in the battery stage as we have skilled with older models. You can fee the digital camera (with the battery interior) via a energy financial institution too.

Verdict

The A6600 feels like the most whole APS-C mirrorless digital camera to date from Sony. It receives the high-quality bits of the A6500 and the A6400, along with the bonus of a miles large battery. Plus, things just like the headphone socket, turn-up LCD, and faster tracking autofocus make this digital camera very well proper to vlogging. That's not saying it's perfect – we would nonetheless like to see Sony upgrade to a USB Type-C port and upload rapid charging; let us use the touchscreen within the menus; and maybe upload assist for UHS-II velocity SD playing cards too.

Coming to the charge, the A6600 is a touch highly-priced. The digicam body and the 18-135mm package lens together are priced at Rs. 1,51,990, despite the fact that you may locate them selling for about Rs. 20,000 much less on-line. Keep in mind that the A6500, with the equal lens, can now be located for under a Rs. 1,00,000, so except you without a doubt need the larger battery and slightly quicker focusing, the previous model is still a good choice.

Overall, the Sony A6600 is a superb option in case you're seeking out a do-it-all mirrorless camera or are actually looking to improve from an entry-stage version.

Price (M.R.P)