A6400 from NEX6, first impressions

I wanted to Post my first impressions of the a6400 as an upgrade from the NEX6 as there are some features, changes and some assumptions I had going into the purchase that I was unaware of based on the reviews I viewed. Hope this helps.

1. Body design: I am surprised how much the body has “thickened.” I do appreciate the extra buttons but the camera no longer feels small. The grip is not as comfortable to me and I could see why one would want the a6600 for this. The dials are harder to spin which might break in and I wish mode dial and top dial had swapped positions as using the top dial is not a very stable position.
2. ISO: I was unaware of the ability to set shutter speed behavior to auto ISO. This is huge! About 90% of my pictures are of people and I always had to take a second when shooting in P,A or S mode to check and see if the camera was doing something stupid to either the aperture or shutter speed. Shooting in manual mode helped but often the extra time resulted in missed shots. This was not as big of an issue with slower lenses but with fast primes, if you set the SS to 1/125 the aperture was so large that the DOF was so narrow that the focus missed. Now I can assign a min SS and go to A mode, lock in the DOF I choose and let the ISO set exposure. Also you can set maximum ISO so things don’t get super noisy as well.
3. Battery life:I heard the complaints and just figured it was just as bad as the NEX6. I was wrong. It is much worse. I drained 50% of my battery in a 2 hour outing with mixed use. Good thing I have a about 6 batteries!
4. Connectivity: I assumed that this would have improved from the NEX6, It did not. Wifi connection still was a pain to set up. Transferring photos still as painful. Bluetooth was unstable. Geotagging did not work and battery drains fast if Bluetooth connection is left on. The imaging edge app does not behave any better with this camera and is deplorable for a company that makes smartphones.
5. Jpeg quality:Vast improvement in color and AWB behavior OOC. I shoot Raw+ JPEG and have only felt the need to edit a handful of photos.
6. Menu: Many reviewers have complained at how bad it is, but I feel it is better than the NEX6. Still vast areas that could be improved like using simple English, enabling touch operation and having a help button that actually tells you what the function does rather than just restating the menu title or not telling the whole picture. Example, Silent shutter, the help button states that enabling reduces camera noise to a minimum. That does not tell you what it does, its under the movie tab which this is not a movie function and there is no caution of banding in artificial light.

It may sound like I don’t like the camera, That is far from the truth. This is hands down the best camera I have ever owned. Results are fantastic, AF has to be seen to believe how good it is and things like the AF and auto ISO helps me focus on composition and capturing the perfect moment. For me the a6400 made more sense than the a6600 as IBIS doesn’t help much with stills of people where you are going to want to keep that shutter speed up. If I shot more video, I most likely would have opted to spend the extra $500 for IBIS and better battery life.

dbose said:

ISO: I was unaware of the ability to set shutter speed behavior to auto ISO. This is huge! About 90% of my pictures are of people and I always had to take a second when shooting in P,A or S mode to check and see if the camera was doing something stupid to either the aperture or shutter speed. Shooting in manual mode helped but often the extra time resulted in missed shots. This was not as big of an issue with slower lenses but with fast primes, if you set the SS to 1/125 the aperture was so large that the DOF was so narrow that the focus missed. Now I can assign a min SS and go to A mode, lock in the DOF I choose and let the ISO set exposure. Also you can set maximum ISO so things don’t get super noisy as well.

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This was a huge improvement for me too when moving to the a6400. Fuji X-T30 has it as well, but for some reason, the X-T30 doesn't actually obey what you set as min. shutter speed. The Sony does, and it makes tasking pics of kid events so much easier. I had it out taking pics of my 4 year old nephew's kiddie soccer game Tuesday evening, and between the new AF tracking and how well it does with Auto ISO with min shutter speed, I was blown away with how well the camera did and how much fun it was to take pics at an event again.

Fast reliable AF and intelligent exposure control does cover a multitude of sins. Sad thing is half of my complaints could be addressed with a firmware update but as I learned from the many years of owning Sony, they only change bugs and little things through firmware.

Good review,

just picked up the a6400 myself and agree. Although most vlogger's I've seen suggest a gimbal plus the a6400 would be better than the a6600.

Hopefully since Sony did away with playmemories they will add some of those functions in future updates but I am not holding my breath.

The size is getting chunkier but the body does have a nice solid feel and more premium looks than my a6000.

My previous mirrorless was also NEX-6, I'm still love it even I've sold it. Though A6400 is present, I might think to get a 2nd hand N6 in future for backup







.

Thanks for the review. I would expect you to be impressed when going from a 6N. I have a 6000, and I think the improvement would only be in the tracking and focus capabilities.

Went with the 18-135 as well when I switched up.

It seems "bigger" but some of that is the small size of the 16-50 I used. I also added a somewhat larger L bracket so the typical package is larger yet still substantially smaller than my D7200. I could big pocket the NEX6. Not so much this one. However, it only took a few outings before I got used to the new bracket/grip.

I definitely like the ability to have more/different controls on ISO and shutter speed.

Not sure on battery use differences. I don't have all that set patterns of use so not sure if better or worse or the same. In the habit of considering a spare or two in most circumstances. I usually have an overnight to do batteries at most times. I'm considering leaving it plugged in to usb and/or a battery on the charger all the time because I have a feeling they don't last as long when not in use. But no comparison to size, life or readiness of the D7200 batteries, either.

Haven't dealt with connectivity and not much work with jpegs so can't compare.

Menu? Really need to use a lot more to get to speed with the menus, etc. It's different enough that it takes getting used to or when swapping cameras.

I really like it a lot. Haven't done anything really serious with it, just casual uses. Weather has been either too hot or kind of cruddy so not useful learning trips recently.

One of the things most frustrating with the NEX6 and 16-50 was slow start up or kind of sluggish responses. The new one, and new lens, seems a lot faster in use. Still haven't decided on a default set up for focus and shooting controls.

This whole battery drain thing you guys seem to experience on the A6XXX models, how is this? I have a A6000 and do hours long shoots with models and probably go from 100% to 83% in that time.

Is it because you're leaving the camera ON the whole time with the screen lit up or something?

I don’t understand it either. Like stated before I thought it was an exaggeration but it’s not

How is the image quality difference with regard to noise and low light, especially at the same settings?

What did you mean by color, more saturation?

hawk15 said:

How is the image quality difference with regard to noise and low light, especially at the same settings?

What did you mean by color, more saturation?

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Compared to the N6 there’s a pretty big difference. I would say you have maybe 3-4 more usable stops of iso. Look at the studio comparison tool on this site and you can check it out yourself.

As for JPEG color I would say the color in general is just more pleasing/natural. The N6 always had a cool tint to it and I would stay away from DRO auto as the images would be flat. Of course color is very subjective and I personally like more of the yellow/red end of spectrum then the blue/green.

Yea I use the studio tool but I don't like their setup. They need more depth and outdoor night samples.

MistrSynistr said:

This whole battery drain thing you guys seem to experience on the A6XXX models, how is this? I have a A6000 and do hours long shoots with models and probably go from 100% to 83% in that time.

Is it because you're leaving the camera ON the whole time with the screen lit up or something?

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I can shoot dawn-to-dusk while traveling on less than three (typically less than 2) batteries with poor on-off discipline. And there's always the charging battery pack for in-camera charging as needed.