Sony A6300: Mirrorless SLRs have no (autofocus) clothes?

by philg

I am in love with Sony APS-C mirrorless cameras for their image quality (dynamic range so much better than anything from Canon), their compact size, and the back-saving flip-up rear LCD. I started with the NEX-6, moved to the A6000, and now have the A6300. The worst thing about the camera compared to a trusty Canon EOS body has always been the autofocus. Sony’s response to this is “Just give us $1000 for the new model, which has the best autofocus imaginable.” After playing around with the “green idiot mode,” however, I am shocked at the number of out-of-focus images. This is not a question of picking the wrong part of the scene but of an image in which literally nothing is in focus, perhaps due to “release priority” rather than “AF priority” (manually settable but the setting may not affect behavior in green idiot mode) combined with a generally inferior ability to autofocus.

Any readers with this camera? Does the purported Emperor of Autofocus actually have no clothes?

 

5 thoughts on “Sony A6300: Mirrorless SLRs have no (autofocus) clothes?”

  2. I don’t know about the A6000 series specifically but one big argument for why the new top model A7R II had such a price hike over the A7R was that autofocus was finally somewhat usable. I can personally attest that the A7R autofocus was pretty terrible, rather slow and often confused about what to focus on. Sony has chronic problems with autofocus, no doubt.

  3. I am very interested in your experience and the experience of others as I want to buy a new camera. I am going on a cruise to Alaska and don’t want heavy SLR gear. I have narrowed my options to the A6300 and lenses the RX10 III and Olympus.

    I want to be able to capture images of birds and wildlife and the 600m reach of the RX10 III is appealing. I know it would be compromise but breaking my back would also be a compromise.

  4. A6300 does not have image stabilisation, which makes it even less interesting.

  5. I own the NEX-5t and the NEX-6. What I notice is the autofocus is very slow. I have to softly press the focus button repeatedly to get the focus I desire but once it is in focus the picture is sharp. Only then do I snap the picture.

    BTW I love this blog. Amazing insight on almost every post.

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