Point and Shoot, or DSLR for Hawaiian vacation....

[greenjp]

Good choice greg. My advice is to play around with it a lot before your trip so you're comfortable with some of the key settings. You don't have to use it in manual mode or anything, but figuring out how to set exposure compensation, or to use the face detecting autofocus and exposure, etc will come in handy and save you from fiddling with the camera when you're out and about.

The 3x zoom you've got will be both a wider on the short end and much longer at the long end than a camera phone and as such much more versatile. The sensor is dramatically larger (on the order of 20x) so it'll take much nicer and cleaner photos in any circumstance. With 24mp you can "zoom" another 2x by cropping and still be left with a 6mp file.

If you have fun with this first "real" camera you'll next want to look at either a telephoto if more zoom is what you want, or a wide/normal fixed lens like Sony's 35mm f1.8.

jeff

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted By: alarmguy
Good luck with the camera, the Sony A6000 is a fine compact camera for sure, however when you gave a budget of no more then $450 and not sure about carrying around lens etc, that camera wasnt in the ball park. Yup, I of all people know things change. *L*

The A6000 as you have it, will take great photos but you are limited by the lens unless you spend another $350.00 for a telephoto.

At around $500, I'd say the a6000 is "in the ball park."

OP did not mention he needed a huge zoom. That 16-50 kit lens is going to cover his needs in most situations if he's mainly taking pictures of people and landscapes. Now if he is into birding, sports photography, or going on a safari, then yeah, he'll need a different lens.

The a6000 is also quite a bit smaller/lighter than D3400, so it's going to be easier to carry around while on vacation, IMO. I love my D7200, but walking around with it for extended periods of time can be a chore.

 

[greenjp]

Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
The a6000 is also quite a bit smaller/lighter than D3400, so it's going to be easier to carry around while on vacation, IMO. I love my D7200, but walking around with it for extended periods of time can be a chore.

This site allows you to select various cameras and lenses and compare their sizes:

http://camerasize.com/compact/#535.360,688,681.36,ha,t

That link has an A6000 (mirrorless), Panasonic LX10 (high end "point and shoot"), and Nikon D3400 (entry level SLR). Goes to show how big even an entry level SLR is compared to the alternatives.

jeff

 

[xfactor9]

Good choice for lightweight and compact camera that takes good pictures for the price. DSLs are too cumbersome and I always steer beginners away from them because most people I know who bought one eventually sold it because they never used it after the first few times (due to their size).

Learn how to focus manually w/ your new Sony. Its low-light autofocus isn't very good (it tends to hunt)

 

[Vikas]

I have the same camera and the same lens (also bought the corresponding tele-zoom too). Be careful with the kit lens at the wide angle. It has significant distortion at the edge. If you are trying to take group photo (or selfie) to "cram" more content at wide angle, the people at the end will have funny faces.

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted By: Vikas
I have the same camera and the same lens (also bought the corresponding tele-zoom too). Be careful with the kit lens at the wide angle. It has significant distortion at the edge. If you are trying to take group photo (or selfie) to "cram" more content at wide angle, the people at the end will have funny faces.

Doesn't Sony automatically apply a lens correction algorithm to fix this? This is normally done with JPEGs. With RAW images, you can choose not to have the auto correction applied and instead correct it yourself in post processing, if you want to.

But yes, good point about lens distortion in general.

Make sure you have the distortion compensation enabled...
http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/sony-a6000/sony-a6000A4.HTM