Compact mirrorless for travel / beginner
Trying to get a camera setup for Black Friday. I’m a total photography noob (smartphone user) but I would like to step up my game a bit. I’ll mostly bring the camera for travels and hikes, taking photos of wildlife, architecture and landscape. Most of these would be in medium light situations (dusk or dawn) so low-ish light performance is going to be important. I’ll probably also take some amount of video, though that’s secondary.
I was mainly looking at the Sony A6x00 series since they seem to be the lightest/smallest compared to other brands. Considering I’m a beginner I think the object tracking AF is going to be really nice as well, especially if I’m trying to capture moving wildlife. I’m also looking to have a good “allrounder” zoom lens for that since I’d rather not carry around multiples, plus with animals sometimes I’m not going to be able to get any closer so that a prime lens seems to be inappropriate. Does the kit lens fit that? It seems like a good trade off between size, weight and performance, though I’ve heard they may be less sharp than alternatives. Am I going to run into the kit lenses limitations as a beginner, or is that more something that an intermediate/advanced user would notice?
I think the best fit would be the A6000, A6100 or A6400. I tend to gravitate to the A6100 due to the object tracking AF and the better low light, but not sure if the extra money is worth it, or if I should rather invest the difference in a better lens for the A6000. The A6400 seems similar and only slightly more expensive than the A6100, but I guess that one would be mostly better for video? Compared to the A6400 the similarly priced A7IIK could also be an option, though it seems that I’d be losing some desirable features there like 4K video, the more compact form factor and object tracking AF.
Posted Nov 28, 2019, 8:23 PM UTC