Sony NEX6 Interchangeable Lens Digital Camera 16.1MP with 16-50mm Zoom Lens - Black

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And here are a couple of portrait shots. Neither the Auto setting nor the Red-eye reduction mode caused a significant amount of red-eye. Thanks to the NEX's hybrid AF system, the camera will attempt to keep your subject in focus, even when shooting in speed priority mode. However, should your subject wander out of the Phase Detect area, you'll lose that benefit, and the NEX-6 reverts to contrast-detection. The front of the camera looks very simple, just like all other NEX cameras. The hand grip is very convenient to use and makes the camera very comfortable to hand hold. Sony did an excellent job with the protruding grip – something I wish all other mirrorless camera manufacturers did as well.

Having entered the compact system market in 2010 with the (long discontinued) NEX-3 and NEX-5, Sony has spent the past couple of years refining its NEX range with a new model appearing roughly every six months. During the same period Sony has also ceased to manufacture traditional DSLRs in favour of its Single-Lens Translucent (SLT) range of fixed mirror interchangeable-lens cameras. More recently Sony has finally entered the advanced compact market with the launch of the RX100 – it’s certainly been an interesting couple of years for the company, with plenty of innovation on show. Last week I sent for a Sony NEX 6 camera with 16 – 50mm kit lens and an e-mount to m39 adaptor. I’ve only had a few days to try the camera out in pretty poor weather but here are my first impressions. Odd artifacts and false color interpretations become entirely too obtrusive here in the NX20, while the NEX-6 remains fairly consistent in comparison.The NEX-6's recessed movie record button is placed, somewhat awkwardly, along the camera's right edge at a 45 degree angle. While requiring a two handed hold of the camera, its location does prevent accidental operation, which is a serious problem on the NEX-7. One thing we noticed about movie recording on the NEX-6 is that there's about 0.5 - 1.0 seconds of lag between the time you press the red button and when recording begins and ends. This can be hugely frustrating when it comes to 'grab shots' of fast-moving subjects.

The Sony NEX-6 has a Sweep Panorama mode allowing you to take panoramic images very easily by 'sweeping' with the camera while keeping the shutter release depressed. The camera does all the processing and stitching automatically. The main catch is that the resulting image is of fairly low resolution – this is something you need to be aware of if you are looking to print your panoramas.As I walked and shot, I did struggle a bit with both the power zoom and the fly-by-wire manual zoom functions on the SEL 16-50mm, sometimes finding it difficult to precisely control the focal length. I also briefly stumbled a few times when I switched to manual focus and forgot that the ring would no longer zoom the lens. But these were minor issues, and I'd almost certainly learn to avoid them with more time shooting the camera. The supplied Sony E PZ 16-50mm f/3.5-5.6 OSS power zoom lens has a tendency for vignetting, particularly at the extremes of its focal range; but that aside its performance is better than expected. The NEX-6's pop-up flash might be weak, with a rather meagre guide number of 6 at ISO 100/21°; but as long as the subject is within range it tends to produce spot-on exposures with no noticeable red-eye. The in-camera HDR exposure blending feature works very well in contrasty light. It only works for JPEGs and for still subjects, but does produce some very effective results. Now about that hybrid AF system. The NEX-6, like the NEX-5R, uses a modified CMOS sensor which accommodates pixels devoted to performing phase-detection to provide a hybrid autofocus system. The phase-detection pixels are used to determine depth information about the focus target, which means the camera has to perform less hunting to hit accurate focus. Sony is the fourth manufacturer (following Fujifilm, Nikon and Canon) to go down this route, with the potential of faster focus, improved continuous focus performance and better autofocus in movie shooting. The NEX-6 has 99 phase detection 'AF points', ranged in the middle of the frame. One interesting feature of the NEX-6 is its ‘hybrid’ autofocus module. The way this works is that the NEX-6’s sensor has been modified with a number of pixels given over to phase-detection AF duties, which work alongside the contrast-detect method that is more traditionally employed by mirrorless cameras. Sony claims that this should improve focus speeds and reduce hunting. Testing the NEX-6 with the new 16-50mm power zoom kit lens, however, we did find that the AF system is prone to some hunting, which actually makes it a touch slower than competing models. Pleasingly though, there appears to be no shutter lag, with images captured as soon as you press the shutter button. Creative filters and modes: Above are just a few of the Sony NEX-6's creative shooting modes. DRO (Dynamic Range Optimization) is set to level 5 and showcases just how useful that feature can be for rendering good exposure across the entire range of an image when desired. Handheld Twilight mode is great for obtaining low noise images in low light without a tripod, and Retro is useful for an aged, faded look.

Smart remote works in the PASM modes and with the mode dial in the SCN and Intelligent Auto positions, but you can’t use Superior Auto or, for obvious reasons, sweep panorama. Neither can you run two apps at once, so you can’t, for example, remotely monitor a time-lapse sequence. Full resolution images are saved to the camera’s card in the usual way, and a downsampled version is saved to the device, in the case of the iPhone to the camera roll. While the preset options are great to have, the custom setting provides the most control (though you can, in fact, change the settings for any of the presets). Firstly, you can choose between 24p and 30p HD encoding, then you select the shooting interval and the number of shots. If you don’t want your shots automatically compiled into a movie you can choose to save the individual still frames to the card, in which case you can also choose size and quality settings including RAW.A terrific range of excellent printed images for the price. ISO 100 good at 24 x 36, but hung on a wall and viewed from 5 or 6 feet away, even 40 x 60s look fantastic! A good 13 x 19 inch print at ISO 1600, and a good 5 x 7 at ISO 12,800. Another manual focus-related feature found on the NEX-6 (and several of its peers) is focus peaking. This puts a an outline around the areas in the frame that are in focus. You can adjust both how strong the peaking effect is, and the color of the outline. Continuous Shooting