A6000

Phil Wood wrote: Thanks Barrin. I had a little trawl through the forum and found several others commenting on the very poor performance of the A6000 with the LA-EA3. I think I will abandon that idea! I will watch out for LA-EA4s but am moving to the idea of a second E mount zoom to give me a little variety; the 55-210 OSS seems the obvious choice.

Wise. On my Nex-6, even though it technically has hybrid AF, the LA-EA3 doesn't really focus with SAM lenses. It does try, but after waiting between 3 and 5 seconds for it to finish you soon get fed up with that. The LA-EA2 will do you and they're quite cheap. Or you can use the SAM lenses in MF though and that can be quite okay, with focus peaking.

Miranda F wrote: LAbernethy wrote: Howard_S wrote: It took a lot of work to figure out the brand joke. I went to the Kraft Heinz page, clicked on A1 and got 'Error Code: 403 (Forbidden )'. Spooky. Like Sony, I suspect, I had never heard of A1 sauce. More of an HP man myself (and a host of model-naming problems there too). A1 is made in England and HP in Holland. Hoe kan dat? I guess that's a problem in a global form. For those who didn't "get it": A.1. was officially registered as a trademark in the U.S. in 1895, and imported and distributed in the United States by G.F. Heublein & Brothers in 1906. Beginning in the early 1960s, it was marketed in the U.S. as "A.1 Steak Sauce".[8] R. J. Reynolds, which merged with Nabisco in 1985 to form RJR Nabisco, acquired Heublein in 1982. In 1999, Kraft Foods acquired Nabisco, including the license for the A.1. brand in North America. A.1. brand in the UK was owned by Ranks Hovis McDougall for a time and currently owned by Premier Foods. FWIW in the UK (and I think elsewhere too) brand names are not protected. Which is why of course Google use lots of colours in their name, because that makes it a trademark which is protected. You can call your camera 'google' without the colours and it's not an infringement (though they can probably afford more expensive lawyers than you can ...) In the UK there used to be two different companies selling clothes both of which were called John Lewis and there are probably a lot more firms called that too, selling other things, which is permitted. Curiously enough, both firms owned the same store at different times in my city.

Do you have a reliable source? Apple sued Apple in the UK. If "brand names are not protected" it does not make sense to sue.....

It sounds unlikely, so, do you have a source?
The UK Government seems to imply you can protect your brandname: https://www.gov.uk/how-to-register-a-trade-mark

Phil Wood wrote: Brand names are protected in UK law - but I'm not sure A1 could be registered, it's simply too commonly used - you couldn't register Phil and then start suing all Phils for infringement You could register A1 in a specific graphic format as a logo, but not the text. You could probably register it as part of a company name such as "A1 Cameras Limited" - though Sony might object now.

Considering the dates of registration predate women being legally recognized as persons, I wouldn't bet against it. Nor would I attempt any enterprise under a large golden yellow arched "M".

Edited by LAbernethy - 30 March 2021 at 23:33

To bring the thread back to topic.

I set out on what I thought would be a simple task - to decide which low-priced E mount kit to buy as a pocket camera.

The 16-50 lens seems to be Hobson's choice - the only thin standard zoom.

The A6000, Nex 6 & Nex 7 all seem capable enough to fit my basic need. The Nex 6 has features I like, which the Nex 7 lacks, but the 7 has higher resolution. The A6000 combines the best of both Nex bodies but costs about twice as much.

However it seems than none of them provide the level of side benefits I anticipated - particularly in adapting A-mount lenses. The LA-EA1 & 3 seem to be a waste of space without PDAF, the LA-EA2 & 4 work - but don't give the mirrorless AF I was anticipating. Ces la vie.

To get the SAM/SSM mirrorless AF I need an A6100, A7ii or later - and double the budget or more.

So it looks like an LA-EA4 if I want to adapt lenses (the 4 in anticipation of a FF body at some point in the future).

Thanks for all the input, I now have a much clearer idea of what my choices are. Sadly they are not quite as attractive as I had hoped, which, of course, serves me right for being a tightwad.

Phil Wood wrote: To get the SAM/SSM mirrorless AF I need an A6100, A7ii or later - and double the budget or more.

No, for adapted lenses you would need an LA-EA5 and one of the three cameras that support it, and that's nearly 10x the budget, not twice. I've used several LA-EAx adaptors and I can say that PDAF from the even-numbered adaptors is often better than the OSPDAF with the LA-EA1/3, particularly with centre spot. I know there aren't that many PDAF sites on the LA-EA4 and that some of the modern tracking functions don't work as well (or at all) but for non-tracking AF the ones that are there do work better than the on-sensor ones on the A7Rii. By which I mean that the focus precision is better.

Miranda F wrote: Phil Wood wrote: To get the SAM/SSM mirrorless AF I need an A6100, A7ii or later - and double the budget or more. No, for adapted lenses you would need an LA-EA5 and one of the three cameras that support it, and that's nearly 10x the budget, not twice. I've used several LA-EAx adaptors and I can say that PDAF from the even-numbered adaptors is often better than the OSPDAF with the LA-EA1/3, particularly with centre spot. I know there aren't that many PDAF sites on the LA-EA4 and that some of the modern tracking functions don't work as well (or at all) but for non-tracking AF the ones that are there do work better than the on-sensor ones on the A7Rii. By which I mean that the focus precision is better.

Nope, that is wrong. For SAM/SSM lenses you can use LA-EA1/3/5 with the A6100, A6300, A6400, A6500 and A6600 (as well several A7x bodies) reasonably to very well. The trick is the body does allow for OSPDAF and the A6000 does not (as well as anything older then the A6000. My A6400 is fine.

I got an A6000 with the 18-50 pancake quite some time ago. It still makes regular visits to my coat pocket for those outings where a big heavy combo is not practical.

The 18mm end needs a substantial amount of PP to correct the vignette and barrel distortion but is good enough for most leisure purposes.

I worried I'd miss IBIS but the in-less correction is as good. The EVF isn't quite up there with the newer EVFs and I miss the auto-iso finesse of the later A mount models (ie, min shutter speed for auto-iso).

People might laugh but I also rather like the a6000 paired with the 55-210 'kit' tele. Small, light and good enough for most purposes.


If my a6000 died tomorrow, I'd get another. I once smashed a 18-50 and bought another.


The adaptability is a fun add-on too :-) (As is the 35/1.8OSS) Go for it!