Your opinion on the A6x00 bodies?

I bought the NEX 7 as a good quality compact camera to use when I didn't want to take the a900 out .
Probably around 10-12 years ago , apart from the battery being quite small , it's worked well for it's purpose .
I bought the 16-50mm PZ lens when one became available to the camera and lens could easily fit in my jacket pocket .
Slow to focus , but being a landscape shooter , I could wait .

After buying the a7Riv the year before last and the LA-EA5 , when I looked at an upgrade after getting the new AF adapter for my Minolta Vectis lenses , the a6600 was the obvious choice .

Certainly a jump up from the NEX 7 , and a hugely improved battery .
A bit bigger though .
Especially as I'm typically using it with the Sony 18-135mm .
I'm needing to try the 16-50mm on it again as that lens has just had an update , and might make it a good option .

I still have the NEX 7 to use if smaller , lighter and compact is still the requirement.

Howard_S wrote: It’s not my opinion, but David Kilpatrick did an extensive review of the A3000 here. This kept me away from the camera, even when it was only £100 or so, but he saw a lot of merits despite the big failings. I have a QX1 and the sensor is a big improvement on the NEX-7. I think the A3000 is an interesting curio, and it would be fun to try one out if it’s not too pricey - sub-£100? (I assume the A3500 is near identical.)

I think the '3500' was a sales trick, not a physical upgrade. Thanks for the link, BTW. Dear Susan makes some good points. For myself, the 3500's poor EVF is the biggest downside, but the LCD is big and (can be set) very bright, and I've taken the advice and set up the fctn menu which I didn't know you could do, and which can produce a reasonable subset of the ones I use regularly on the A6300 and A7Rii.

Interestingly, the biggest draw to this camera for me is having something with modern AF and OSS that I don't need to mollycoddle and don't need a camera bag. It's light enough and robust enough that I can throw it in the back seat of the car and not worry if it falls onto the floor.
I still have to see if I like using it more or less than the A58 (both with their native 18-55mm) as a 'retro' digital camera (of there is such a thing... )

addy landzaat wrote: Miranda F wrote: I think the '3500' was a sales trick, not a physical upgrade. Mhohner considers them the same camera. If there is a difference it probably is because some internal component was no longer available.

It was the same camera .
It was sold under two different names as it was only sold as a kit .

The earlier a3000 was supplied with the 18-55mm optically stabilised kit zoom , as supplied with the other cameras before the 16-55mm PZ came out to replace it .

IIRC the a3000 was sold all over the world .

The a3500 was a cheaper package deal that was supplied with the cheaper 18-50mm non-stabilised lens .
IIRC it was only sold in the US market .

addy landzaat wrote: The USA was where the A3500 wasn't sold. It was introduced Asia only and later also was introduced in Europe it seems. How do you know it is exactly the same camera? It could use e.g. a different processor and you would never know from the specs.

That'll be why the US sticks im my mind , as it wasn't rather than was only .
Initially only sold in Australia , according to this ; https://www.dpreview.com/products/sony/slrs/sony_a3500


Regards the camera being the same as the a3000 , I remember reading it when it was released , but I can't remember where .

addy landzaat wrote: I found one saying this, the review by Paul Burrows It was called the A3000 when we tested it, but has since been rebadged A3500, although it's exactly the same camera, just with a different 'kit' lens. Everybody else says it seems to be the same camera. (On a side note: that is a terrible sentence for a professional writer...)

Grammar asides , for an a3500 camera review , they could have at least changed the picture of the camera and lens to the one in the title of the review .
They haven't even changed the words in the review to match either .
Lazy .

Miranda F wrote: SO far as I can tell my 3500 has the same features and EVCF/LCD resolution as the 3000 data. Yes, the EVF is poor, but the LCD is quite big and bright, when set to manual maximum. I guess the Sony engineer (or marketing guy?) who thought it a clever idea to put mirrorless internals inside a small DSLR body was a bit annoyed to find most of the customers wanted DSLR internals inside a mirrorless body ... But there is some benefit in having a mirrorless camera with a bigger case that is both robust and lightweight for its size, and has a nice chunky grip. If only the EVF were better ...

+ 1 on the EVF .

And I think they missed a trick with the body .
With all that empty space in , they could of incorporated a built in hip flask in it for a tot of rum for us landscape shooters on a cold day .