Sony A6000 Series

Hi, I am hoping this might be a good place to get a little advice.

I am currently shooting with a Panasonic LX10(15) and have been really impressed with the performance especially combined with wet lenses, although I find the autofocus tends to hunt a fair bit when shooting video.  The big downside for me however are the limitations of a compact camera for shooting on land and of the native lens for macro & super macro.

My budget unfortunately will not stretch to a DSLR/Mirrorless and housing.  With that said, the Sony A6000 range looks like it could be a happy medium with interchangeable lenses, relatively compact size and reasonable price point.

My question is, does anyone have any experience of the Sony A6000 range of cameras? Any opinions or insights on their underwater performance and which A 6000 series would be the one to look at.  Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

I think micro four thirds might be a better fit. You seem to be happy with the output of the 1inch sensor and micro four thirds certainly has a much larger variety of lenses to choose from compared to the Sony. AF on something like the Em1mkII is supposed to be pretty good as well.

I've been using a Sony A6300 for the past 2.5 years or so. I'm quite happy with it, but keep in mind that while the bodies are relatively inexpensive, Sony lenses are pricey - a 10-18mm f/4 for wide-angle will cost you $798 new or ~$400-500 used, while a 90mm f/2.8 G macro is $998 new and ~$800 used (US prices). There are also no native Sony fisheye lenses, aside from the 16mm f/2.8 pancake with fisheye converter, which has notoriously poor IQ, so if you want to shoot fisheye, you'll need either a manual lens (something like Samyang 8mm) or a Tokina 10-17mm in Canon mount and a Metabones or Sigma adapter.

As far as budgets go, even with a used body and lenses and a SeaFrogs Salted Line housing, I have over $9k sunk into my rig. Looking at my spreadsheet where I track this, I see:

• A6300 body with kit lens - $837
• Extra battery, charger, mamory card, bag - $147
• Sony 10-18mm - $557
• Sony 90mm - $790
• 7Artisans 7.5mm fisheye - $132
• Weefine WFL05S diopter - $305
• SeaFrogs Salted Line housing with 6" dome bundle - $498
• SeaFrogs 4" fisheye dome - $147
• SeaFrogs 8" dome + neoprene cover - $268
• SeaFrogs macro port - $120
• SeaFrogs vacuum system - $155
• Tray, 4x20cm normal arms, 4x20cm float arms, focus light mount, clamps, trigger, etc - about $450
• 2x SeaFrogs ST-100 Pro strobes - $461
• 2x Retra Pro strobes with covers, diffusers and one Retra LSD snoot - $2832
• 2x multicore fiber optic cables - $100
• 2x Archon D36V lights - $469
• Archon D15VP focus light - $72
• UW-Technics TTL converter - $485
• Nightsea fluorescence excitation kit - $206

About $1k of that ended up superfluous - I started doing stills with the Archon LED lights because proper strobes were too expensive, got disappointed and bought the SeaFrogs strobes because, again, proper strobes were too expensive, got disappointed again and finally broke down and ordered the Retras when they were running a 15% preorder discount back in late 2018 - they arrived yesterday. There was also the older fixed-port SeaFrogs housing which I have since sold for about 60% of its new price, and the 6" dome port that I'm not using anymore and probably should try to sell.

In the same boat but already bit the bullet. I toyed with the idea now for several years going dSLR and or full frame, even to the point of buying a Tokina 10-17 lens for a Canon mount. But, having owned several housed film SLRs, I just could not do it. If I were a professional or exceptional amateur like many here I would find a way but at best I am a workman who may by accident get a good photo once or so often. The amount of gear for full frame or dSLR and the size just does not transport easily at all, the cost factor goes way up, obsolescence hurts even more and it just does not make sense for me. So, I went with the Sony A6400, which by the way, is an APS-C mirrorless camera with essentially much of the A7 in miniature. I agree, the big hole in the Sony choice is lack of a good fisheye lens (thus far). But all fisheye lenses distort the corners, some more than others, to get that near 180 degree diagonal field. My Inon UWL100 plus dome (with Rokinon 24mm) and my Nauticam WWL-1 (with kit lens or the Sigma 19mm) with a 130 degree plus FOV will just have to do for my wide angle. The corners appear sharp from a few test shots I have made in the pool (yes, I try to set things up before a trip, not during). I would rather the clean corners I am seeing with the WWL-1 and Sigma 19mm at 130 degrees FOV than the overly stretched images I often see even with fairly expensive equipment to get that full 160 to 180 degree FOV. I went Nauticam, so I am deep in the hole. And I claim no expertise so do not base any decision on what I say. And to top it, one of my trusty Inon D-2000 strobes went TU. Woe is me.