Shooting with Sony a6300 & G Master Lenses

Date cameras, marry lenses

Published in

Bike Hugger Magazine

5 min readMar 2, 2016

This morning, shared more photos on Flickr and Instagram from the Sony media event in partnership with Sony Mirrorless Pro and Digital Photo Pro. We’re in Miami shooting with the new Sony a6300 and G Master lenses. During short breaks from the event, jotted down initial thoughts like

The a6300 camera is a very capable shooter. It’s fast to start up, fast to focus, and fast to clear the buffer. It’s important to understand the AF settings to get the best results, as it’s easy to shoot with AF that’s not optimal for the subject if you don’t know what you’re doing.

That’s true of the focus features on the RX1R II and the Alpha Series Cameras, like Eye AF. I shared a story about using Eye AF here from the a6300 launch last month.

Taking Photos in the Blink of An Eye

Taking Photos In the Blink of an Eye ¶ The short version of this story is a crowd of peers singing happy birthday to…

medium.com

G Masters

Considering the merging of motion and stills in one mirrorless camera body, it’s interesting to note how the super bokeh of Sony’s own brand of lenses, made special for their cameras, looks like what you see in film production. Ever notice in a movie how smooth the background blurs when the cinema photographer pulls focus from one subject to another? Sony hasn’t specifically said that they wanted to emulate cinema lenses for their digital cameras, it’s just something I noticed in the G Master lens images. Having just shot with the a7s II and Rokinon lens on an assignment (that’s Sony’s digital cinema set up), my take on that aspect was probably more about the artistic aesthetics of what the camera’s intent is, than the specs and tech inside the body.

Should You Upgrade?

At the launch in January, I overheard a Sony staffer explain

I date my cameras and marry my lenses

meaning: cameras are disposable products, replaced by new tech, and the lenses are what you wanna keep. Sony is on a relentless 6-month upgrade cycle and they just released incredibly high-rez, mirrorless-specific lenses. Cameras are just like computers, phones, or for me, bicycles. You can work with what you got or get on the upgrade cycle for the latest and greatest. For fans of tech, Sony’s releases are great, but they do bottom out the resale market. If you try to flip cameras to pay for the latest new one, you won’t get a premium price, but those that are buying them used sure will.

So, yes the a6300 is worth the upgrade for the speed-of-light focus and image quality, but the a6000 is also the best selling digital camera and those lenses are really where you’ll want invest in. If you just bought an a6000, keep it for another upgrade cycle. If you’ve had yours for more than a year and into camera tech, yep…order now.

Alpha Series Lineup

The a6300 lines up with the other Alpha Series camera as the model with autofocus speed as the primary feature and with amazing video quality—records in 6K at 4K resolution in Super 35MM format. That’s the reason it’s an APS-C instead of a full frame sensor, so Sony can fit the new fast AF and image quality technology into a compact body.

Fast motion capture and with water drops

Buying

A6300 Available March 10, 2016

The a6300 will ship on March 10th from Amazon and for free with Prime. Pricing is $998.00 for the body and $1148.00 with a 16–50MM lens.

G Master Lenses Available March 31, 2016

The Sony FE 85mm f/1.4 GM lens price is $1798.00 and the Sony FE 24–70mm f/2.8 GM lens is $2198.00. Both will ship for free with Prime from Amazon on March 31 2016.

B&H also has availability on the a6300 and G Master lenses for the same price and with free standard shipping.

For Bike Hugger staff, the technological jump from DSLRs to Sony Alpha Series cameras is massive because the amount fun had on a bike ride is inversely proportional to the weight of camera gear transported by the rider. We’ve often switched technologies in order to get more with less. Pro-quality, compact cameras allow us to travel with camera gear for the high-res artistic shot and still make our weight allowances. Photographic technology is changing very fast—every 6 months—and with it brings a new world of options to lifestyle bloggers. We’ll continue to share our take on mirrorless camera tech, as it gets released. Our posts on Medium to date:

A classic Buick Lesabre with Blazing Elwoods CD and a dashboard Jesus and taken with a Sony A7S and Rokinon Cine lens.

Issue 33 Crafted is available on iTunes and the Web for $3.99 an issue or $14.00 per year. It includes a photo essay about a Triple 3 Fab bike with welds like this.