5 Easy Sony A6000 Tips And Tricks To Solve Common Problems!

December 26, 2019December 26, 2019 Admin

[the_ad id=”20″]Our regular readers will be aware that over the last six to seven months, we have published a whole bunch of articles based around the Sony a6000 due to seeing so many different people reaching out with various questions and asking for advice on camera accessory recommendations. Although we do usually try to stick to that kind of article where we focus on one single question or topic, today’s article is going to be a little different.

We often see people reaching out with various problems with their Sony a6000 and when you dig a little deeper, these issues usually stem from some commonly found problems with the a6000. Due to this, we have decided to publish this dedicated article covering some of these problems to try and help any of our readers who are having them. Our hope is that these quick and easy Sony a6000 tips and tricks will help ensure that you avoid these problems in the future while also making your life as easy as possible when using your camera too.

Thankfully, most of the problem fix that we will be covering in our article can be done at home without having to folk out and spend a whole bunch of cash. On top of this, many of them are very easy and can be done by anyone even if you are not a very technical person. We are huge believers in keeping things as simple and straight forward as possible so we have stuck to this train of through for these problems with the a6000 too.

Depending on what you are actually using your a6000 for, you may not be having all of these issues as some of them do tend to be specific to the niche you are working in. Due to this, some niches will rarely run into these issues where some niches, unfortunately, have them occurring on a very regular basis. As we work our way through the article we will be commenting on the various niches where each problem is common.

If you are a photographer using the a6000 as your go-to camera body of choice then luckily enough, the majority of the common issues with the camera will not affect you. That said though, on the flipside of this, if you are a videographer using the a6000 to capture your video footage then, unfortunately, some of these issues can happen often and become very annoying. Thankfully though, our fixes can help minimize the disruption they cause and even stop them completely in some cases.

[the_ad id=”44″]

Prevent The Annoying LCD Screen Powerdown

One of the main annoying things about the Sony a6000, especially if you are using the camera for videography is that the LCD screen can power down if you hold the camera in certain positions due to the optical viewfinder sensor on the camera shown in the image above. The idea behind this is that when you brief your face up to the camera body to look through the viewfinder that it will power the LCD screen down to save battery and reduce the heat generated by the camera.

The problem is that when using the camera for videography or vlogging, you may be using it in positions where the sensor can trigger incorrectly and power down your LCD panel when you are actually using it to observe what you are capturing. For example, you may hold your a6000 camera body close to your chest when recording and this will power your screen down and it can become annoying.

Thankfully though, there is a quick and easy little hack that you can implement to fix this problem and it is very cheap to implement and chances are, a large number of you will already have some Duct Tape in your house that you can use anyway. You are basically going to cover around two-thirds of the sensor on the camera with a small piece of Duct Tape as shown in the image below.

The logic behind doing this is that you cover two-thirds of the sensor and drastically limit the amount of light that is able to enter. This results in the sensor not being able to work as efficiently and workout if you do have your a6000 held up to your face or not and prevents your LCD screen from being powered down on a regular basis. If you are a vlogger or videographer then this quick and easy little hack can really be a godsend for you.

Additionally, you can quickly and easily remove the Duct Tape if needed to restore the normal function of the sensor making this a solid little hack for your Sony a6000 that you can still implement even if you are using your camera for photography too. If needed, you can easily add a few bits of duct tape to your camera accessory bag to allow you to cover the sensor again later in your session as required.

[the_ad id=”45″]

Keep Your Camera Sensor Clean

This is without a doubt one of the most common issues that we see and although you would think that cleaning your a6000 sensor on a regular basis would be an obvious part of regular servicing, we see so many photographers and videographers report issues that have never gone through the process! Sony put some excellent camera rigs together and cleaning the sensor on your a6000 is extremely easy and if you are working outdoors on a regular basis as either a photographer or videographer it is probably worth considering cleaning your sensor at least once a month.

We have seen too many beautiful landscape photographs and videos spoiled due to having a tiny spec of dust on the camera sensor that is easy to remote. We know that in this day and ages it is relitivley easy to remove the dust in post-production but in our opinion, this is just lazy and enforced bad habits. We also know a few people who take their camera bodies to their local photography store to have them professionally cleaned but there really is no need unless you are working in an extreme niche, the process is cheap and easy as shown in the video below.

Although we know that many of our readers will already have a decent camera cleaning kit, good ones can be purchased for around $15 depending on the retailer if you are yet to add one to your collection of camera accessories. We would highly recommend that a particular cleaning kit as it is cheap, has everything that you need to clean the Sony a6000 efficiently, and has managed to earn itself an excellent reputation amongst the community over the years.

Deal With The Cameras Overheating Problems

Again, this is another area where you will get off lightly if you are using your a6000 for photography but if you are capturing video footage for any length of time you will likley run into a number of issues with overheating. There are a number of reasons why the a6000 has problems with heat generation and thankfully, come of them can be corrected with ease and for free or either extremely cheaply.

First up, we would highly recommend that you invest in some cheap spare NP-FW50 batteries to allow you to hot-swap a fresh, cool battery into your camera on a regular basis. Although this may seem like a total pain, hot-swapping a fresh battery into your camera is one of the quickest and easiest ways to deal with the overheating issues the a6000 has. The battery is without a doubt the highest heat source in the camera so swapping a warm battery out for a fresh cool one essentially resets the heat build-up and can allow you to keep recording for longer without interruption.

Now, depending on what you are actually doing with your a6000, the frequency that you switch out your batteries will change. If you are doing anything power-intensive like high definition video at super high frames per second, you may have to switch every fifteen minutes or so. Generally, though, you can usually get to around the thirty-minute mark and go from there without running into issues.

Next up, we will be dealing with the second-highest potential heat source on your a6000, your SD card. Thankfully, more and more people are starting to realize this issue so it is becoming less of a problem but slow SD cards can generate an absolute ton of heat! We would always recommend a minimum shooting speed of 90MB/s with a minimum tx speed of 170MB/s for the a6000. You can check the labels on the front of your current SD cards to see if they meet these minimum requirements and could potentially be part of the overheating problem.

If your current cards meet or beat the 90MB/s shooting speed then they can be kept and it is likley that the heat generation is coming from something else. If they fall short then we would highly recommend that you consider upgrading your SD card collection to cards more suitable for video. Thankfully, due to advancements in technology over the years, these faster cards are much cheaper than they used to be allowing you to upgrade without having to spend much of your hard-earned cash.

There are also a few free steps that you can take to help reduce the heat generated by your Sony a6000 during use too. The third highest source of heat on the camera is its LCD screen and it is surprising how much additional heat can be dissipated into the atmosphere by simply tilting the screen when possible as shown in the image above.

This essentially increases the airflow to the rear of the screen to dissipate the heat into the atmosphere that would otherwise be transferred to your camera body. Provided that your SD card is fast enough for video, making a change as simple as tilting your camera screen can actually be surprisingly efficient and help keep your recording your video footage for longer without any overheating warnings.

Some other free steps that we have seen people report having success with opening up the flash cover increase airflow as well as opening the battery door while keeping the battery in place with tape. Although we would not recommend the battery door method incase it catches something and breaks, people do seem to feel it has a positive effect on the heat dissipation from their a6000 battery and that it is well worth trying.

[the_ad id=”46″]

Weatherproof Your A6000

Before we even thought of publishing a dedicated article going over our Sony a6000 tips and tricks for common issues with the camera we published our dedicated article going over how to weatherproof your a6000. Rather than typing the whole thing up again, we will just link to it and let you read the article in your own time if you feel that this could be an issue for your a6000.

Although often overlooked, a number of issues with modern cameras can stem from poor weatherproofing for use outside. On top of this, unlike some of the issues above, poor weatherproofing can have a negative effect on the level of image quality that you are able to capture for both photographers and videographers so it is definatley worth addressing and can be done easily and cheaply too.

Invest In Some Image Stabilization

The final point that we want to make is based around camera accessories that can provide your Sony a6000 with the image stabilization that it needs for optimal image quality, especially when capturing video footage. Although not essentially a problem with the camera itself, we have noticed a number of people reaching out and asking for advice on issues with image quality and it is often down to handheld shooting.

We have a bunch of articles going over a number of popular image stabilization sources for the a6000 that you can check out if you think this could be an issue for you. We have linked the full article as well as our actual primary recommend item below for anyone who just wants a quick solution without having to read the supplementary article. Our current articles going over the subject are as follows:-