Sony a6700 - First Impressions for Bird Photography
Barred Owl - Ottawa, Canada. Captured on the Sony a6700 & Sigma 150-600.
Focal length 284mm || f/5.6 || 1/8 sec || ISO 200
A few weeks ago I decided that it was time to part ways with my beloved Sony a6400 and upgrade to something that was a little more suitable to my personal photography needs. After much research and deliberation I decided to go for the Sony a6700. I’ve had my eyes on this camera now for the past couple months as it has a few features that I think are massive upgrades especially when it comes to wildlife and bird photography. Below I’ll discuss a few reasons why I decided to upgrade from the a6400 to the a6700 and my first impressions with the camera out in the field.
Sony AI driven Autofocus
Hands down my biggest desire with this upgrade was to acquire a camera equipped with Sony’s latest and greatest subject detection and eye autofocus. Their newest autofocus system uses an AI powered card that helps the camera quickly focus on specific subjects and onto the eye of the subjects (such as humans, wildlife, and birds). Anyone who has done bird photography will know how difficult it can be to lock focus on to a small fast moving bird. While the Sony a6400 did a pretty decent job, I definitely missed hundreds of shots over the past year due to mishaps with the autofocus system, especially when it came to photographing birds. I was still able to manage pretty well by assigning a separate button to toggle a single point focus spot that I could switch to in a pinch when the camera was struggling to lock on to a subject but given how hard I feel in love with photography (bird photography especially) I figured it would be worth it to give myself the best chance possible while I’m out in the field to capture photos that make me smile.
Although bird activity is quiet right now here in Canada as it’s the winter, I’ve managed to sneak in a couple of outings with my new a6700 to test it out. All I can say is that the bird specific eye autofocus is pretty mind blowing. While the camera still won’t always magically lock on to a bird when it is completely surrounded by branches in a dense tree, it does a pretty incredible job finding the eye of a bird in nearly all other situations. Once it has actually locked onto a bird as well, it doesn’t let go. Assuming you have your settings dialed in correctly with AF-C (autofocus continuous) tracking, the performance of this autofocus is truly world class. In video mode I also had the chance to film a barred owl and the camera had absolutely zero issues whatsoever keeping the eyes in focus. I don’t think there was a single moment where my camera was pointed at the owl without it’s eyes being in focus. You can check out my video footage from this encounter below (please note I’m still learning how to get the most out of the video footage from this camera and this isn’t even at the highest quality possible).
With my older a6400, often the autofocus would be able to lock on to a bird’s body in the frame, but without the eye-specific detection, there were many times where the body of the bird would be sharp with the eyes and head being out of focus (especially when up close and at a wide aperture). With the eyes and head being the most important part of the bird to get in focus I think this is such a valuable upgrade. Using this system, even on fast moving chickadees, was an absolute dream.
Black capped chickadee - Sony a6700 & Sigma 150-600
Focal length 419mm || f/6.3 || 1/1250 sec || ISO 1600
In Body Image Stabilization
Built in stabilization was another feature that I was very keen to have in my new camera. I often shoot hand held while I’m out in the field as I enjoy walking around and being active while looking for birds. This extra stabilization helps out in these situations and allows you to lower the shutter speed in darker situations while still being able to get a sharp image (something that is very helpful when shooting wildlife considering how encounters often occur in the early hours of the morning or later into the evening).
With my Sigma 150-600mm lens already having built in stabilization, pairing the a6700’s stabilization does help out - especially when fully zoomed in to 600mm (which is really 900mm Full Frame equivalent since this is an APS-C crop sensor camera). With such a massive zoom, any kind of help with stabilization is welcome. Having said that, I don’t think the stabilization on the a6700 is steady enough to shoot video hand held while fully zoomed in at 600mm; you’ll still get fairly shaky video like this without a tripod. But when zoomed further out you can definitely get steady video shots hand held - especially if you use 60 fps and above to slow down the footage later.
4k Video at 60 and 120 fps and in SLog 10-bit Colour
The ability to shoot videos in 4k resolution at 60 and 120 fps to use for slow motion is a huge upgrade over my Sony a6400 that was not able to record slow motion video in 4k. Shooting video is still very new to me but something that I’m really enjoying expanding into. In many ways, it feels like learning photography all over again and is a totally new and exciting challenge. Besides taking a few short clips of the barred owl, I haven’t tested this out too much yet but am very impressed with the quality of the video on the a6700. It’s also nice to have the extra dial on the body to easily switch between photo and video mode which makes it simple to switch between the two while out in the field and photographing a subject even when the action is ongoing and time is limited!
Purple finch - Sony a6700 & Sigma 150-600
Focal length 403mm || f/6.3 || 1/1000 sec || ISO 2000
Focus bracketing
I haven’t tried this feature out yet but I have been enjoying dipping my toes into macro photography and the drive mode option for focus bracketing is definitely a big plus with this system. When shooting macro, the depth of field becomes razor thin and you therefore usually need to combine multiple photos that have been focused at different points in order to get a final image that is in focus and sharp enough. There are ways to do this without a specific setting in the camera but this should make things much easier when using an autofocus capable lens. Excited to try this feature out!
White-breasted nuthatch - Sony a6700 & Sigma 150-600
Focal length 600mm || f/6.3 || 1/640 sec || ISO 2500
Ergonomics
As soon as I unboxed this camera I absolutely loved how it felt in my hands. While the camera is still extremely compact, the grip itself is slightly bigger than the a6400 and feels much better in the hand and more secure. I’m also very excited that Sony added another dial near the shutter button. This was missing on the previous Sony APS-C cameras and now there is are dedicated dials that can control all three exposure settings (my a6400 only had 2 dials).
Battery life
The Sony a6700 uses the bigger and newer version of Sony’s battery that is found in many of their full-frame cameras. My Sony a6400 definitely didn’t have the best battery life so this is a welcomed upgrade - it’s nice to be able to go out and not have to worry so much whether or not you’ll have enough battery life for your adventure! This bigger battery fits into the larger grip that I mentioned above.
Black capped chickadee - Sony a6700 & Sigma 150-600
Focal length 459mm || f/6.3 || 1/1250 sec || ISO 500
Price
Although not a cheap camera, at a current cost of around $1,900 CDN, being a crop sensor APS-C camera it is still at least half the cost of many of the newer Sony full-frame cameras that have many of the same features. Even though the a6700 is half the cost of the A7RV, for example, it still hosts many of the same features, a few more even, and performs exactly like the A7RV in crop mode with the same density of pixels on the sensor. I 100% don’t mind using APS-C cameras and actually prefer them when it comes to bird photography. The low-light performance is still excellent with this camera and I don’t think anyone is really going to be able to tell much difference between a low-light image taken by this camera compared to one taken by a full-frame camera if taken with proper settings and with using noise reduction software in post-processing. I’ll also gladly take the extra reach of a APS-C camera over a full-frame camera any day as well for bird and wildlife photography. On top of this, the a6700’s e-mount lens system can host any of Sony’s lenses (and other cheaper third party lenses), both full-frame and APS-C lenses, which gives you a massive selection of lenses at all price points.
So was the upgrade worth it?
Yes! I’m very happy with this upgrade to the a6700 and excited to use it more. The features listed above are only a handful of the features that this beast of a camera has to offer but are the ones that were most important to me when I was thinking about upgrading from my older a6400 model. One downside of the a6700 that many people have mentioned with this camera is that it only has 1 memory card slot as opposed to 2 (like in most of the full-frame models). For me personally this isn’t a big deal and I think by just investing in a really fast memory card with lots of storage the majority of people are going to be totally fine with this and not give it a second thought while out in the field.
Overall, I think this camera is the best wildlife and bird photography camera out there for an enthusiast who doesn’t want to spend over $2k on a new camera and still get professional level results and all of the state-of-the-art technical features.
