In this post, we’ll go through the best settings for video and photography for the Sony a6000

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Video Settings

Let’s look at settings for video, for the highest quality settings you want file format XAVCS, if this is greyed out it’s because you need a certain type of memory card, an SDXC memory card. By using one of these you’ll get the best quality video from your a6000.

This is on the menu under

Camera Settings > Tab 1 > File Format

Then change the record setting to choose either 60 fps or 30fps, 60fps is great for smoother footage, which you could slow down for b-roll footage. You can change this under –

Camera Settings > Tab 2 > Record Setting

60p = 60 fps 30p = 30 fps

The a6000 lacks proper picture profiles such as Cine4 or S-log, which is understandable seeing the camera’s age, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get some cinematic-looking video from the a6000. In absence of picture profiles, I use these settings to shoot video. I like to use the Portrait creative style which you change on –

Camera settings > tab 4 > Creative Style

and scroll down to portrait 

Then I adjust these further by pressing right with portrait still selected and change

Contrast to -3 Saturation to -1 and Sharpness to – 1

These settings will give your videos a smooth quality without removing too much detail or colour. I’ve used these settings on most of my videos with a6000

To not lose any more sharpness from your video I turn the soft skin effect off, I think this setting softens your shots too much. You can turn this off on 

Camera settings > Tab 6

Other settings worth looking at to improve your video is turned steady shot on to keep your video as steady as possible especially when handheld (note your lens will need OSS built in this option to appear) You can turn this on on

Cameras Settings > Tab 7 Steadyshot

Also keeping the white balance setting on auto fine as the camera generally does a decent job of balancing the colour this is on camera settings > tab 4

These settings will make your videos look as good as possible with the Sony a6000

Photography Settings

Let’s have a look now at some example photos I’ve taken with the a6000.

These settings change quite a lot depending on the type of shot for portraits. Have your aperture open as wide as possible, this is the f-number and is easiest to change using the aperture priority mode. This will give you out-of-focus backgrounds that make the subject of your portrait stand out more and give your shots a professional look.

Another setting  I would recommend using is AF-S focus mode, which means Autofocus single. Which essentially locks the focus to a single point of a stationary subject. If your subject is going to move around AF-C may be a better choice. You can find this option in the menus under camera settings > Focus mode.

For a full explanation of focus modes check out this video where I go into more detail.

For landscapes, I like to use the lowest ISO of 100 if you’re shooting in bright light this will shoot with the least noise possible in your shots. I’d also use AF-S again for the focus mode. 

I’d also change the focus area setting depending on your type of shot. To focus on a specific point of your composition I’d use Flexible Spot: Large to select a point of focus on the screen, or for a shot with no specific point of focus select wide to keep as much of your shot in focus as possible.

You can change this under

Camera Settings > Tab 3 > Focus Area

These settings should give you a good footing for both photos and video with the Sony a6000. 

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