Gary L. Friedman - The Friedman Archives Guide to Sonys A6300

Professional insights for the experienced photographer

by Gary L. Friedman

Version 1.03

ISBN 978-1-365-18832-9

Newborn photography is harder than it looks, and I talk about the unobvious details in my blog post here: http://bit.ly/1YSsVCy . This photo was taken with a Minolta 100mm f/2.8 macro lens and LA-EA2 A-mount converter.

There are a LOT of demonstrative illustrations in this book that kind of lose their effectiveness when converted to black-and-white. And some are difficult to see on e-book reader screens like the original Kindle.

And so to offset these problems Im offering a free, full-color, instantly-downloadable .pdf file of this ebook to all customers who bought printed books (be they color or black-and-white), or who purchased this work through the Amazon Kindle, Apple, Barnes and Noble, or any other e-reader store. (The original .pdf file really does offer a superior user experience. Think of it as the directors cut regarding how the author intended the work to be seen.)

To get your free .pdf file, just email me ( ) with a copy of your receipt and Ill send you a download link. Such a deal!

The photo pages preceding each chapter are images from the www.FriedmanArchives.com stock photo website, and were taken with a wide variety of different cameras over the past 30 years.

www.FriedmanArchives.com, is associate editor of f2 CameraCraft magazine (a thoughtful periodical which provides tremendous insights as well as showcasing inspirational images), and gives highly-acclaimed digital photography seminars worldwide for those who wish to improve their creative photography and learn the essentials in an intuitive manner. Because he teaches seminars worldwide, Mr. Friedman stays in touch with the concerns and challenges of serious amateurs the kinds of people who buy cameras like the A6300.

This is me examining a camera very closely so I can write a very detailed book on it.

Before graduating to photography he was a rocket scientist for NASA 's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (you know, those guys who landed probes on Mars and sent robots like Pioneer, Voyager, Galileo, Pathfinder, Spirit, and Discovery to explore the outer solar system), where he patented the image authentication system used in high-end Canon and Nikon cameras. He has been published in books, newspapers and magazines worldwide, and was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records while in college (go ahead and search the FriedmanArchives.com website if you want to find out what he did to get included).

Despite his mastery of the technical background, Mr. Friedman has an approachable and easy-going teaching style that makes his books a pleasure to read. You can read more about his background at http://friedmanarchives.com/bio.htm.

The E-mount platform has taken off far beyond what Sonys original designers had envisioned. Once designed especially for cell phone shooters looking for a small, friendly, and high-quality upgrade, this new format has now evolved to provide Sony with their best-selling cameras ever (Im talking specifically of the A6000 here) and has even garnered the respect in the professional industry with their full-frame A7 series.

So what can Sony do for an encore? Well, the first thing to do is stick with what works, and then add features that would earn the engineering team no shortage of accolades, starting with 4K video, 11+ frames per second still images, and an even more improved autofocusing algorithm that can track moving subjects with the best of them. Congratulations, youve purchased one of the most technologically advanced cameras on the planet!

In this book Ill be covering every single feature and setting in detail, but as always it helps to start with an overview of whats new.

Sony has had 24 megapixel, APS-C-sized sensors for a few years now. But two major improvements have been made to the sensor which graces your A6300:

Sony has been toying with this capability ever since the A99, but were never able to solve all the technical problems associated with it until now. In all previous models, any on-sensor phase detect array would only kick in after the focus had been confirmed via other means. But now the large array of phase-detect AF points (more than on any other camera ) can be used to get focus, and to track moving objects. Whats more, these same phase-detect pixels can now directly dri ve autofocus lenses from Canon and Nikon using an intelligent adapter, just as quickly as if they were on a native body!

A Primer Phase Detect vs. Contrast Detect