Sony Alpha a6000

The a6000 is a brilliant camera, although some of the default settings that Sony chose aren't too great and left me with a bad first impression. After spending a lot of time in the menus, I've come up with a list of settings that make the a6000 way more enjoyable to use. If you have an a6000 and are struggling with it, you might want to try out some of these settings. These can all be found by pressing the Menu button at any time.

• 📷 Page 1 → Focus Mode: DMF
  Whenever I'm using autofocus, DMF is my favorite focus mode. It acts like single AF normally, but after the focus is locked (by half-pressing the shutter or holding the OK button), you can then adjust the focus manually by moving the focus dial on the lens. Whenever the autofocus doesn't quite nail focus on your subject, DMF gives you the opportunity to dial it in manually before taking the photo.
• 📷 Page 1 → Focus Area: Center
  By default, the a6000's autofocus will try to identify what subject in the scene should be in focus. It usually does a decent job at guessing your intentions but it's not perfect, so I recommend setting the autofocus area to the center of the image specifically - that way you can directly specify what should be in focus. Just center the subject in the viewfinder (within the focus area indicator frame), hold the OK button or half-press the shutter button to autofocus, then recompose the shot if necessary after the focus is locked.
• 📷 Page 4 → White Balance: Daylight
  Auto white balance will never be 100% accurate, so I recommend always setting white balance manually. I always keep it set to daylight when shooting outdoors, and will adjust if necessary when shooting indoors.
• 📷 Page 4 → Creative Style: Choose your favorite!
  Sony's standard image processing is pretty bland and sterile, leading people to believe that Sony cameras just can't produce good straight-out-of-camera JPEGs and that you have to mess around with RAWs in order to get good colors. This isn't true at all - you just need to try a different image processing style! The a6000 offers several “creative styles” to choose from that result in different contrast, coloration, and tone, so just try them all and see which one you like the best. You can then further adjust the contrast, saturation, and sharpness of each style in this menu. Personally, I always use the “autumn leaves” creative style with saturation set to -1. (This setting doesn't affect RAW images, just JPEGs.)
• 📷 Page 5 → High ISO NR: Low or Off
  The a6000's default noise reduction is too intense and noticeably reduces the sharpness of your images. Set this to low to get sharper images, or if you're a noise fiend like me, just turn it off entirely! (This setting doesn't affect RAW images, just JPEGs.)
• ⚙️ Page 1 → Auto Review: Off
  This is more of a personal preference, but I always turn off auto review so that the camera is ready to take another photo immediately, instead of having to stare at the photo I just took and wait for 2-5 seconds before I can take another one.
• ⚙️ Page 3 → Pre-AF: Off
  If this is enabled, the camera will constantly autofocus whenever it's turned on, even if the autofocus mode is set to single or DMF. This wastes battery and can make the camera slow to operate, as it might decide to autofocus right when you want to take a photo.
• ⚙️ Page 6 → Function Menu Set
  Pressing the “Fn” button when shooting will bring up a 6×2 grid of settings that can be quickly adjusted without having to hunt for them in the menu. This grid can be customized to include just about any of the camera's settings, so put your most commonly used ones here to help speed up operation.
• ⚙️ Page 6 → Custom Key Settings
  In addition to the customizable Function Menu, the a6000 also has two customizable buttons (C1 and C2) that can be mapped to almost any function on the camera for quick access. I have C1 set to Focus Mode and C2 set to Monitor Brightness.
• ⚙️ Page 6 → Dial/Wheel EV Comp: Dial or Wheel
  When shooting in an auto exposure mode (P, A, or S), both of the camera's dials are mapped to the same function by default, which is kind of a waste. Enabling this option will map one of the dials to exposure compensation instead (allowing it to be adjusted quickly), while the the other dial will still be mapped to aperture, shutter speed, or program shift (depending on the current auto exposure mode).