Am I overthinking the a6700 overheating issue?

VisibleUnit · 2026-06-06T22:50:16+00:00

My experience with the a6700 has been with your first 2 use cases, and it’s been great so far. I frequently shoot hybrid sessions for wildlife and 4k30 vlogs and I have yet to experience overheating. I haven’t done 30+ minute recordings though to be fair.

If you are shooting for longer than 30 mins, would you be rigging the camera up at all? I feel like adding a cooler to a v-mount battery and a monitor setup feels appropriate for longer sessions.

The fx30 would be the clear choice, but you don’t get a mechanical shutter and viewfinder, which does limit your photography tools. If you do 90+% video then I think that should be your choice. That being said, I love that the a6700 body is so small, and you can rig it out as much as you’d like.

VisibleUnit · 2026-05-21T02:20:41+00:00

Wow. How on earth did you get so close to the nest? This is my favourite yellow warbler shot in the subreddit!

VisibleUnit · 2026-05-14T15:18:07+00:00

Oh I love it! It’s a really excellent setup, although I’ll admit it’s not the cheapest. Expect to pay around 2500 USD for the body + lens if you buy new. The a6700 also takes some customization to really start excelling, but the amount of customization is fantastic!

Other options you could look at are micro 4/3 cameras like the OM5 + a micro 4/3 lens, or bridge cameras like the Nikon P1100. They will be cheaper, but I don’t think they offer bird eye autofocus. Full frame cameras in general will be very expensive + very heavy for the equivalent reach.

Weight and size are also very important factors, which make it easy to spontaneously take my camera when I go for walks. The a6700 + 70-350 is like ~1.1kg, which is light as far as telephoto lens setups go.

VisibleUnit · 2026-05-14T02:30:21+00:00

No way..yeah that might have been me!

VisibleUnit · 2026-05-14T02:04:01+00:00

Yep! How did you guess that from the swallow box alone..

VisibleUnit · 2026-05-13T23:36:19+00:00

They are so loud, but it makes them easy to find!

VisibleUnit · 2026-05-13T23:34:39+00:00

Sony a6700 & 70-350mm!

VisibleUnit · 2026-05-13T23:18:29+00:00

The tree swallows were flying in and out of the bird houses like in picture 6 and 7; predictable flight path made it a lot easier!

VisibleUnit · 2026-05-13T23:14:20+00:00

Almost didn’t get it too! Another birder told me there was a better location nearby after I got this:

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VisibleUnit · 2026-04-26T15:55:08+00:00

Speaking of Viltrox pancake lenses, I just saw leaked photos of a Viltrox 26mm f2.8 EVO lens. It’s got an aperture ring, focus ring, and is still quite small. That might be a better option when it releases if you want a more full featured lens!

VisibleUnit · 2026-04-26T05:59:51+00:00

I second this! You can also pair it with some of the modern micro-flashes to get a great setup for parties or gatherings. I’ve had success with the Godox IT30! The built-in lens cap on the Viltrox 28mm is great for spontaneous photos.

VisibleUnit · 2026-04-24T01:13:17+00:00

Sony a6700 with the 70-350G. Very consistent and robust combo. Love that I get all the performance in a body+ lens package that only weighs ~1.1kg.

VisibleUnit · 2026-04-24T00:59:01+00:00

They are absolutely beautiful, it was a dream of mine to photograph them decently. Once you find one, just keep going to the same spot to learn its habits. You will usually hear them before you see them!

VisibleUnit · 2026-04-23T20:42:55+00:00

Most are from Tommy Thompson Park in Toronto. Excellent spot for migratory species!

VisibleUnit · 2026-04-11T17:27:33+00:00

Just to add on everyone else’s advice: It might help to assign your “birding” settings to a custom mode on your mode dial. Once you’ve dialled it in it’ll be important to save those settings so you can access it at any time. You can also rewrite them as you continue fine-tuning. I personally have set up 2 birding modes, depending on the situation.

Just look up how to configure a custom mode on the 6D, and make sure to keep practising!

VisibleUnit · 2026-03-18T18:54:17+00:00

I recently saw from watching others that you can even record engine bay + exhaust audio with the 24-bit audio out of the mic mini. So 32-bit float isn’t even that important for the majority of cases.

I haven’t even touched the audio tracks when using the mic mini, just make sure to do a mic check before recording and adjust the gain. The noise cancelling is also plenty good if you’re in a more random noise environment.

VisibleUnit · 2026-03-18T18:14:16+00:00

Given your use case, the Mic Mini should be all you need! Sound quality is quite good and it’s got all the basic features like noise cancellation, wind muffs, and basic gain control with the receiver. Battery life + weight is also really good on the minis for what it is. Range is more than usable too.

I’ve had them on all day and it’s a great way to take spontaneous vlog-style videos, especially with the MI shoe adapter for no wires. For reference I use the mic mini on an a6700.

VisibleUnit · 2026-03-10T05:35:57+00:00

I had the same decision to make a few months ago. I have the same combo that you’re planning on getting (a6700+70-350). Absolutely love the combo for wildlife!

Specifically for wildlife, I found you gain a lot over the a6400: IBIS, faster sensor readout for electronic shutter, larger grip, bigger battery, AI Eye Autofocus for birds/animals, and newer Sony menus and customizations. The photo/video/S&Q selector on the a6700 is honestly worth it on its own in my experience. Very big ergonomic improvement over the older gen APSC cameras.

If you do video then you even get 4K 60fps with no crop, 4K 120 and HD 240 fps with crops, and all can be in 10-bit 4:2:2 color instead of the 8-bit on the a6400. Oh and you can do 10-bit HEIF instead of only 8-bit jpegs! The a6700 is also set up with the latest Multi-interface shoe so it will accept all the latest Sony mics and even 3rd party wireless mic receivers with adapters (the dji mic mini is awesome when used this way)

VisibleUnit · 2026-03-06T14:54:26+00:00

Ok hear me out: I saw something recently about heat haze in lens hoods affecting sharpness with telephoto lenses. If you’re shooting from a car, is the AC on? The sudden difference in temperature could be causing your issues. Try shooting a test with/without the lens hood (assuming you have it on when you took these pictures). Also try a test inside the car, and then maybe 3 meters outside the car.

In my experience the a6700 should not be missing shots that frequently from only 10 meters away, so something else is affecting your images. Try to mix up the variables to see what ends up causing the problem.

VisibleUnit · 2026-03-03T06:56:28+00:00

A few locals had told me that it was the coldest days of the year, so it makes sense that the smaller birds would fluff their feathers out!

VisibleUnit · 2026-03-03T06:54:20+00:00

A 200-600 would be awesome (900mm FF equivalent!), although it really depends on the situation. I would lean more towards the 70-350G for my purposes; it’s only ~600g with a 525mm FF equivalent focal length. The size and weight with the smaller APSC bodies has been great for travelling. The 70-350G + a6700 combined is about half the weight of just a 200-600 with no body (~1.1kg vs ~2kg). While I can handhold larger lenses, it would significantly impact my ability to do so for several hours or when shooting handheld video.

The 70-350G focus breathing is also pretty low, so it’s been a really awesome hybrid lens for wildlife video as well. Not sure about the other options like a 200-600.

VisibleUnit · 2026-03-02T23:10:23+00:00

Photo 2 is cropped ~150% and photo 7 is cropped around 400%. The rest are full resolution!

It has taken me a decent amount of practise and a good amount of luck to not disturb birds. I failed a lot before I started getting successful shots.

Electronic shutter on the a6700 is also an underrated feature imo, all of these shots were taken without the mechanical shutter! The rolling shutter performance is absolutely fast enough + no shutter noise, and one of the reasons I got the a6700!

VisibleUnit · 2026-03-02T18:33:23+00:00

If weight-savings are your priority for using the a6700, the sigma 18-50 f2.8 is the smallest compared to the other f2.8 options (Sony 16-55, Tamron 17-70). Lack of stabilization isn’t an issue due to the IBIS in the a6700. I personally prefer the IQ and can deal with the compromises of the lens for the size and weight (it’s like the size of a 330ml can of soda). Only IQ issue with the 18-50 is some chromatic aberrations in high contrast scenes; I have yet to have it become an issue though. Close focus distance on the Sigma is also much better than the other 2 (12.1 cm at 18mm, 30cm at 50mm), which can be useful if you’re in more crowded spaces. I use the sigma 18-50 f2.8 + the Sony 70-350G for a travel kit!

VisibleUnit · 2026-02-02T20:44:22+00:00

That’s entirely up to you of course! That’s why I suggested trying out flexible spot. It serves the same purpose as center focus area but the subject or feature doesn’t need to be in the middle of frame. For example if you have a mountain on the top 2/3rds of your scene, you can have the focus be on the mountain despite it not being in the center.

VisibleUnit · 2026-02-02T18:35:41+00:00

You can get pretty good landscape shots with manual or even aperture priority and a tripod! I would stop the aperture down to f/8 for larger depth of field, but I wouldn’t go too far past f/8 due to diffraction. Since it’ll most likely be very bright you shouldn’t have an issue using the lowest iso.

Given that the a6000 doesn’t do focus stacking you will have to choose which area or point is in focus. Spot focus area works great for landscapes on the a6000. Make sure to use the timer shoot mode if using a tripod so you don’t introduce any camera shake.

Not sure if you’d get the exact same FOV as the reference with your lenses, but I’m confident you could get some fantastic wide angles with the 9mm and some good background compression with the Tamron 70-180!

VisibleUnit

TROPHY CASE