In this article, we will be taking a look at what we feel are the three best vlogging lenses for Sony a6000 cameras currently available on the market today. With the Sony a6000 being such a popular and versatile camera, there is no surprise that some people have chosen to use it as their vlogging camera of choice. Each month we see a number of people reaching out for advice on what lenses they should use with their a6000 to get the best out of it for their vlogs.
We have tried to choose lenses that span a range of budgets to ensure our readers will have an option open to them as well as lenses that have an existing excellent reputation within the photography community. Finally, all three of the lenses that we have chosen currently have people using them to vlog on their Sony a6000s and report good results.
On a side note, before we get into the article, if you do want to massively up your vlogging game, you can sign up for the free Skillshare trial and enroll in one of the best vlogging courses available to help improve your vlogging skillset without spending a cent.
Table of Contents
The Sony 20mm F2.8 Prime Fixed Lens
In our opinion, it is fairly priced for the functionality that it offers you while also being rather budget-friendly at the same time. This has helped the Sony 20mm become very popular with users of various mirrorless cameras, not only the a6000 while managing to grow its excellent reputation within the photography community that it enjoys today.
The lens has a 0.2m minimum focus length that is ideal for regular every day vlogging as it allows the lens to easily focus on you or anything that you are wanting to include in your vlog.
Additionally, the autofocus on the lens is extremely good allowing you to walk while vlogging and staying in focus without issue. This can also make the Sony 20mm ideal for run and gun vlogging.
For example, say you are a travel vlogger and you are walking down a street talking into your lens while vlogging. All of a sudden you see a new building and you want to flip your camera around to get a few seconds of footage of it with your a6000. The autofocus on this lens will quickly and easily focus in on the new building without much effort from you.
After that, say you spin the camera back on yourself to start talking into the lens again. The autofocus will kick in again and refocus the lens on you very quickly. All the while it will be making various micro-tweaks to the focus of the lens as you walk down the street with your background changing constantly and effortlessly keeping you in focus.
Although f2.8 is not a particularly fast aperture, it will have little to no effect on your Sony a6000s vlogging performance. This same aperture offers decent low light performance for the camera too allowing you to use the same lens on your a6000 throughout various lighting conditions for vlogging.
The image to the right shows the Sony 20mm F2.8 Prime Fixed Lens mounted on a Sony a6000 camera. As you can see, it fits the profile of the camera well with perfect balancing. It is around sixty percent the size of the standard kit lens of the A6000 giving you some idea of its size if you already have the kit lens at home.
One of the main things that is considered an issue with the Sony 20mm lens is the fact that it has no native optical stabilization on it. This should not matter for the vast majority of the vlogging niches out there making this negative a nul point.
Chances are that you will be using your a6000 mounted on either a tripod or a gimbal when vlogging anyway and these can help/take over image stabilization. If you are interested in using a gimbal with your Sony a6000 but don’t want to break the bank we would recommend that you check out our Feiyutech a1000 review as it is a budget-friendly gimbal with large amounts of functionality.
All in all, this is an excellent lens and we feel that is meets the sweet spot between price and the amount of functionality it offers you. When it comes to vlogging with a Sony a6000 we feel you will be hard pressed to find anything to beat this as a best of both worlds type lens.
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The Sigma 19mm F2.8 EX DN
When used on a Sony Alpha a6000 the Sigma 19mm offers a relatively flat and natural perspective that is perfect for many vlogging niches. For example, if you are doing something such as beauty tutorials then this lens is perfect for you.
The Sigma 19mm also comes with a standard f2.8 aperture that offers decent low light performance while but can be a little slow for photographs.
Although it is no surprise at this price point, the lens does not come with any image stabilization but as we mentioned earlier in the article, this should not be an issue for the vast majority of vlogging niches so can be ignored.
The manual focus ring on the lens is very smooth offering you a very responsive manual focus capability that is very easy to use. When vlogging, we would recommend that you do choose to use the manual focus ring to focus your image unless you are using an external recording device.
This is due to the autofocus clicking when it triggers and an on-camera microphone will be able to pick it up and add it to your videos audio track. Additionally, the autofocus of the Sigma 19mm is pretty slow but again, for this price point, it is to be expected. That said, we would not recommend this lens if you are in the travel vlogging niche as the slow autofocus can be a pain and we would recommend that you take the Sony 20mm (Click here to check for product prices and availability) covered above.
The Sigma 19mm is a relatively small lens but not small enough to be classed as a pancake lens. It can also be a little heavy due to it having a metal lens mount as shown in the image to the right.
That said, we do prefer metal lens mounts as they have solid threads and help to reduce the chances of you accidentally cross threading your lens and camera when mounting. This helps to increase the lifetimes of both your lens and a6000 without the need to have the lens mounts refit.
This lens from Sigma offers a solid entry-level or beginner lens for vlogging with your Sony a6000 without the need to break the bank. Some features that come as standard with the more expensive lenses are left off but the core functionality that the majority of our readers will need is there.
The Sigma 19mm lens also comes with a 46mm filter mount that can sometimes be a bit of a pain to find any filters you may wish to use. That said, Gobe have a 46mm range (Click here to check for product prices and availability) of lens filters available that will fit the lens while offering excellent functionality at budget-friendly prices. We would imagine that there is no need to use a lens filter for a large number of vlogging niches though.
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The Sony 35mm f/1.8 Prime Fixed Lens
In our opinion, it is one of, if not the best vlogging lens for the Sony a6000 but it does have the price tag to match. It comes with a 35mm focal range making it ideal for vlogging and any other portrait-based photography needs that you may have. It has an excellent build quality that is easy and solid to handle while also being pretty robust for such a small lens.
You can get an idea of how small this lens is from the image to the left. If you do any kind of travel vlogging where the size and weight of your lens may come into play for things such as your baggage allowance then this lens is perfect.
It also comes with a metal lens mount with solid threads that will minimize the chances of any accidental cross threading with your camera while also being very easy to mount and unmount as required.
The manual focus ring on the lens is also one of the best in the full Sony range. It is very smooth to use while being very responsive. It also has just enough resistance on it to make it easy to control your focusing on the fly without over or under-focusing by accident.
The Sony 35mm also comes with the optical steady shot technology to make the lens as quick and easy to use as possible. If you are vlogging while moving without a gimbal then this really does become noticeable and massively improves the quality of your video.
The lens also comes with both a lens hood and a lens cover included as standard. The lens cover, in particular, can be useful if you are travel vlogger as it offers additional protection to your lens while in storage and being moved around. All in all this is a solid lens that is an excellent choice for vlogging when using a Sony a6000 and will offer you some of the best quality footage available from the camera.
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