If like me you love mirrorless cameras for their size and weight, but often find the grips too small and uncomfortable, then here's a solution for the Sony a6000. It is in fact a global solution, in that the leather case came from Prostrap in China and the JB Camera Design wooden base grip from the USA. Both were ordered via Amazon.
I bought both and was going to see which I liked. However both arrived this morning and since the case screw has a tripod socket and the wooden base grip has a long attaching screw, I realised that one could attach to the other. As you can see it does that very well and it's very solid and firmly attached to the camera. And it improves the 'gripablility' significantly. It does in fact make the a6000 feel like a different, and as far as I'm concerned, much nicer and more comfortable camera to hold.
It's particularly good with heavier lenses attached such as the Voigtlander 20mm + adapter above. It also gives my a-mount lenses + LA-EA4 e-mount adapter a much more solid feel. There's also a rather nice two-tone brown 'old-school' look to it as well which I like.
Now this was unexpected and I wasn't expecting it to happen, but I'm very pleasantly surprised that it works so well. I have to remove the wooded base to open the flap that lets me change the battery and SD card, but even so the improvement in handling makes that an inconvenience, nothing more. I've seen other people try to put together a grip for these Sony NEX / Alpha cameras and I particularly remember Mike Kobal coming up with a carved piece of wood which looked a bit strange, but this works well, feels good and looks good. Plus with the silver aperture ring on the adapter I've finally got a Sony mirrorless camera to look 'retro'.
Not such good news on my Voigtlander 90mm. It's a Canon EOS fit with no aperture ring and the Kipon adapter I bought for it doesn't work. It has an extra iris built into in to simulate the aperture opening, but it just vignettes at all 'apertures' apart from wide open so it's useless and on it's way back to Amazon.
If anyone knows whether the EOS > e-mount Metabones adapters with the electrical contacts will work with the Voigtander, which also has contacts then I'd be grateful if you could let me know. My local video store CVP are also checking this and according to the description I've seen the Metabones should let me change the aperture electronically via the camera, but I need to know before buying one, since they aren't cheap. If it doesn't I will have to sell the Voigtlander on since I bought it second-hand on ebay, which is a shame since it took me a long time to find one.
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