The last time I bought camera was 1985. From an Australian duty free shop in Surfers Paradise I bought a newly released Minolta 7000 autofocussing SLR with a 35-70mm lens. Autofocus SLR – it was a brand new concept..  Such modern tech. I used it for about 12 years before my sister borrowed it, eventually taking it to a local op shop…… 🙁

Last week I made my second camera purchase. Here’s what I got and what I went through in working out what to buy.

The TL:Dr is I picked up a Sony a6400 camera body which came with a Sony 16-50 OSS lens for $1399 and also a Sony 70-350mm f/4.5-6.3 E Mount OSS camera Lens – JB Hi-Fi $1169

I know the Sony a6400 has been superseded since coming out in 2019, 6 years ago, and I was quite concerned about buying “old tech” after being recommended this setup. But my priorities were to take photos of our boys playing rugby league and to keep to a budget of under AUD $2500.

So here’s a bit of my purchasing journey.

Sony a6400 and 70-350mm lens recommended

I was recommended the setup Sony a6400 and Sony 70-350 lens after talking to a professional photographer about wanting to get some decent photos of my boys playing rugby league. After years of buying Apple Pro iPhones I wanted to spend some money on a good camera setup. Knowing my budget he got back to me with his recommended setup and I started looking for deals.

I started to address my first concern – that this camera was an old release model.  Despite committing to buying a new camera (I def didnt want second hand) my fear was that it would date really quickly and I’d not be able to achieve what I wanted because of age limitations of the technology. There was no way I wanted to buy a second hand camera – I just like to know the history of expensive technology that I buy.

YouTube Research

I watched a bunch of YouTube videos talking about the camera and will add my favourites to a list at the end of this post. Most were at least 5 years old and talked about the features and setting up the Sony a6400. These gave me a real education of the capabilities and features of the Sony a6400. I started to understand what it could do.

Reddit Research

I found a bunch of posts on Reddit where people had the same concern with buying old technology. The responses were really helpful. Again on YouTube people were doing recent comparisons with the newer version the Sony a6700. As I learned more and more and could weigh up the differences on offer I decided that for what I wanted to do for probably the next five years the Sony a6400 would suffice.

After locking in the camera body and lens I started looking around for where I could make the cheapest purchase. As you can imagine there was a lot of variety of pricing and options around.

Decision Made

I found my first good deal with Sony a6400 body and 70-350mm lens on sale with a price of $1249 for the body and $1169 for the lens (total of $2418) which fitted my budget perfectly.

But then I saw the 16-50 lens on sale half price at AUD$267 and decided I’d also pick that up because surely I’d want to take other photos not using the larger lens!

Camera and lens confirmed, budget limit confirmed and slightly raised, again I started worrying about buying a new – old camera.

I was just about commit to buying from one retailer when I thought I’d take a look at JB Hifi and see what they had on offer. This turned out to be a great decision.

JB Hifi had the Sony a6400 with a 16-50mm E3.5-5.6/PZ OSS lens as a kit for $1249 and would price match the 70-350mm lens. Id found what I wanted at a price I wanted and was happy to lock it in. But I still had a nagging feeling about buying a camera that was released in 2019 – until reminding myself it was what I needed and kept me within my budget.

Australian Tourist Refund Scheme

Bonus – I just happened to mention I was heading to NZ in a week and the guy at JB Hifi told me about Australia’s Tourist Refund Scheme. As long as I had everything on one invoice totalling more than AUD$300 I could claim back the 10% GST as a refund on the way out of Australia. This ended up saving me another AUD$237.

Total purchase for lenses and camera body

• Sony a6400 body with Sony 16-50mm F3.5-5.6 OSS II Power zoom lens $1249
• Sony 70-350mm f4.5-6.3 OSS lens $1169

Total Purchase price AUD$2418

Less TRS refund AUD$237.27

Total cost AUD$2180.73

So I’m really excited about where I ended up with camera body and two good lenses which for now will probably enable me to capture whatever I’m after – footy games and general family events.

I ended up (naturally) having to buy some accessories as well – read this other blog post to see what I bought and why.

Links to camera equipment bought.

Camera body and 6-50mm lens – Amazon link

Sony 70-350mm f4.5-6.3 OSS lens – Amazon link

Helpful YouTube videos