August 3, 2022
Sony A6000 firmware upgrade
I am doing this in August of 2022.
My camera shows that it is running firmware 3.10 (which came out around March 2016).
I have never upgraded my camera, so this is what it came with.
The latest firmware is 3.21, which came out some time in 2019.
Apparently Sony has not done anything for the A6000 in 3 years, which
is both good and bad I suppose.
There is a lot to be said for stability.
To check what firmware the camera is running, press the menu button,
go to the "toolbox" section, page 6 and you should see version as
the second entry. Note that it shows the version both for the camera
and for the lens currently mounted. The lens has firware also, and
when you do the update, whatever lens is mounted will get an update
also (if there is one). I am doing this with the 16-70 f/4 lens on
the camera. I see 3.10 for the Camera and version 01 for the lens.
The update process requires a Windows machine (my Windows 10 machine
will work) as well as a micro USB cable and a freshly charged battery.
The process
- Boot up my windows 10 machine.
- Launch chrome
- search on "sony a6000 firmware update" to get the above page
- a blue button at the top left of the page downloads the stuff
- unsure the camera has a fresh battery
- remove memory card from camera
- launch the downloaded EXE file
- turn on the camera
- press menu button, go to toolbox page 4
- ensure USB connection is set to "mass storage"
- connect micro usb cable from PC to camera
- screen displays "USB mode", then some crap about play memories
- click next in the updater (several times), follow updater instructions
- click the camera central button to accept the OK on the camera screen
- this resets the camera
- click next, then run on the updater
- -- Away it goes! --
- You get a progress bar on the updater, it takes about 15 minutes.
- The camera resets itself.
- Wait until the camera screen goes back to showing crap about play memories.
- Disconnect the camera. You are done.
- My battery shows 94 percent charged when the update finishes.
I turn the camera on and off and go to the menu entry I used to check the
version before I started. It now correctly shows version 3.21.
The 16-70 f/4 lens is still at version 01, so nothing needed to be updated.
Feedback? Questions?
Drop me a line!
Tom's Digital Photography Info / [email protected]