tripsy76 Loc: Northshore, MA

You can get some great images with that camera. As a big Sony user, I would recommend upgrading your lenses. I would maybe check out the G-Master or Zeiss lenses, as they offer amazing quality. You do have other options with your specific camera (mainly APSC lenses) and don’t forget about the Tamron 28-75 that many people love.

I’ve seen amazing images come out of that camera when the right glass is in front!

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

The eagle is very nice. It will benefit from more refined processing, but the details seem sharp in this converted JPEG. The football player is a bit softer, but still very acceptable. Alas, the flower is just a miss where nothing seems in sharp focus.

What I can't see from the flower image is where the AF was set. The file says "Flexible Spot", but not where that 'spot' was set. I've had success with mirrorless cameras using the EVF and the 10x zoom in the view finder to assure the image details are as sharp as possible to my eyes via the view finder (or back display). I let the camera refine the focus via the 10x zoomed view, or I manually adjust the focus of the lens.

Another tip to consider is using the continuous drive focus mode for the auto focus, assuming this is available on this camera. I don't have your a6000 model and the PDF manual is pretty 'lite' on details, but it looks like pages 25 - 32 discusses how to configure aspects of the camera. If possible, find the setting where the camera will continuously focus rather than that obtaining a 1-shot focus and stopping. See what the "Pre AF" setting does for your results.

REF attaching RAW files, this site limits attachments to files at 20MB or smaller. This limit effective prevents the attachment of RAW files from most every camera type. You might take your eagle and open a new topic in the Post Processing section, asking for ideas on how to process this image. To share the RAW file, just set-up a dropbox and share the folder for people to access the RAW and give you back example edited results.

You might also find this post useful for working within Affinity to create smaller files for posting: Recommended resizing parameters for digital images

Lknack Loc: NOCO

Thanks y’all!
I think I’ll keep the gear I now have and learn to better use it. Also need to start working on PP.

Delderby Loc: Derby UK

Your football pic was taken at f6.3 - that is at maximum aperture. This means minimum DOF. for greater depth of field you need to close the lens down to maybe f16. This reduces the light getting in, so to keep your shutter speed at 1/350, up the ISO, which was 100, to perhaps 800 or 1600 to maintain correct exposure. Keep at it and good luck.

mas24 Loc: Southern CA

Yep. I know someone who owns a full frame Sony a7r2, and owns a G-Master lens. It is an extremely sharp lens. Not cheap. I don't know if I would want to invest money, in such a lens, with a a6000, crop sensor mirrorless camera.

WJB Loc: Salisbury, MD

Lovely flower (I would have"removed" the bud). Love the colors!!
I agree with above comment on football scene.
I'm not so sure about the eagle. Ought not the feathers be a bit sharper? Depth of field issue?
Bill

camerapapi Loc: Miami, Fl.

Sharpness depends more on the photographer than on the camera or lens. You could buy the best camera Sony makes along with those excellent Zeiss lenses and still be unhappy. The a6000 has proven to be an excellent tool and knowing the camera and what you can do with it as a photographer should be your goal.

Nothing wrong with those kit lenses from Sony. They are not professional lenses but if you do your part those lenses will do their part. I am not familiar with Sony but if the camera or lenses are not stabilized using a high ISO setting or a tripod could be necessary, especially for landscapes and macro photography. I have nothing against the images you have posted. Perhaps they could be improved with an editor but that is beyond what we are discussing here. In case you ask, the second shot with the kids playing football show a gentleman in the background out of focus. I hope you understand that is due to depth of field. You did not use a small enough aperture to make everything sharp. You simply selected to focus on the child in the foreground. That is called SELECTIVE FOCUS.

A word about sharpness. DO NOT OVERSHARPEN. Enlarge the image to 50% its size and then do the sharpening as the last step of your editing. Oversharpening surely will bring artifacts and other issues especially if your original is a JPEG.
Keep your camera and your lenses. Understand what they can do and if necessary refresh your photographic skills. You will see a dramatic change in your photography regardless of the lens you use.

https://www.flickr.com/groups/2888563@N24/pool/with/45462399754/

billnikon Loc: Pennsylvania/Ohio/Florida/Maui/Oregon/Vermont

Do YOU think your 16X20's are sharp? If you do, then your good. If you don't, then, that sigma 100-400 is NOT know for it's sharpness, neither is the tamron, especially for a 16X20 print with any cropping. I would invest in a good Sony g lens.

khorinek

I looked at the football photo, here's my suggestions,
1. you are using a 18-200 3.5-6.3 lens at aperture priority. My experience with a variable aperture lens, the aperture needs to change as you zoom, (you really don't have that much control over aperture) rather shoot shutter priority and let the aperture move.
2. You are using center weighted metering, which means the light meter is only looking at what is in the center of the image, making your photo appear darker than it should (red jersery). Use evaluative metering, this allows the light meter to evaluate the entire image giving you a brighter image, hopefully.
3. You were outdoors at 4pm, the aperture should have been somewhere around f/11 to f/16 this would have given you more DOF and everybody would have been in focus.
4. I sharpen every photo I take in post editing with batch processing and I shoot in Standard picture style with sharpen up 2 notches.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Sharpness isn't everything. Are your pictures so un-sharp that they are distracting? Do you have to zoom way in to see the lack of sharpness? There's more involved in sharpness than the lens. Focus and stability play major roles in making an image sharp.

Getting sharp images -
https://www.photographymad.com/pages/view/17-tips-for-taking-tack-sharp-photos
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/photography/tips-and-solutions/21-tips-getting-sharper-photos
https://digital-photography-school.com/how-to-take-sharp-digital-images/
https://photographylife.com/how-to-take-sharp-photos
http://digital-photography-school.com/5-steps-to-increase-the-sharpness-of-your-photographs/
https://digital-photography-school.com/tips-ensuring-get-sharp-photos-every-time/
https://www.wikihow.com/Focus-a-Camera
https://www.lightstalking.com/bite-size-tips-nail-focus-every-time/
http://www.lightstalking.com/these-steps-will-help-you-nail-focus-every-time/
http://www.thephoblographer.com/2015/03/28/how-to-get-the-best-autofocus-performance-from-your-camera/
http://www.reikan.co.uk/focalweb/index.php/why/about-focal/
https://photographylife.com/how-to-take-sharp-photos

Focusing problems -
https://backcountrygallery.com/solving-autofocus-problems-8-common-af-problems-and-solutions/
http://digital-photography-school.com/5-troubleshooting-steps-for-when-your-nikons-autofocus-stops-working/

dsmeltz Loc: Philadelphia

Since you shoot 40% landscape and posted no samples of landscape, I assume you are happy with your landscape shots. The Tamron 18-200 is said to be pretty darn good from 22mm to around 100mm. The Sigma 100-400 is a pretty good lens generally. Looking at the shots, I am not sure what your specific complaints are with them, but the eagle looks pretty solid for the size prints you have mentioned. The football shot appears to be a bit back focused on the foreground player. His face is soft but the shirt area around the number "1" as well as the hair on his right arm are in fairly good focus. If the third shot of the flower is with your macro lens (the lens does not show up for me in the details) and you are shooting at f5.6 ISO 1250 1/750 then it is within the good range for the A6000. For me this all adds up to technique and not equipment. On the manual focus macro lens, you might want to use a tripod. For the action shots you might want to consider your first shot focus priority (not sure what Sony calls that but even if you are using burst mode you want the first shot at least to wait for focus acquisition before firing) and play around with single point AF. (In addition to other suggestions already made above.)

bleirer

This article digs into some of the science behind sharpness, mostly plain English. https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/sharpness.htm

This one focuses on more practical aspects https://photographylife.com/how-to-take-sharp-photos

Low Budget Dave

The Sony A6000 is one of the most popular cameras of all time for a reason: It is a very good camera for the money. The eagle looked plenty sharp. It may have focused on the feathers instead of the eyes, but this is a common problem even with eye-AF cameras: They get distracted by high-contrast areas.

The football picture and the flower are both sharp enough for the internet, but if you are making large prints, you may find them to be (very slightly) mis-focused.

You can try putting it in DMF, and then fine-tuning the focus to nail the exact spot you want, but this is just one of many suggestions. For flower pictures, the DMF trick works pretty well, and you may find that you get used to it pretty quickly. For sports pictures, I do not find it to be useful.

anotherview Loc: California

Good question: "I’m also having trouble determining just how sharp is sharp enough."

You eye can provide a guide in this matter. If the sharpness calls attention to itself, then it becomes a distraction from the main subject. You decide.

On the other hand, the function of human perception reflects personal experience over time. For example, if the individual has seen 1000s of automobiles over a lifetime, then the individual will have built up an expectation of what an automobile should look like, including its qualities such as detail sharpness. So a photograph of an automobile, to seem real, should convey a degree of sharpness that meets this expectation. A difficulty may arise here because of the subjectivity of this measure.

One guide can give some direction by way of the natural subjectivity of human sight as processed under the influence of perceptual apprehension. Humans tend first to grasp the graphic makeup of a photograph -- or put another way, the masses in their relation in a photograph strike the visual sense as generalized elements each with their own sensory weight.

An individual can test this basic visual response by downsizing a given photograph until only its outstanding parts become visible -- no detail involved. A balance (or an off-balance) will appear to the eye naturally. Converting a photograph to black-and-white can bring out this visual measure more obviously.

The variation of this visual balance in conjunction with all other variable features of a given photograph present a diet to human perception out of which an image emerges to conscious awareness.

All this activity of what we call eyesight happens automatically. Humans do have some control over this sense of visible things by becoming aware of their parts and their mutual relations. Then in the case of the photographer, a manipulation on his part of the makeup of the photograph can produce an effective image.

The details in an image contribute their influence to the sense of it. The photographer must decide how much sharpness of detail best serves a given image.

gvarner Loc: Central Oregon Coast

My own eyes are not that sharp any more, but then I’m old. So my eyes contribute 100% to what I perceive as sharp. Then there’s the display media, whether it be a screen or a print. These also affect the perception of sharpness. Balance these factors with your pursuit of the holy grail of the most expensive high quality glass and camera combinations.