Adjusting (shortening) the Eyepiece Sensor for a Sony A6000

by trophygeek

9.1K46

Intro: Adjusting (shortening) the Eyepiece Sensor for a Sony A6000

The A6000 has an OLED eyepiece as many cameras do these days. These viewports have sensors to detect when your eye gets close so it can activate. When it works well, this is a great feature because it turns off power to the large, rear LCD. But when it's too sensitive, it can be maddening. (You can check out reviews on Amazon.)

It appears to be 4.5" from the eyepiece. This is just too close for me. You'll know if it's a problem for you.

The Sony A6000 is a truly awesome camera for the money and this small problem is easy to fix.

STEP 1: Fix It!

You just need a small piece of electrical tap, a razor to cut it and some tweezers. The photo showing the dismantlement is just to help you understand how it works. You will NOT need to take apart anything.

The way the eyepiece works is it has a small infrared LED (light source) in the lower half and a sensor to pick up reflected light in the upper half.

The width of electrical tape sliver is 130mm (very tiny).

The "cup" or "hood" for the eyepiece just pulls off.

You want to position it just below the midpoint of the shinny black part of the eyepiece. You are trying to cover part of the LED light source on the lower half without blocking the sensor on the upper half.

If you get it in the wrong position, the sensor won't trigger. It's easy to test and tweak until you get it just right.

STEP 2: The Result


As you can see from the video, the distance after the fix is a reasonable 1" - 2" from the eyepiece.

You can experiment with the width and placement of the electrical tape to fine tune the behavior.

The real fix

Sony should add a setting to adjust the brightness of the LED lightsource.

6 Comments

Shogen28 6 years ago

Unfortunately this isn't detailed enough for myself. I'm guessing others just have a lot more patience than I do. Can't find the right spot. It either disables the screen for me or doesn't change anything if I move the tape around.

Can you take a photo of your sensor with the tape on it?

cpischel 7 years ago

130mm is like 5 inches. You're comment above is wrong.

FiraB 7 years ago

I have read and tried all the instruction posted in the net regarding this problem, it all worked but i feel distracted seeing something sticking in my eyepiece, so I decided to try something else. Since the sensor only needed a sort of filter, I tried applying a thin coat of blue maker like the one you use in labeling boxes and it did the job. Now I can use my a37 and Nex7 in auto mode without seeing any tape or sticker in the eyepiece....

TomG90 8 years ago

I've been having the same issue and really wanted to fix. I found your article, but didn't have black electrical tape, so I used clear satin tape to cover the whole lower sensor, assuming the tape would reduce the amount of IR light.

It worked great. I wrote a quick blog article on it and linked to your article here as the original idea: http://blog.tom-goetz.org/2016/02/shortening-range-for-automatic.html

seamster 9 years ago

Nice fix for an annoying issue!