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Sony a6000 topic
  • 318 Replies sorted by
  • @trafficarte,

    I am glad that some of my footage have proven useful to you,thanks. Like you said It only $648( body only), but I like it more than the D7100 I have. The only minus is that it can, in certain situations, show more moire than my D7100.

    @apefos,

    I have spent many days outside in direct sunlight from 12:00 noon until the sun went down with no heating issues at all. The A6000 has no holes anywhere that I can see for heat dissemination.

  • @apefos,

    I just looked again and I do see 3 very small holes underneath the camera next to tripod mount screw-in.

  • @bleach551

    Thanks for the fast feedback. Probably these 3 holes helps the air flow. In the second photo which is in the first page of this topic, the lcd is out, so it is possible to see a black back with white letters under the lcd. Maybe this is an adesive, like the 5N, and maybe there are holes under it, but I think you will not remove it to keep your warranty, and as you said you used the camera under sunlight with no overheating problems so it seems this problem is solved by Sony.

  • @apefos,

    The black back with white letters is actually solid. The white writing is "imprinted" on this solid black back, so not an adhesive label with writing on it.

    Maybe they are hidden somewhere else on the camera that's not immediately noticeable to the naked eye.

  • image

    The a6000's image quality is very good, both in JPEG and Raw. The improved sharpening in the latest generation of Sony camera brings a significant improvement to the JPEG quality.

    http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sony-alpha-a6000

    v8.jpg
    800 x 566 - 62K
  • For the curious. This guy has not done extensive testing, but says that shadows look better when using an external recorder.

    You can see a very brief comparison at about 6:00 His opinion on other aspects of the HDMI out recordings at about 10:00. He is not too into it. I'd love to get some original footage for me to colour correct and play around though.

  • @Arum,

    Here are a couple of files that are both .MTS and .MOV directly from My A6000 that you can try out. The info and link from the previous post a page or so back is included below.

    The files will include all 13 picture profiles in the Sony A6000. I have them in both their original .MTS file and in clipwrapped .mov files.

    All of the picture profiles were set to:

    0 (contrast) 0 (saturation) -1(Sharpness).

    here is the WEtransfer link to all 26 files 607.8 mbs

    http://we.tl/pichAHE8XU

    Shot with Sony A6000 and Voigtlander 58mm 1.4 Nokton at F/4, ISO 100, Tiffen .3 72mm ND filter.

  • Just a test with neutral creative style at different settings.Basically I wanted to see if I could grade footage with different creative style adjustments to match each other. I also tested DRO at Level 5 and on OFF to see how it would impact the image. I can't say I see a real big difference if any at all.

    Download footage straight from camera re-wrapped in DNxHD MOV. files. http://we.tl/hpFXN2C0pO

  • Example of flat footage from A6000,neutral creative style -3 -3 -3.
    Download footage re-wrapped in DNxHD MOV. files. http://we.tl/MUqMeZDdQO

  • Take notice of sleeve and back side on the man's shirt. Excuse the shaky camera work. I know the pattern of the gentleman's shirt is a known cause of revealing ugly moire. I personally never saw this in the A6000 until I was going through random clips and discovered this. Yes it does exist, to what extreme? only more time with the camera will tell.

  • I mean the moire isn't much but I did notice and thought I would share.

  • @EYESOUL,

    The DRO settings are best for High contrast Sunny day scenes and night scenes. Negative 3(-3) for contrast will also hide most of the effect of DRO. Try "0" for contrast, this will show the DRO settings better. You won't notice a big difference in the DRO levels between DRO level "off" and "level" 1 , but you will notice a difference between DRO level "off" and "level" 2 to 3. The biggest difference will be between DRO level "off" and "level" 5.

    I have seen moire pop up from time to time in my A6000 footage as well. It happens a bit more than in my D7100, but usually I can see it in the viewfinder and mostly avoid it. It seems to show up more in my 50mm lens and less so in my 58mm lens, and hardly ever in my 85mm and 105mm lenses. It also seems to be related to distance from subject to camera.

    I try to get as close to the final look I want in-camera and only adjust the RGB values in post for a better white balance.

  • I like the look of the A6000. It's a different look from a Pany or Canon. I think the way it renders skin is excellent. I think it's the perfect camera for Medium close ups to extreme Close ups. I'd use a Different camera for wide shots IMO. I'm starting to look at my filming gear in those terms. As long as you can get close in terms of the colors, I think it works to use cameras for their given strengths. IMO A6000 takes that edge of faces and gives them a very pleasing look. I prefer Pany for wides, Landscape and architectural shots. Just my 2 cents.

  • @bleach551 actually I thought by using -3 contrast and adding level 5 DRO it would technically get me the flattest image overall. I knew by doing this it may effect the image negatively but I just wanted to see the results. Your right, it didn't prove to be noticeable in the situation I was shooting. I thought if anything with DRO at level 5 it would introduce a undesirable image effect. I didn't see that, the images looked the same with it on or off,at least in the situation I was shooting. I think I will keep it off just to be on the safe side.

    Also where do you like to keep your sharpness setting? I think I'm liking -1 or -2.

  • @EYESOUL,

    I have done a lot of experiment with the sharpness and have found that -2 seems to be the best "all-around" sharpness level. I have tried from -3 to +2. The most widely held advice in most DSLR and MFT conversations on most blogs is to use the lowest level of sharpness in-camera. That is good advice I think more so for MFT than DSLRs.

    From my experience from owning a canon 7D, Nikon D7000, Nikon D7100 and now the sony A6000 DSLRs, I've found increasing the in-camera sharpness by +1 or +2 was a good final sharpening level or a starting point to sharpen upon.

    For example, with the 7D and both the D7000 and D7100, a "0" sharpness image shown at %100 had a "haze" around it and lacked, IMHO, a good starting point to sharpen further upon. I used a +2 sharpness in all 3 the 7D, d7000 and D7100. In most viewers in all NLE's, the image is set by default to "fit in window". I like to pick a define area of the image and increase the image to %100 view.

    With the %100 view selected in my NLE's(Final Pro 7 and Avid Media Composer 5.5), I noticed that at -3 sharpness in the A6000 all images had soft undefined edges and a Slight "haze" to the image. At -2 the image at %100 view, the image had defined edges, without the appearance of in-camera sharpening and no haze around the image. At -1 at %100 view, I started to see the beginnings of the in-camera sharpening. The settings of "0" to +3 in-camera sharpening only exacerbated the sharpening artifacts in "-1" in-camera sharpening. I didn't observe these subtle differences between the sharpness levels until I change the viewer in my NLE's from "Fit to window" to a %100 view.

    I mentioned above that -2 was the best "all-around" sharpness level. What I meant by this was that if you want the best sharpness level for every occasion, IMHO, -2 is it. However, I have found that higher sharpening levels can look good in some scenes without well defined edges like landscapes.

    With DRO, I initially like yourself used -3 contrast to try to get the widest dynamic range possible. This was because, coming from the 7D, D7000 and D7100, dialing down the contrast to its lowest settings was the best way to get the widest dynamic range. However, this could come with the expense of some shadow detail noise. When I used -3 contrast along with DRO "level 5" in the A6000, the image took on a "milky" appearance so i no longer used both in conjunction with each other. I found leaving the contrast, at least in the "Portrait" creative picture style, at "0" and using the DRO function to increase the dynamic range gave me both the detail in the shadows that i wanted and allowed me to get or keep the contrast levels that i also liked.

    All of the above info is from my experience with the A6000, others will have varying experiences and will use different settings.

  • @Aria,

    I think the GH's can render more detail over a greater image area than most DSLRs, hence the reason it's probably better for wide shots than your typical DSLR. I think this is due, in most part, to a higher bit rate and a deeper depth of field due to a smaller sensor.

  • @bleach551 you are doing great tests. I found similar settings with the old 5n. The DRO 5 with contrast 0 or +1 is better than contrast -3. sharpness -1 or -2 is also good. The polarizer or vari nd filter helps a lot to improve dynamic range because when rotating it the shadow/highlight balance becomes better. I did not find the neutral profile in the 5n but the standard is the best for me because it gives a more real world like image, the portrait turns things into a grey look not so pleasing, not good textures. standard, dro5, contrast +1 saturation-1 and sharpness -1 or -2 is the best settings I found in 5n. I just avoid Iso 3200 in the 5n, but the 1600 cleans ok with neatvideo. I avoid using dro in iso 1600 due to noise. dro5 works better up to iso 800 in the 5n. but the a6000 seems to be 2 fstops better in low light than 5n...

    The DRO in sony nex is amazing, it lift the shadows in 5 levels and are manual, not just auto like the idynamic in gh2. Also dro does not increase noise so much as idynamic does. I am still trying to find a way to lock the idynamic on in the GH2 to get same dynamic range I got in the 5n.

    The A6000 seems to be the best camera at this moment if 1080p is enough. good low light in 6400 iso, low price, great dynamic range, great colors and resolution, very low moire/aliasing, super 35 sensor for better wide angle and shallow dof, can use almost all lenses, can use focal reducer to get full frame look and 1 fstop light gain... the 1.6x crop factor is amazing, it uses the best part of the lens avoiding the corners of full frame lenses and the amount of shallow dof is beautiful, much better angle of view than GH2. I hope the focal reducer will turn GH2 into super 35 with great quality, because I found the super35 sensor size in 5n is something like the sweet spot for digital cinema. I feel hungry for use a focal reducer in GH2, but I do not feel the same thing with the 5n, I just like the sony nex sensor size.

  • @bleach551 thanks a lot for the in depth info. I come from 7D,D5200,GH2 so I'm still trying to get a grip on settings to produce my desired image. So if I hear you correct instead of decreasing your contrast and applying DRO you prefer to leave it centered then add DRO if you choose to use it? I would think in low light situations using DRO with this particular codec would not be such a good idea,do to potential noise introduction in the shadows. Have you found with contrast centered using DRO in low light there are real benefits?

  • @apefos,

    Thanks, I appreciate that very much. I am still going through all of picture profiles looking at the pluses and minuses. However, like you mentioned previously, -1 and -2 for sharpness and 0 and +1 for contrast are the settings I go back and forth with. Sometimes I think I can see sharpening artifacts in the "-1" sharpness setting, sometimes I don't. With the Contrast, sometimes "+1" makes the blacks look a little too crushed, sometimes it doesn't.

    I appreciate the DRO iso info, I haven't had to use anything above iso 600 so far so knowing what you have found with the 5n is very helpful. All of the lenses i use for indoor/ low light are relatively fast. I have a Zeiss 50mm 1.4 ZF.2, Voightlander 58mm 1.4 SLII Nokton, Contax Zeiss 85mm 1.4 MMJ and a Nikon 105mm 1.8 Ais. I have other lenses, but I don't use them for indoor/ lowlight work.

    I also use, again as you mentioned, Neutral density filters. They range from a 52mm Tiffen set of from .3 to 2.1 a 72mm Tiffen set of from .3 to 1.2 and a 77mm Tiffen IR/ND set of from 1.5 to 2.1. I will try the "standand' picture profile since it seems we have come to some of the same conclusions you much earlier than I with the 5n.

    It's also good to know that you as an owner of the GH2 found that the Idynamic function on the gh2 was noiser than the DRO function on the A6000. That was something I was interested in knowing but I didn't have a GH2 to test that theory with. I have also just learned from you that the Idynamic function was not manual like sony's DRO function, that was something again i didn't know. Thanks for this info.

    like everyone else, the Panasonic GH series cameras were something I wanted because of their high bit rate and sharpness. I owned a GH1(7) for a short time and even with its 1.86X crop factor due to its M.A.R. sensor, high bit rate and sharpness, I still prefered the 1.6X APS-C FOV of the 7D I sold to get it.

    I also loved the depth of field, not too much(full frame) and not enough( 2X crop MFT). I believe the metabones speedbooster and other focal reducers will give the the GH2 either a true super 35mm film crop factor of 1.42/1.45 or even a less crop factor.

  • @EYESOUL,

    Yes, Like @APEFOS , I found leaving the contrast at "0" and adjusting the DRO as better at least in "day" image capture.

    When I used the D7000 and D7100, I always used the Neutral and "-3" contrast settings. This was great for a wider flatter look, however it always seemed to add more noise in the blacks on the D7000. It added noise along with FPN(Fixed Pattern Noise) on my D7100. I really didn't have a choice because the D7000 and D7100 had no dynamic range optimizer function to help them out. I thought I found the answer in being able to create a better dynamic range custom Picture Profile with the included program from Nikon, but I ended up making things worse.

    I did tests at night with the DRO function off with only the contrast at "-3" to give me a wider dynamic range. The -3 contrast image looked great in the area of Dynamic range , but it looked "too" flat when I got it into my NLE and it seem to expose more noise than I had seen with "0" contrast. When I adjusted the the contrast in post, because I thought it looked too flat, I ended up loosing the shadow info I tried to preserve.

    With a "0" contrast in the A6000 I solved two problems. First, with the "0" contrast I got the black levels I wanted in-camera without the need to crush the blacks in post. Second, because of the black levels that I already captured in-camera I could hide the noise more. Also, with the different DRO level settings, I got the wider dynamic range I was looking for without having to adjust the "master" curve in my NLE color corrector.

    I put two clips into Final Cut Pro 7. The first had settings of -3 contrast, -1 saturation(don't want to loose too much color info) and -2 sharpness, DRO (off). The other clip had settings of 0-contrast, 0-saturation and -2 sharpness, DRO 5. I put the first clip in the "Viewer" window and the other DRO enabled clip in the "Canvas" window.

    I set both windows to show the images first at %100 and next at %200. I moved the clips around to display the same shadow area. I looked at the shadows area in both clips at both %100 and %200 and I couldn't see any difference in the clip with settings of 0-contrast, 0-saturation and -2 sharpness, DRO 5 and the clip with settings of -3 contrast, -1 saturation, -2 sharpness and DRO (off) in the area of noise. So if I can get the in-camera contrast I want with the dynamic range I want with little to no increase in noise, why not do it.

    Again, my results me differ from others so you might want to experiment with different Contrast settings in conjunction with DRO level settings to find out what works best for you.

  • @bleach551 understood, again thanks for the insight.

  • @EYESOUL,

    No problem man.

  • Maybe the Sony users already know this, but I will share because it can be useful information:

    In the 5n videos I found that the video signal goes up to 110 IRE in the waveform monitor. The TV and Monitor screens just show video up to 100 IRE. If you use a filter/effect in timeline to low down the 110 IRE from the Sony cameras to 100 IRE, there will be lots of image details and textures hidden in the cliped whites. It looks like 1 fstop gain in the dynamic range.

    I think this is called Sony "super white"

  • @Apefos,

    I am still new to Sony products and knowing that I can potentially recover info. out of clipped whites from the A6000 is very useful info. Thanks