@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.

@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.

@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,

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.

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.

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

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.

@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.

@apefos,

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

Nex-5n is famous for it's overheating problem. Best solution is to remove the adesive to expose the holes in the back under the lcd. Even with this solution the overheating icon starts to blink in lcd after some time recording. Problem happens in 24p and is worst in 60p. Using a computer fan helps someway. I am curious to know about the A6000 overheating... How much time the A6000 can keep recording before the overheating icon starts to blink? Does the A6000 have the holes in the back under the adesive like the 5N? Does the ambient temperature influence the recording time in the A6000? See:

@oscillian,

Thanks very much! Every effort I tried to increase the overall image exposure of this video resulted in the zebras going off.

I also thought about the fact that I was using a Zeiss Contax lens, Zeiss known for having contrasty lenses, could have effected the dynamic range results. Maybe a lens that rendered a more "neutral" image would have done better.

Here is my second Dynamic range Test.

This is the 2nd Dynamic range test of the Sony A6000 using my Contax Zeiss 85mm 1.4 MMJ at F4

With this test I only considered proper exposure of the Highlights and let the Shadows fall where they may. I did not allow any highlights to exceed Zebras IR 85 in camera.

As you can see the overall image is underexposed, however my intent of this test was to solely control the highlights.

I used the "Portrait" picture profile with settings:

-3(Contrast) 0 (Saturation) -2(Sharpness)

ISO 160

"Dynamic Optimizer" Level 5.

Contax Zeiss 85mm 1.4 MMJ at F4

Tiffen 77mm 2.1 IR/ND filter

@Mimirsan,

In my Dynamic range test (The one After the vs GX7 test) I was trying to properly expose both the Highlights and shadows. This was kinda impossible with a $700 camera so, in one or two of the clips in the dynamic range test, you can clearly see the highlight blow out.

I will try to perform another Dynamic range test with complete control of the highlights and try to save as much shadow detail as I can with in-camera settings only.