utsira

Thanks for posting this comparison. I imagine you'd see quite a bit more difference in a wide-angle deep focus landscape though, especially if you're using one of the A7S 1-to-1 readout modes. Although the XAVCS has improved the A6000's image no end -- there's now a lot more detail, and the detail looks nicer, doesn't have aliasing -- I am seeing some moire here and there (just with the usual suspects, wideangle brickwork at a distance etc. To be honest there aren't many cams I'd point at bricks without worrying). I've never shot with an A7S, but the 1-to-1 readout modes in particular (ie either super35 or downscaled 4k) presumably show less moire. I need to shoot more with the A6000 XAVCS tho. I'm just waiting for a windy day, I'll point it a forest, see what XAVCS is really made of!

​OK, so "crippling" is a ridiculously overblown way of saying "mildly inconveniencing videographers" ;-) I agree that with the A7S and A7RII Sony are on fire at their top end. Lower down the range however, and there's all kinds of segmentation shenanigans going on. Something Andrew said in one of his earlier posts: makers should differentiate between the cameras in their range on the basis of hardware, not arbitrary omission of software features. The firmware should be like an OS, in that the feature set is reasonably predictable across the range. e.g. most of the Sony cams have a nice function menu (fn), you know, the sort of quick menu where you program in 10 or 12 of your most used functions. The camera which most needs this, arguably, is the A5100, as it has few physical buttons. If they had implemented it with the A5100's touch screen, that would have been awesome. But the fn menu is not there on that cam. Or it wasn't last time I checked. A7000 is rumoured to be delayed because of overheating issues. That suggests to me that they're trying to squeeze 4K, IBIS, BSI or whatever it is that they have in store for us into an NEX-style form-factor, rather than the larger A7-style body. I bet that means no mic input or headphone jack, and, yes, overheating. I would love to be proven wrong of course.

I hope so, but ​I'm sure they'll find a way to cripple it. (oh well, if Sony mess it up Samsung will slay them!)

You should read the comments for that article, eg: Certainly in FCPX no data is being thrown away, and it's just a case of bringing the highlights down about 8 percent. If you look at the scopes in the shot above, there's no clipping there, the detail in the 100-110% range is fully recoverable.

Based on just a few hours of shooting XAVC-S on the A6000, the new codec does improve the levels of detail in the image a lot. I'm on the road at the moment and I don't have access to a 1080p monitor right now, so I don't want to draw any conclusions just yet. I am seeing a touch of moire here and there, in detailed brick-work etc, no worse than any down-sampling cam (but I need to look at it in 1080p). It looks like it's only in the luma channel, so at least it's not colourful rainbows. Sony's AVCHD lagged quite far behind Panasonic and Nikon's 1080p image (I have a G6 and I used to have a D5200). XAVC-S seems to close the gap, but I need to shoot more before coming to conclusions.

Based on very early tests, yes, there appears to be a lot of usable detail above 100%. One annoying thing about this is it does make the zebras less useful if you're using them for expose-to-the-right shooting (ie set them to 100+ and expose so that zebras only show in the centre of bright highlights with no detail). I have them set to the highest setting (100+). IIRC all of the sky was zebra-ing in the below shot, and there's clearly usable detail there (so if you normally shoot with zebras on 80%, you should probably set them to 100+ to get an 80% effect). They should give us as a "120+" zebra setting (on the other hand I suppose it's nice to have some lee-way if you think you have accidentally over-exposed).

Do you mean whether it records into the "super whites"?

I've never noticed overheating on the A6000, whereas it was definitely an issue on the NEX 5N. I've never bothered doing a stress test tho (leaving it running continuously in the desert or whatever). The SDXC card I ordered hasn't arrived yet so I haven't been able to use XAVC-S yet.

A meaningful firmware update from Sony, I never thought I'd see the day. Updating my A6000 now. I honestly thought they'd release an A6100 and leave the people that bought a camera 8 whole months ago out to dry, like they usually do. My theory is the A7000 is quite seriously delayed and they're plugging a gap in their ASP-C lineup.

But in terms of large-format projection (slightly off the topic of acquisition, though they are connected), what proportion of theatres projected The Master in 70mm (Or rather, what proportion of theatres in the West have any kind of film projection at all now)? I read that Tarantino is backing a project to get 70mm projection into selected theatres in time for the Hateful Eight, but I reckon it's still going to be hard, particularly outside large metropolitan areas, to find a 70mm screening.

@cpc @maxotics thank you both for those very interesting answers (and the article link). Speaking as someone who's slightly disappointed that the current technological thrust in image acquisition is towards ever greater resolution, but not greater colour depth, I'm very interested in this question of the extent to which downsampling 8-bit 4k yields the extra colour information I'd like to see in my footage. I think for the money, the BMPCC is still impossible to beat for colour.

​What I would like to know is whether there is agreement on how much colour depth is gained when downsampling 8-bit 4K to 1080p. Is it comparable to, say, the 10-bit 422 that the BMPCC outputs?

1-inch sensor is 2.7 crop (assuming the 4k on the rx10ii doesn't crop in any further), Lx100 has a 2.4 crop in 4k mode, so there's not that much difference in size.

​I agree, I was just expressing the point in the most extreme way possible for, um, comedy effect. I think they could do a killer 4k APSC cam tomorrow, but they'll sit on it for a few months so that they don't cannibalize A7RII sales. I think we'll see the A7SII before we get the 4K APSC cam.

[trolling] yes, I wish Sony would drop all this full-frame nonsense and give us the killer APSC cam we know they're sitting on [\trolling]

Shame the A7000 is AWOL....

A7RII http://***URL removed***/articles/8917769536/sony-alpha-a7r-ii-has-42-4mp-on-full-frame-bsi-cmos-sensor RX100 IV http://***URL removed***/articles/7826270294/sony-cyber-shot-dsc-rx100-iv-shoots-4k-uses-a-stacked-sensor RX10 II http://***URL removed***/articles/0995267996/sony-announces-rx10-ii

I have the Kipon Nikon F to E mount adaptor (the dumb adaptor). You can wiggle the lens a very, very tiny amount when it's on the adaptor. Ai-S lenses go ever so slightly past infinity focus on it. But it does the job.

Where's Werner?

IMO the main issue with the G6 is noise. If the G7 does in fact have the GX7 sensor (but enabled for 4K), there should be a big improvement in that area. Also the G7 has a proper two-dial setup (rather than rear dial + zoom rocker as on the G6)

Driftwood footage looks good. Hoping the camera lands in more videographers hands soon. Interesting to see the experiments with different aspect ratios and shutter speeds. I'm all for a bit of vertical cinema.

what? You mean an entire century, no? From the 1890s to the early 2000s.

I was thinking that the textured finish (of the top plate) looked more like the A7mkII. I'm very excited about this. The G6 has a fantastic 1080p image, only let down by noise. It has lost the zoom rocker that the G6 had on the top plate (which also doubled as a second "dial"). Clearly at the back right of the top panel there's a bigger, proper dial (with a button in the middle?) But I wonder whether that ridged ring around the shutter button at the front is a second dial? I think I'd prefer 2 dials to dial + rocker. No view of the side ports yet. The G6 had its mic input on the front of the camera, which has clearly gone from the G7. Hopefully the input has just moved round to the side, rather than gone altogether.

The stabilisation is very impressive too, if that's 150mm handheld. The occasional slightly robotic-looking motion that almost all stabilisation gives at some point, but it looks at least as good as most IBIS I've seen.

A6000 price should fall further when A6100 or whatever (I'm still hoping it will be an a7000....) is announced, possibly next month. an alternative could be a G6 or GX7 with a cheap focal reducer, would probably come in under $500. Nicer video IMO, less nice stills. I have an A6000 and a G6 with the AI-M43 Zhongyi focal reducer. The reducer is ok. If I was buying another reducer I'd probably go for a metabones EF with electronic contacts though.