Sony a6300 4k

[Michael Ma]

It's interesting to see the progression of this thread.  The camera hit the ground running, but in a matter of a week, it has lost all steam due to overheating and rolling shutter issues.  I think if Sony wasn't so ambitious with trying to go from 6K to 4K, maybe we wouldn't have these issues and it would have been the camera that everyone that everyone was hoping for.

[dahlfors]

I wouldn't care at all about rolling shutter in 4k, if the 1080p mode didn't seem to be so soft in the tests that are circulating online. Also, according to Brandon Li it seems like the camera has moire/aliasing in 1080p:

"A6300 has really bad rolling shutter and worse lowlight than a7rii and a7sii. A6300 autofocus is better; 1080p has moire and aliasing but good rolling shutter."

Also, on the softness:

"If you're shooting shallow DOF on a gimbal (as I intend to) and outputting to 1080p, then recording in 1080p works because it looks sharp as long as you don't focus to infinity."

— found in comments at https://vimeo.com/158972895.

Still interested in seeing what Andrew finds. Maybe the 1080p isn't that soft compared to other 1080p cameras?

[Michael Ma]

5 hours ago, dahlfors said:

I wouldn't care at all about rolling shutter in 4k, if the 1080p mode didn't seem to be so soft in the tests that are circulating online. Also, according to Brandon Li it seems like the camera has moire/aliasing in 1080p:

"A6300 has really bad rolling shutter and worse lowlight than a7rii and a7sii. A6300 autofocus is better; 1080p has moire and aliasing but good rolling shutter."

That just about closes the door for me on this camera until Sony can find a way to address these issues with a firmware update.  I'm fine with shooting 1080p if it's a little soft.  But moire issues on top of that, I think it's clear I'll be taking a big hit 1080p that I could get with any other camera.  

Also, the skin tones are concerning me.  I know this is not shot with S-Log and yes it could be better with S-Log, but I'm noticing a pattern of blown out (fully yellow) skin tones specifically with samples for this camera.  And they are unrecoverable when this happens, only can be covered up by shifting all yellows.

[The Chris]

Just cancelled my order. RS is already bad with my A7s and A7rII. I think I'm going to just sell the A7s and get theA7sII instead. Too bad because the face tracking samples line the Brandon Li video are flat out awesome. 

It could have been a contender.....

[TheRenaissanceMan]

3 hours ago, Michael Ma said:

That just about closes the door for me on this camera until Sony can find a way to address these issues with a firmware update.  I'm fine with shooting 1080p if it's a little soft.  But moire issues on top of that, I think it's clear I'll be taking a big hit 1080p that I could get with any other camera.  

Also, the skin tones are concerning me.  I know this is not shot with S-Log and yes it could be better with S-Log, but I'm noticing a pattern of blown out (fully yellow) skin tones specifically with samples for this camera.  And they are unrecoverable when this happens, only can be covered up by shifting all yellows.

Right? Those yellow patches are baaaaad, man. It's worse than the Panasonic salmon skin. 

[Tony Anastasi]

someone in Dubai is saying since he is using PAL, and he and three other friends have not gotten overheating using PAL mode.. can someone test this out and run it in PAL mode 4k please?! 

[DayRaven]

1 hour ago, Tony Anastasi said:

someone in Dubai is saying since he is using PAL, and he and three other friends have not gotten overheating using PAL mode.. can someone test this out and run it in PAL mode 4k please?! 

Mines supposed to be arriving today, so as soon as I'm able, and if no-one else gets round to it first, I will

[hmcindie]

9 hours ago, Michael Ma said:

That just about closes the door for me on this camera until Sony can find a way to address these issues with a firmware update.  I'm fine with shooting 1080p if it's a little soft.  But moire issues on top of that, I think it's clear I'll be taking a big hit 1080p that I could get with any other camera.  

 

 

Remember that when using 1080p60 it's generating more moire than 1080p24. These cameras will start lineskipping when doing 1080p60 so it's not real 1080p anyway.

[aslanua]

I have done extensive tests today in pal mode shot 4k  and 1080 p 25p 50 p and 100fps.

The good, It's a great picture, to my taste, i have found pp6 to be the ideal profile, I tried pp4 and it just does not hold enough highlight detail,

see the 1080p examples of pp4 pp6 and pp7 slog, I also noticed when I panned to screen and back the auto white balanced changed color temp significantly. pp4 could not get close to the true blue of the mac screen

I am now using set color temps, 5600 for sunny day seems fine, slight magenta cast, but am able to get rid of just with fast color premier cc. even was apparent in black vehicle but could be removed

slog two is great but I want a fast workflow a lot of the time and pp6 delivers with great shadow detail, not much noise, very important to protect highlights in pp6 I find don't let highlight go beyond +7, this will still give good detail in darkest shadows on a sunny day in summer in Australia. see examples.

p44k1a.jpg is exposed at 0.0, slih=ght magenta easy to rectify.

pp64k2a.jpg quite an exposure difference, highlighted grass was +o.3

pp64k3a.jpg highlights were +1.0 to +1.7

pp64k4a.jpg here highlights were exposed at 0.0, notice still good shadow detail.

I can't stress how important it is to protect highlights outside of slog and i think for me pp6 is enough DR if exposed correctly, with the ease of grading, nothing done two these images except slight sat increase.

 

Now the bad the 4k shooting when on my driveway in full sun filming for approx 5 mins in aust summer approx 30 degrees crashed, nice warning and then crashed.

I then set the camera up in full sun and shot for 9 minutes before it crashed filming in 1080p 50p,,this is all in Pal.

Man this sort of feels like a deal breaker, I can handle the rolling shutter, I don't see an issue with softness of 1080p, but overheating that quickly?

Anyway I rigged a french flag (you can see it in the corner of 4kpp6a.jpg) and shot in 4k in sun with camera shaded for the full 29 mins

 

I then shot with french flag in 1080p 50p for the full 29 mins, so direct sun appears to be the killer.

 

Anyway, will share more as it comes to hand, but I think it is almost a recall scenario because of over heating, but hey if you live in iceland you'll be cool.

 

[Geoff CB]

1 hour ago, aslanua said:

"Now the bad the 4k shooting when on my driveway in full sun filming for approx 5 mins in aust summer approx 30 degrees crashed, nice warning and then crashed."

 

Some great samples here and the advice is good. But the rolling shutter and this heat issue make the camera a complete no-go for me. :/

[DayRaven]

2 hours ago, DayRaven said:

Mines supposed to be arriving today, so as soon as I'm able, and if no-one else gets round to it first, I will

Just had an email from Park Cameras asking me to confirm my address and previous address before dispatch as I am a new customer... My pre-order has been with them since the second, you informed me it had been dispatched yesterday with next day delivery, why haven't you confirmed this with me already and why did you tell me it had been dispatched, causing me to take the day off.

TLTR, It doesn't look like I can help out today

[Pyriphlegethon]

The main reason I'm using this camera is for the video AF ability. When I'm on my gimbal with the Atomos Assassin plugged in for judging focus more critically I can't get face detection! The autofocus feature I most need is unavailable with an external monitor. Can anyone else confirm this–maybe I'm missing something? I wonder if it's Sony's brute force attempt to address the skin smoothing issue.

[NorBro]

Hey guys...I just wanted to mention that the video below that was discussed in the last few pages is mine, and that the skin tones could look really good from this camera, but the combination of makeup, a mixture of lighting and the wrong color temperature produces some unpleasing results for sure. This was more of a project to really work and test the hardware, and to be honest, I messed up a lot.  It was just too much operating the camera, mixing audio from my belt, moving around and adjusting lights, dumping footage, and directing talent in a limited window of time.

The quality this unit produces for $1K is astonishing. I like some of the skin tones in that footage - which I will update with more later/tomorrow - but it's easy to throw them off with the slightest production error.

 

[Michael Ma]

Sony should start making their cameras with optional heatsink+quiet fan attachments accessories.  Seriously, we would rather have that than an unpredictable camera.  And maybe the processing unit can be clocked faster for less rolling shutter.

[DayRaven]

11 hours ago, Michael Ma said:

Sony should start making their cameras with optional heatsink+quiet fan attachments accessories.  Seriously, we would rather have that than an unpredictable camera.  And maybe the processing unit can be clocked faster for less rolling shutter.

I think with the likes of the cinema box that rich made for the nex-5 a few years ago, this camera won't overheat for sure, direct sun seems to be it's issue, so a shade and an icepack would be the budget workthrough - not excusing Sony at all here - but rolling shutter is just going to be a part of this camera, it seems, no-one has hacked a Sony yet.

[vaga]

You would have to somehow overclock the sensor itself and/or cache; the processor would not directly contribute to rolling shutter.

[EyeSoul]

Wow how Sony managed to make the 1080p worse on this camera than the a6000 is beyond me. I've been doing a lot of test and I don't know if it's the new sensor or what but the 1080p image is marginally less quality. It's hard to explain but comparing some face shots it seems the a6300 has some weird noise reduction/softness going on,and no it's not the skin softening bug.The texture of the image is more bland,it reminds me of a 1-inch sensor look but not as sharp.I'm quite aware of the difference in clarity because I have been shooting 1080p on the a6000/a5100 for a while now. 

Ok at first I thought maybe it was because I was exploring the new Picture Profile settings and detail may be applied different in that equation,so I switched to my favorite Creative Style and sure enough no change in image rendition smh.I really like the idea of this camera but it seems as more reports come in the execution is seeming rather poor.Dam!! do they seriously test these cameras before they release them.

PS.But the 4k image is excellent! I'm almost tired of hearing that statement with all the other issues going on lol.

[vaga]

Best option is to downsample the 4k to 1080 then? How's the slowmo tho? Does it suffer from the same problems as the normal rate 1080p?

[Pyriphlegethon]

23 hours ago, Pyriphlegethon said:

The main reason I'm using this camera is for the video AF ability. When I'm on my gimbal with the Atomos Assassin plugged in for judging focus more critically I can't get face detection! The autofocus feature I most need is unavailable with an external monitor. Can anyone else confirm this–maybe I'm missing something? I wonder if it's Sony's brute force attempt to address the skin smoothing issue.

I got this figured out. Maybe everyone knows this but just in case: If you change the "4K Output Sel." to HDMI only then face detection and AF Lock options reappear with external monitor. No recording to card and monitor anymore though...

[Andrew Reid]

7 hours ago, EyeSoul said:

Wow how Sony managed to make the 1080p worse on this camera than the a6000 is beyond me. I've been doing a lot of test and I don't know if it's the new sensor or what but the 1080p image is marginally less quality. It's hard to explain but comparing some face shots it seems the a6300 has some weird noise reduction/softness going on,and no it's not the skin softening bug.The texture of the image is more bland,it reminds me of a 1-inch sensor look but not as sharp.I'm quite aware of the difference in clarity because I have been shooting 1080p on the a6000/a5100 for a while now. 

Ok at first I thought maybe it was because I was exploring the new Picture Profile settings and detail may be applied different in that equation,so I switched to my favorite Creative Style and sure enough no change in image rendition smh.I really like the idea of this camera but it seems as more reports come in the execution is seeming rather poor.Dam!! do they seriously test these cameras before they release them.

PS.But the 4k image is excellent! I'm almost tired of hearing that statement with all the other issues going on lol.

So just shoot 4K then! What's the problem?