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Sony A6000 XAVC S Firmware V2.0


JurijTurnsek
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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.

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Welp after wanting something decent to take movies with for years this will probably be my first dip in the video water. This seems like by far the best choice around the £500 mark if you don't want to go micro four-thirds.

​After trying an NX500 the other day, I'm actually quite impressed with it for the price. The crop factor doesn't bother me--I rarely shoot wider than 40mm anyway. And the stills are gorgeous. 

The RAW stills compression is the thing that really irks me with Sony, not the least of which because they are the only manufacturer that does it. Add to that the poor native lens selection (for APS-C especially) and unpredictable product iterations and I just can't see myself investing in the system. 

Then again, being able to use my vintage stuff as S35 and FF with Speedbooster is insanely tempting for that price. Horses for courses.

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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.

​Please keep us updated :) 

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jakefarmer_om, did it force itself to turn off when that happened?

​It did not. I could see what I assumed was the overheating icon. I stopped recording for a few seconds and then turned back on. It continued to roll with that icon displayed for 5-7 more minutes before the shoot wrapped up.

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A little late, but here some first shots.

On both camera's I tried to match the settings, as a result the A7s used the APS-C mode, both cameras shared Creative Style Neutral with -3,0,-3. Forgive me the not proper alignment.

the first scene was focused on the text below in the lower left corner of the card (f8.0), the second scene was focused on the upper part of the strawberry (f2.8).

now, some time for guessing :) which shot comes from which camera (all ooc)?

If interested, i can provide the ooc files as well. will do some lowlight shooting later on. Anything you guys are interested in particular?

1

1.thumb.png.a5803e1f27e92b13985bf611db09

2

2.thumb.png.305651465ee3e8299e3b8a55d413

3

3.thumb.png.46890325fafc5ddd5fc36dc7e16d

4

4.thumb.png.444f71dcfd33192cc5336677c787

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1 and 4 a6000, 2 and 3 A7s

Ir would seal the deal for me personally if sony took this update to the orginal a7, i  feel like even though sony makes new generation of cameras very often they still need to keep updating their "old" cameras too with the new firmware based upgrades, like slog and xavcs.

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​After trying an NX500 the other day, I'm actually quite impressed with it for the price. The crop factor doesn't bother me--I rarely shoot wider than 40mm anyway. And the stills are gorgeous. 
The RAW stills compression is the thing that really irks me with Sony, not the least of which because they are the only manufacturer that does it. Add to that the poor native lens selection (for APS-C especially) and unpredictable product iterations and I just can't see myself investing in the system. 

Then again, being able to use my vintage stuff as S35 and FF with Speedbooster is insanely tempting for that price. Horses for courses.

​Whats wrong with the The RAW stills compression. I dont see anything wrong with it i like the smaller files. I even set all my Nikons to the smaller compressed RAW setting after doing tons of testing the difference is un detectible most everything have been shooting that way for over 7 years never seen a problem in any of the files have shot over 200.000 of them.

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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!

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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. 

​Maybe I misunderstand you, but i have set the A7s into APS-C mode.... which is super35?!

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​Maybe I misunderstand you, but i have set the A7s into APS-C mode.... which is super35?!

​Yes. I'm saying that the A7S in this mode should show less moire than the A6000. I'm saying that the differences between the cameras won't show so much in a close-up scene with subject separation, fairly shallow depth-of-field and so on, like the shots that you've provided. I'd be interested to compare the cameras shooting a deep focus scene with lots of detail, such as a landscape.

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​Whats wrong with the The RAW stills compression. I dont see anything wrong with it i like the smaller files. I even set all my Nikons to the smaller compressed RAW setting after doing tons of testing the difference is un detectible most everything have been shooting that way for over 7 years never seen a problem in any of the files have shot over 200.000 of them.

​Nikon's RAW compression isn't lossy in as Sony's, you are comparing apples to oranges.

With Nikon's 12-bit vs 14-bit formats you'll see a difference in certain kind of photos like the color nuances in landscape photography. Nikon's compression however is lossless compression, so you won't see a difference from uncompressed.

Sony on the other hand is using a lossy RAW compression method, so any comparison you've done on a Nikon only counts for Nikon, not Sony. The way Sony has implemented it, it will produce visible image artefacts in the wrong conditions. If Sony adds uncompressed/lossless compressed 12-bit/14-bit raw files it will get fixed - and it sounds like they've started to listen to the user feedback.

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​Whats wrong with the The RAW stills compression. I dont see anything wrong with it i like the smaller files. I even set all my Nikons to the smaller compressed RAW setting after doing tons of testing the difference is un detectible most everything have been shooting that way for over 7 years never seen a problem in any of the files have shot over 200.000 of them.

http://blog.mingthein.com/2015/01/19/review-sony-a7-mark-ii/

Second paragraph. 

If I want small file sizes for my photos, I'll shoot JPEG or buy a Nikon and use the 12-bit option. I won't buy a needlessly crippled Sony camera for stills.

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Nikon dose this as well i had my Nikon D750 set to 12bit raw compressed you have the choice of compressed raw 12 or 14 bit or non compressed.

For sports i shoot with cropped lens so i am at a DX 12bit compressed Raw for 9.8MP files and a buffer of 100 raws

Here is a min revire on it http://blog.kasson.com/?m=20140217

He says I think that the possibility of visible artifacts in a7 and a7R images due to Sony’s raw compression is remote, but not nonexistent. I don’t plan on worrying about it myself.

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