Sony Cinema Line & FX6

I can’t believe they released this with the same old nightmare menu system. Equivalent to releasing something with an MS-DOS/Command Line interface. Has Mr Sony no shame?
 
Deeply nested unreadable menus are an essential pro feature. The F35 didn’t become a cult camera by being slick and easy!

Besides, they call it a “cinema” camera. The talent can smoke a cigarette while you figure it out, right?
 
Samuel Dilworth said:
Deeply nested unreadable menus are an essential pro feature. The F35 didn’t become a cult camera by being slick and easy!

Besides, they call it a “cinema” camera. The talent can smoke a cigarette while you figure it out, right?
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I'd rather deep and confusing menus that over simplified ergonomics of actual features used during a high pressure shoot.


Cameras are made to be cheap to manufacture and look good in a picture so people click the buy button. But ergonomics is something of a lost art since the advent of HD video.


As good an improvement the Fx6 seems to be, the controls still look like buttons soldered to a flat circuit board to save on manufacturing costs.
 
Not sure how close the FX9 menu system is to the FX6 but the FX9 menus were touted to me as a "large inprovement" over the previous gen menus.
I still found them to be a...convoluted mess, just a slightly better organized convoluted mess. I'm sure it's because I own Canon but their menus make
so much more sense to me than the Sony layout. The Canon menus are far from perfect but I can find things on any Canon C Series menu easily whereas
with Sonys, I simply cannot locate even basic things like card formatting, depending on the model.

Even the Fuji X-T3 menus are kind of mess but I can navigate them easily and I have become very efficient
with them. It's really just five pages of video menus in a row and a wrench menu for formatting and camera settings, pretty simple even though there are a lot of settings
for a mirrorless.
 
puredrifting said:
Not sure how close the FX9 menu system is to the FX6 but the FX9 menus were touted to me as a "large inprovement" over the previous gen menus.
I still found them to be a...convoluted mess, just a slightly better organized convoluted mess. I'm sure it's because I own Canon but their menus make
so much more sense to me than the Sony layout. The Canon menus are far from perfect but I can find things on any Canon C Series menu easily whereas
with Sonys, I simply cannot locate even basic things like card formatting, depending on the model.

Even the Fuji X-T3 menus are kind of mess but I can navigate them easily and I have become very efficient
with them. It's really just five pages of video menus in a row and a wrench menu for formatting and camera settings, pretty simple even though there are a lot of settings
for a mirrorless.
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Do you remember the old press and hold deep "hidden" menus on B4 2/3" ENG cameras? good times.
 
I know Blackmagic Design cameras have their own issues but I do think they've got some of the most straightforward menus I've ever seen.

And while Sony menus leave a lot to be desired I do find that once you learn them they actually aren't all that bad. If anything it's not the menus but the sudden, (seemingly) inexplicable changes and limits elicited by certain actions (e.g., items being greyed out and inaccessible).
 
drboffa said:
I know Blackmagic Design cameras have their own issues but I do think they've got some of the most straightforward menus I've ever seen.
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Well clearly you've never had to waste 5 minutes poking and prodding and trying to adjust a single, simple setting on a Blackmagic - with NONE of the buttons responding whatsoever. Driving you madder and madder until... your assistant points out that it's a touch-screen. :/
 
Grug said:
Well clearly you've never had to waste 5 minutes poking and prodding and trying to adjust a single, simple setting on a Blackmagic - with NONE of the buttons responding whatsoever. Driving you madder and madder until... your assistant points out that it's a touch-screen. :/
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:laugh: No, I can't say I've had the pleasure of that experience. But that's what an AC is for, right?
 
James0b57 said:
Searching for info about the new Mac mini's I stumbled upon Andrew Reid's EOSHD site, and wow, was he always so negative? It isn't so much what he is saying, but how he is saying it. And I thought I was critical of cameras.

Anyways, he pans the Fx6 as a Sony ploy to get us to buy more eMount glass..... but that is the autofocus game, unfortunately. The only thing I agree, is I wish it had an anamorphic crop. Maybe not a full frame anamorphic crop, as cool as that might be, FF35 anamorphic glasswork is just too rare, but Anamorphic 4perf is about the same frame height as the Fx6's 10MP frame, so it would just be a center crop and desqueeze, nothing too crazy. Would mojo up that overly clean Sony look.
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I feel that EOSHD has got more negative over the years, plus Andrew never works in the professional crewed shoots realm, thus all his commentary can at times be completely disconnected from that reality.

Do agree that full height sensor read out for anamorphic would be nice, and would be another good point of difference between the a7Smk3 and the FX6
 
IronFilm said:
Do agree that full height sensor read out for anamorphic would be nice, and would be another good point of difference between the a7Smk3 and the FX6
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That alone would be worth the extra $2K or whatever.

I don't mean this in a demeaning way, but it would differentiate the more serious film maker and the influencer and hobbyists. No hat wearing black t-shirt and black skinny jeans self respecting film maker is going to be seen with an A7s3 if the Fx6 has anamorphic! (all jokes, not to be taken seriously)
 
morgan_moore said:
Its not just wildlife, you could be hanging out with a politician who starts going on about grabbing pussy, race car crashes, many many situations.

Its the same with primes/zooms - none of us like zooms but know they are needed when doing real live jobs.
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One of these days you'll catch up to the features of audio recorders have not just pre-roll (of 10 or even 30 seconds!) but a post roll feature too!

ahalpert said:
Haha! He's always sounded very entitled about cameras. (Like, "stupid canon needs to add x y and z futuristic features or their brand will die") but I think he has gotten more nasty and negative hot take in his tone as the era of clickbait and twitter has progressed. 5 or 10 years ago, I didnt yet have the feeling that I wouldn't want to run afoul of him. He's probably more pleasant in person, who knows
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There is a certain amount of irony that he hates and rages upon "click bait" social influencers, yet his own posts have a certain aspect of "click bait" style to them.
 
puredrifting said:
Not sure how close the FX9 menu system is to the FX6 but the FX9 menus were touted to me as a "large inprovement" over the previous gen menus.
I still found them to be a...convoluted mess, just a slightly better organized convoluted mess.
Click to expand...

I guess it's all down to what you get used to. Working with Sony menus on a daily basis you soon learn where everything you require is stashed. It's no big deal. Sure could be better, but then almost anything could be in hindsight. Try learning and remembering where everything is in the menu structure of a modern software controlled aircraft flight control system when learning to fly. A camera regardless of manufacturer is child's play compared to almost any sophisticated software programmed interface. For example I found the Panasonic LT menu to be a bit counterintuitive when I first had to use that camera. Same can be said for most high end three chip broadcast cameras. Loading and saving various lens files and shading parameters etc, etc. Not quick or intuitive. You just had to learn. There again I find it best to not fight systems, but to just learn them and benefit from that knowledge. You achieve nothing other than frustration bemoaning someone else's menu design and layout. I've never understood why camera menus become such a big issue in the overall scope of things. You can't change them, figuratively speaking, so just learn them and become part of the Matrix:)

Chris Young

https://pro-av.panasonic.net/en/vcs/simulator_lt/index.html
 
What I don't get, is that they figured out the whole menu situation with Firmware v8 (or whatever it was) on the F5 + F55. The quick menu on those cameras is great, and about as easy to navigate as anything else out there on the market.

They've carried that structure through to the Venice, and it continues to work well there. So why (in God's name) haven't they ported it over to the FX9 and FX6 as well? What possible reasons could they have not to? I just don't get it.
 
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CVP just posted their Sony FX6 tests and compare against the Komodo, FX9 and C300MKIII:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Z-xB5dnIfk

00:00 - Intro
00:31 - Base ISO
03:51 - Under Exposure
05:17 - Over Exposure
06:02 - ISO Tests
07:32 - Slow Motion
08:08 - Rolling Shutter
08:18 - ND Filter
08:41 - Tech Specs
08:47 - ProRes RAW
09:22 - Codecs & Formats
09:51 - Image Stabilisation
10:50 - Clear Image Zoom
11:41 - Audio
12:39 - Creative
14:18 - Other Thoughts
14:22 - Denoising
15:01 - Battery Life
15:33 - Colour Profiles
15:48 - Content Browser Mobile
16:25 - Outro
 
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That bodes well for the C70, I think.

Komodo... actually thought it was do better than that. But the Fx6 and C300ii are rather versatile and easily the best DR in this class so far.
 
andykwilkinson said:
ProAV also just posted a video that partly answers that...well, tries to...

https://youtu.be/Wr0NECtU9KM
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Carl's reasons for fx9 - shoulder mounting, down sampling, S35 crop (ability to use 17-120), broadcast codecs, ease of attaching broadcast accessories (drop in receiver).

I think that's all fair enough. I'm not buying this line though - "the cameras will have potentially quite different image quality".
 
rob norton said:
Carl's reasons for fx9 - shoulder mounting, down sampling, S35 crop (ability to use 17-120), broadcast codecs, ease of attaching broadcast accessories (drop in receiver).

I think that's all fair enough. I'm not buying this line though - "the cameras will have potentially quite different image quality".
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resolution does play a factor in the image quality debate. I think there are people that may prefer the tonal gradations and detail offered by the 6K Fx9 over the 10MP Fx6. Also the implementation of the new colour science seems to look better balanced to me on the Fx9.

There are plenty of sports and live event shooters in industries that cover sports teams and sports news, as well as a number of ENG related shooters that would benefit from the s35 4K and s16 HD crop modes.

For the independent freelance - gig - wedding - social - doc - solo film maker etc, perhaps the Fx6 is leaps and bounds better, but they are different horses for different courses.
 
James0b57 said:
resolution does play a factor in the image quality debate. I think there are people that may prefer the tonal gradations and detail offered by the 6K Fx9 over the 10MP Fx6. Also the implementation of the new colour science seems to look better balanced to me on the Fx9.

There are plenty of sports and live event shooters in industries that cover sports teams and sports news, as well as a number of ENG related shooters that would benefit from the s35 4K and s16 HD crop modes.

For the independent freelance - gig - wedding - social - doc - solo film maker etc, perhaps the Fx6 is leaps and bounds better, but they are different horses for different courses.
Click to expand...

Good points. I guess rather than IQ people are choosing based on ergonomics and other functions - isn't that what we wanted?

Here's a haiku which may help some people with their purchase:

mojo? some. more work?
small, reliable, workhorse
owner op must die
 
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