Sony FX6 Firmware V2.0 Review

Doug Jensen

Doug Jensen

Carbonite Member
Here are my thoughts on the new FX6 V2.0 firmware. Best firmware update ever, for any camera I've ever owned.

 
S-Cinetone in the picture cache sample? I thought you were opposed to using it on daylight exteriors? (also, nice video!)
 
Nice overview! I'll be interested to see how the bokeh control goes as I've done a few iris pulls already (to do a background reveal), and found that there was brightness changes in the first part of the pull as the vND filter has coarse initial steps (1/4, 1/8 etc) but is fine after that.
 
Thanks Doug for your review. It's an huge upgrade
I got the answer regarding one question about the bokeh management: it works as I was hoping, means the camera gain stays at 0dB when the ND is used in the exposure loop.
(I guess it does not work in cineEI mode, since there is no continuous AGC in this mode currently)
 
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scorsesefan said:
Nice review, Doug. When exactly is the update being released to the public?
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Originally It was supposed to happen yesterday right after the announcement, but I'm told it has been delayed to the end of he month. I don't know the reason for the delay, but I do know that I reported one bug.
 
did said:
it works as I was hoping, means the camera gain stays at 0dB when the ND is used in the exposure loop.
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Only to a point. Watch that part of my video again and you'll notice that when the variable ND gets down to the minimum (1/4) then the gain starts to rise automatically. And if you look at the side by side shots at the end of that demostration, the f/22 is more noisy because the gain had kicked in.
 
ahalpert said:
S-Cinetone in the picture cache sample? I thought you were opposed to using it on daylight exteriors? (also, nice video!)
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You're right, I have never been a big fan of S-Cinetone and I haven't used it very much in the past. I'm using it more lately instead of S-LOG, but always with some grading in post. Every frame of S-Cinetone I use in an edit goes through grading in Resolve -- so it is far from being the WYSIWYG profile that people think it is. Anyone who doesn't grade S-Cinetone is settling for substandard images that could be improved upon in post. I stand behind that statement 100%.

However, I am shooting more S-Cintone because I think it is actually easier and faster to grade than S-LOG on the FX6. To be perfectly honest, I have a harder time grading S-LOG3 from the FX6 than I do from my F55 or FS7. I can't explain it, but that is a fact.

Anyway, one reason I used S-Cinetone for this V2.0 video is so that the viewfinder captures would look better than ungraded S-LOG would have looked. And I hate using MLUTS, so S-Cinetone was the answer.

If you want to see how crappy ungraded S-Cinetone looks, just pay attention to the picture quality of the viewfinder captures -- and then compare those images to the graded shots (Osprey, rocket, shore birds, dog on the airboat, bird taking off from tree, etc.). Look at the difference.

I should do a split screen video that shows ungraded S-Cinetone vs. my graded versions to illustrate my point that S-Cinetone always has to be graded.
 
Doug Jensen said:
Only to a point. Watch that part of my video again and you'll notice that when the variable ND gets down to the minimum (1/4) then the gain starts to rise automatically. And if you look at the side by side shots at the end of that demostration, the f/22 is more noisy because the gain had kicked in.
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You're right, it's logical otherwise the switch 1/4 -> zero ND would be visible. The noise is the price to pay if we want to play with a 'crazy' exposure range :)
 
scorsesefan said:
Will the cache help you with your rocket launches, Doug?
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Good question. I don't think it will help with the actual launches themselves because I usually know right down to the second when liftoff will happen, so it's not ever going to catch me off-guard. It's actually the only time I ever wear my iWatch so I have the exact time. However, I do intend on locking the camera down on a shot of the launch pad and turning on cache for the hour preceding the launch just in case there is an "anomaly", as they call it. If one of those rockets blows up during fueling (God forbid), won't I feel like the idiot if I miss the shot? 30 seconds of cache will give me plenty of time to capture whatever happens without having my finger poised over the record button.
 
did said:
You're right, it's logical otherwise the switch 1/4 -> zero ND would be visible. The noise is the price to pay if we want to play with a 'crazy' exposure range :)
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I should also point out, and if you look at the viewfinder screen close enough you can see for yourself, I had to use the HIGH base sensitivity mode in order to get the ND filter to 1/128 indoors. That also contributes to the noise level.
 
Thanks Doug,

/ BTW, your last video of SpaceX T3 is the best I've never seen. The return of the 1st stage is amazing ! /
 
did said:
Thanks Doug,

/ BTW, your last video of SpaceX T3 is the best I've never seen. The return of the 1st stage is amazing ! /
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Thank you very much. It was fun to shoot. It is rare these days for a booster to return and land at Cape Canaveral (mostly they land on on a drone ship 400 miles out at sea), but we have another one at the end of the month right after sunset. That should look spectacular and I'm really looking forward to it.

It is amazing how much detail the camera the camera can pickup when the rocket is almost a hundred miles in altitude and even farther than that downrange.

 
The resolution at this distance is surprising. Was it with the 200-600 (and some 'booster' :))
 
That video is a mix of FX6 and Z750, but the booster returning is Z750 @ 60 fps.

Camera 1: FX6 with 200-600mm lens + 2.0x teleconverter
Camera 2: Z750 with Fujinon U24x7.8 lens with bult-in 2.0x extender

And then even further image magnification and noise reduction in Resolve during grading for the really high altitude shots. Image quality suffers a little, but there is no other way to get shots from 100+ miles away unless you have a chase aircraft with stablized tracker . . . which I do not. My next purchase.

I've got footage from a SpaceX Starlink launch from two weeks ago with a pretty clear view of the two stages separating and also the payload fairing splitting and releasing at about 50 miles up and at least 100 miles downrange. It is cool to see all four pieces all flying off in different directions. I should post it, I guess.
 
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That would be nice. I guess to capture so clear videos like this you have also to be lucky with the meteo conditions (transparence + turbulence)
I'm a modest astro am, I did not think it was possible to catch so neat images at such distance in daylight conditions :)
 
Short calculation: with the Z750 and the zoom at max the eq. focal lens in FF is 374 x 43.3 / 11 = 1472 mm. The resolution is approx 20% better with the Z750 ( both FX6 and Z750 are 4K we can consider that the pixel diagonal ratio = sensor diagonal ratio)
I imagine that the performance to do this without automatic tracking requires some practice :)
 
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