Glenn Thomas

At the end of the day, it will be the 4K 60P that most people will be buying it for. A feature currently not found in any other stills camera in that price range.

For the price of this thing you could buy an RX100 IV, E6300 and GH4. Each of which have flip screens and log profiles.

For the price of this thing you could buy an RX100 IV, E6300 and GH4. Each of which have flip screens and log profiles.

I shot this on the t3i back in the day. To this day its still my mostly viewed video.
But to be fare it had 110 000 views in one day and 250 000 views in one weekend, so its not really comparable to the 200k ish videos I have today.
Any who, looking at it I would say its good enough of a camera for the beginner.
(and also, IKEA now makes them  )
 

Casey Neistat, I presume.

And to think of all the Sci fi films of the past portraying a future where monitor screens with scan lines and distortion covered the walls of space ships and futuristic cities. They made the future look so much more interesting. Although now it seems, the future won't be like that at all. With 8k becoming a reality, I'm sad that those visual displays of the future will most likely not be covered in scan lines and distortion as they were in all those classic films.
Instead, we'll be looking at screens so detailed, every strand of hair growing from someone's nose will be clearly visible with smooth edges and no aliasing.

What's ironic here is that Apple are now the company with the monopoly in many markets who are no longer innovating. Look at what Microsoft are doing. They have one streamlined OS that works across all devices from phones, tablets to desktops. They've just released new phones (Lumia 950 & 950 XL) that you can connect a mouse, keyboard & monitor to, and use as a full functioning computer with desktop apps. Their Surface range also continues to get better and better. Of course, they also have that Hololens technology that looks quite impressive from the demos I've seen.
And what do Apple release? A big iPad with what is essentially the same OS as what the original iphone was running back when it was first released.
 

No, they have OSX for their laptops and iOS for their mobile devices. If you want a tablet, you have to buy an iPad which doesn't let you run any full featured apps like Photoshop, FCP, Premiere, etc. If you do want to use those programs though, you also have to buy either a MacBook, or a desktop machine. That's two devices, and to transfer app data from the tablet to computer can normally only be done via iTunes, which can be an extremely painful experience.
With a Surface Pro, or even a '2 in 1' like Lenovo's Yoga range, you get one machine that's a tablet and can still run the full featured apps. That's the advantage. And if you have one of their phones, it will be the same one OS again.
 
A laptop won't fit in your pocket. Seriously, think of your average consumer doesn't do any high end video editing, photography, music or whatever. They just browse facebook, Instagram, do a bit of book keeping or whatever. These kind of people will now no longer even need a computer. They could do everything on the phone while they're out. Then when they're home, all they need to do is hook the phone into a monitor or their tv, grab a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, and with Continuum on the phone running the full desktop versions of their browser and office apps, their user experience would be exactly the same as if they were on a desktop or laptop. And that's huge. Less environmental waste if people are only using phones, and much less confusion for older people like my in laws, trying to familiarise themselves with multiple devices.
Why are Apple not doing this with the iPhone? If they're putting desktop performance A9 chips on their iPhones, why not let people connect them to monitor and run OSX? Possibly because they don't want to lose sales of their iPads and Macs? That's like Canon limiting the video features in their DSLR's so that people will still buy their C300 etc.  
I'm running iOS9 on my iPad, and apart from the different font they're using, the user interface is still the same as a 2007 iPhone. There's no way of putting a big slideshow gallery of my favourite photos on there like I can do with my Lumia, I can't put a big tile on there with a photo of my wife, or a Fitbit tile showing me how far I've walked and the number of steps, I can't put a big tile on there showing the latest posts in my blog reader app, such a new EOSHD post, or even a Flickr tile showing new photos my contacts have posted, and so on. You can't do any of this with iOS. All you get are boring icons, which if you're lucky, might have a number on them.
Even Android users can do a lot more with widgets and whatever else they have.

What's ironic here is that Apple are now the company with the monopoly in many markets who are no longer innovating. Look at what Microsoft are doing. They have one streamlined OS that works across all devices from phones, tablets to desktops. They've just released new phones (Lumia 950 & 950 XL) that you can connect a mouse, keyboard & monitor to, and use as a full functioning computer with desktop apps. Their Surface range also continues to get better and better. Of course, they also have that Hololens technology that looks quite impressive from the demos I've seen.
And what do Apple release? A big iPad with what is essentially the same OS as what the original iphone was running back when it was first released.
 

What's ironic here is that Apple are now the company with the monopoly in many markets who are no longer innovating. Look at what Microsoft are doing. They have one streamlined OS that works across all devices from phones, tablets to desktops. They've just released new phones (Lumia 950 & 950 XL) that you can connect a mouse, keyboard & monitor to, and use as a full functioning computer with desktop apps. Their Surface range also continues to get better and better. Of course, they also have that Hololens technology that looks quite impressive from the demos I've seen.
And what do Apple release? A big iPad with what is essentially the same OS as what the original iphone was running back when it was first released.
 

No, they have OSX for their laptops and iOS for their mobile devices. If you want a tablet, you have to buy an iPad which doesn't let you run any full featured apps like Photoshop, FCP, Premiere, etc. If you do want to use those programs though, you also have to buy either a MacBook, or a desktop machine. That's two devices, and to transfer app data from the tablet to computer can normally only be done via iTunes, which can be an extremely painful experience.
With a Surface Pro, or even a '2 in 1' like Lenovo's Yoga range, you get one machine that's a tablet and can still run the full featured apps. That's the advantage. And if you have one of their phones, it will be the same one OS again.
 
A laptop won't fit in your pocket. Seriously, think of your average consumer doesn't do any high end video editing, photography, music or whatever. They just browse facebook, Instagram, do a bit of book keeping or whatever. These kind of people will now no longer even need a computer. They could do everything on the phone while they're out. Then when they're home, all they need to do is hook the phone into a monitor or their tv, grab a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, and with Continuum on the phone running the full desktop versions of their browser and office apps, their user experience would be exactly the same as if they were on a desktop or laptop. And that's huge. Less environmental waste if people are only using phones, and much less confusion for older people like my in laws, trying to familiarise themselves with multiple devices.
Why are Apple not doing this with the iPhone? If they're putting desktop performance A9 chips on their iPhones, why not let people connect them to monitor and run OSX? Possibly because they don't want to lose sales of their iPads and Macs? That's like Canon limiting the video features in their DSLR's so that people will still buy their C300 etc.  
I'm running iOS9 on my iPad, and apart from the different font they're using, the user interface is still the same as a 2007 iPhone. There's no way of putting a big slideshow gallery of my favourite photos on there like I can do with my Lumia, I can't put a big tile on there with a photo of my wife, or a Fitbit tile showing me how far I've walked and the number of steps, I can't put a big tile on there showing the latest posts in my blog reader app, such a new EOSHD post, or even a Flickr tile showing new photos my contacts have posted, and so on. You can't do any of this with iOS. All you get are boring icons, which if you're lucky, might have a number on them.
Even Android users can do a lot more with widgets and whatever else they have.

What's ironic here is that Apple are now the company with the monopoly in many markets who are no longer innovating. Look at what Microsoft are doing. They have one streamlined OS that works across all devices from phones, tablets to desktops. They've just released new phones (Lumia 950 & 950 XL) that you can connect a mouse, keyboard & monitor to, and use as a full functioning computer with desktop apps. Their Surface range also continues to get better and better. Of course, they also have that Hololens technology that looks quite impressive from the demos I've seen.
And what do Apple release? A big iPad with what is essentially the same OS as what the original iphone was running back when it was first released.
 

No, they have OSX for their laptops and iOS for their mobile devices. If you want a tablet, you have to buy an iPad which doesn't let you run any full featured apps like Photoshop, FCP, Premiere, etc. If you do want to use those programs though, you also have to buy either a MacBook, or a desktop machine. That's two devices, and to transfer app data from the tablet to computer can normally only be done via iTunes, which can be an extremely painful experience.
With a Surface Pro, or even a '2 in 1' like Lenovo's Yoga range, you get one machine that's a tablet and can still run the full featured apps. That's the advantage. And if you have one of their phones, it will be the same one OS again.
 
A laptop won't fit in your pocket. Seriously, think of your average consumer doesn't do any high end video editing, photography, music or whatever. They just browse facebook, Instagram, do a bit of book keeping or whatever. These kind of people will now no longer even need a computer. They could do everything on the phone while they're out. Then when they're home, all they need to do is hook the phone into a monitor or their tv, grab a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, and with Continuum on the phone running the full desktop versions of their browser and office apps, their user experience would be exactly the same as if they were on a desktop or laptop. And that's huge. Less environmental waste if people are only using phones, and much less confusion for older people like my in laws, trying to familiarise themselves with multiple devices.
Why are Apple not doing this with the iPhone? If they're putting desktop performance A9 chips on their iPhones, why not let people connect them to monitor and run OSX? Possibly because they don't want to lose sales of their iPads and Macs? That's like Canon limiting the video features in their DSLR's so that people will still buy their C300 etc.  
I'm running iOS9 on my iPad, and apart from the different font they're using, the user interface is still the same as a 2007 iPhone. There's no way of putting a big slideshow gallery of my favourite photos on there like I can do with my Lumia, I can't put a big tile on there with a photo of my wife, or a Fitbit tile showing me how far I've walked and the number of steps, I can't put a big tile on there showing the latest posts in my blog reader app, such a new EOSHD post, or even a Flickr tile showing new photos my contacts have posted, and so on. You can't do any of this with iOS. All you get are boring icons, which if you're lucky, might have a number on them.
Even Android users can do a lot more with widgets and whatever else they have.

What's ironic here is that Apple are now the company with the monopoly in many markets who are no longer innovating. Look at what Microsoft are doing. They have one streamlined OS that works across all devices from phones, tablets to desktops. They've just released new phones (Lumia 950 & 950 XL) that you can connect a mouse, keyboard & monitor to, and use as a full functioning computer with desktop apps. Their Surface range also continues to get better and better. Of course, they also have that Hololens technology that looks quite impressive from the demos I've seen.
And what do Apple release? A big iPad with what is essentially the same OS as what the original iphone was running back when it was first released.
 

They're still too expensive IMO. Here in Australia, the 128gb model is $1529. That would buy a Sony RX100 mkIV with a 128gb card, extra batteries, accessories, and you'd still have money left over. No matter how good the 4K is on the iphone, it's still going to fall apart in low light with the small sensor. Even most Youtubers avoid them in favour of dedicated cameras.
Or for that same price, you could buy a 256gb i5 Surface Pro 3, which has a decent enough camera that you could shoot photos with and edit directly in Photoshop CC, rather than using a phone app. 1080P video too and the ability to use proper video editing, compositing and colour grading programs. That's if you want to be one of those guys who shoot with a tablet.
I'm looking forward to the next Lumia though. With Windows 10 and universal apps, you'll be able to hook it up to a keyboard, monitor & mouse, and use it as an actual PC. Should be a lot cheaper than any iPhone. The current models already shoot good 4K, which I used for a music video once. Only issue is the auto exposure.
By the way, the vertical shooting on iPhones is for those apps like Snapchat and Beme. A complete waste of Apple's imaging technology.
 

There's so much stuff to buy these days..
 

Yeah, I've been doing this for years. Probably as far back as 2006 for videos I was using a program called Photozoom to upres DV videos to 1080P. It works. Although I normally don't need to do it. Editing 32bit in Sony Vegas usually takes care of any banding. Otherwise I use Neat Video noise reduction followed by either film grain or the Add Noise plugin in Sony Vegas set to 0.025.

A chroma blur plugin can sometimes help too.

I also noticed the mention of Premiere CC in this article. I installed that last night for some videos I have to edit with a client's CC license. OMG, Premiere has to be the most frustratingly awkward, fiddly and annoying software out there! Having struggled with it nearly all day today, I honestly don't understand how anyone would have the patience to do any kind of professional work with that program. Compared to Sony Vegas, Premiere CC is a total nightmare to edit with. I gave up after one video edit which took me all day, and then did the following one in Vegas in less than an hour. I'd figured how to use Premiere, but the user interface and extreme lack of functionality drove me nuts. If my client wants me to edit any more videos in Premiere, it's not gonna happen. Apologies for the rant...

Thanks for all the insights here.

After shooting more than 50 music videos with my NEX5N, some idiot broke into our house yesterday while I was having a shower and stole it, along with my iPad 2. Thankfully the camera only had my old Nikon f2.8 28mm lens on it. They left behind the charger with spare battery, Lens Turbo and other lenses.

So I've just decided to get this A6000. To be honest, I never really had a problem with the image quality I was getting from the NEX5N. A bit of aliasing here and there, some loss of detail if I used noise reduction on low light shots, etc. But I never had an EVF, the thing always overheated, the LCD had a big splotch mark in the centre as I'd never bought a screen protector for it, it didn't have zebras, and I never had a kit lens which would have been good for travelling. So the A6000 with a kit lens seems like the perfect replacement. And affordable too, as money I've made from a couple of videos this past week will easily cover the cost.

From reading this thread though, I'll agree some of the Panasonics may have better image quality. The Nikon 5300 too. Although I've never owned a DSLR, and never will. I really need that focus peaking. With the NEX5N, as long as I could see a red spot in someone's eyes, I knew my focus was good. And with the Lens Turbo, I can get that full frame look if I need it. Which wouldn't be possible with any m43 camera, or even the 5300.

One other thing I do is always shoot in 50P, normally with a 1/100 shutter. Unless it's something on green screen. For music videos, being able to slow down a clip really easily I find to be a lot more important than a few possible artifacts the intended audience will never see. That slow mo can add emotion to a clip that you wouldn't get at normal speed. And for that reason, none of the affordable Blackmagic cameras are an option for me either. Or any affordable 4K camera. Better to wait until they can all do 4K 50P and without the rolling shutter. And to improve image quality, I use Neat Video followed by Boris BCC film grain.

Anyway, apologies for the rant, but I guess my point here is to not be too concerned about image quality, artifacts and all that, but to go for whatever camera has the most features that are important to you. In my case those are compatibility with existing lenses (including my Lens Turbo), portability, focus peaking, a file format that's simple to edit (AVCHD files work great in Sony Vegas!), good low light performance, and 50P. In which case, this A6000 appears to be my best option. I'm hoping to pick one up later today. After I enquire about getting some security screens for our windows :)

If only the thing wasn't so heavy. I could easily get by without super low light performance, but 80fps at 4K, the global shutter and a 10" screen, those are some great features for a camera in that price range.

A bit of an ugly camera (just like their phones), but if they can get the tech part of it running smoothly, it could be a good option. I'm curious though what the dynamic range would be like? And if Samsung have cine profiles or even simple tweaks like being sble to turn down the contrast etc?

I'm also wondering how long it will take NLEs like Vegas to support h.265, and if other camera companies will start using it too.

A bit of an ugly camera (just like their phones), but if they can get the tech part of it running smoothly, it could be a good option. I'm curious though what the dynamic range would be like? And if Samsung have cine profiles or even simple tweaks like being sble to turn down the contrast etc?

I'm also wondering how long it will take NLEs like Vegas to support h.265, and if other camera companies will start using it too.

I'm not saying it's not there, but it's not visible unless you pause the video and specifically go looking for problems. Those water fountain grilles had the worst aliasing and moire out of all 55 or so videos I shot on the NEX5N. The fact that I can't see any in shots of the same grilles in the A6000 footage tells me it's no longer a problem I ever have to worry about. Not in those shots, the shot with the fine line brick wall after it, or even in the grilles of the fan on the footpath in another later shot. If I play the Cineform master file and pause it, yes, I can see some really tiny stair stepping around the water fountains with excessive motion, but those are obviously AVCHD artifacts. And I really had to look closely and put my eye up to the screen to see them! 
 
Detail isn't everything. I get clients asking me to smooth out their skin, and that's after I've used Neat Video.
 
Andrew, I've seen a number of your videos with video like overexposed shots. But if that's the look you're after, no problem there. For a lot of us though, avoiding shots like that would be a lot more important than the difference in detail between an A6000, GX7, 5D mk3, etc. And some of us may wonder why Philip Bloom with his collection of expensive cameras would over sharpen his cat? Of course maybe it's the cat who prefers looking a bit sharper than the average feline? 
 
It's all personal preference. So it's good for the Panasonic fans to know their cameras have more detail, even if they have to use an adapter for that APSC Super 35 look. And for those of us with a Sony, rather than worrying about having less detail than the Panasonic cameras, we can be happy about getting a full frame look from one of those adapters. 
 
Or better yet, shoot, edit, and ignore all this nonsense :)

I'm not saying it's not there, but it's not visible unless you pause the video and specifically go looking for problems. Those water fountain grilles had the worst aliasing and moire out of all 55 or so videos I shot on the NEX5N. The fact that I can't see any in shots of the same grilles in the A6000 footage tells me it's no longer a problem I ever have to worry about. Not in those shots, the shot with the fine line brick wall after it, or even in the grilles of the fan on the footpath in another later shot. If I play the Cineform master file and pause it, yes, I can see some really tiny stair stepping around the water fountains with excessive motion, but those are obviously AVCHD artifacts. And I really had to look closely and put my eye up to the screen to see them! 
 
Detail isn't everything. I get clients asking me to smooth out their skin, and that's after I've used Neat Video.
 
Andrew, I've seen a number of your videos with video like overexposed shots. But if that's the look you're after, no problem there. For a lot of us though, avoiding shots like that would be a lot more important than the difference in detail between an A6000, GX7, 5D mk3, etc. And some of us may wonder why Philip Bloom with his collection of expensive cameras would over sharpen his cat? Of course maybe it's the cat who prefers looking a bit sharper than the average feline? 
 
It's all personal preference. So it's good for the Panasonic fans to know their cameras have more detail, even if they have to use an adapter for that APSC Super 35 look. And for those of us with a Sony, rather than worrying about having less detail than the Panasonic cameras, we can be happy about getting a full frame look from one of those adapters. 
 
Or better yet, shoot, edit, and ignore all this nonsense :)

Everyone has a choice - one man wants ease of use, another man wants a particular quality of image (not a "better" one). There is no "better" technology in art! There is only the right tool for the job. Nobody tells me what camera is "best" for the film I want to make. That's up to me, and my film will succeed  or fail on my choices. If we all made exactly the same films, with strict aesthetic criteria, we'd be living in a pretty awful (and dull) society.
 
Try telling any professional painter or art historian that painting - the history of painting - is not hugely driven by technology! Paint is technology just like a camera is! It is a more basic technology, of course - but technology is almost by definition about advancement and increasing sophistication. Take two of the most famous periods in art history - the Renaissance and Impressionism. Both basically began due to advancements in oil paint "technology" - the realism of the Renaissance would not have been possible if it were not for the slow-drying qualities of oil paint (until then most painting was done with quick drying egg tempera). Impressionism quite literally only happened because of the invention of the paint tube!!! Before the invention and mass-production of the very affordable, very portable metal paint tube with a screw-on top in the late 1800's, it was a huge undertaking for anyone to take an easel out into the landscape, do a day's painting and then pack the paint you made yourself in a big tin away so the colour you want to use again tomorrow doesn't dry up! It might sound funny, but the invention of the paint tube was far, far more revolutionary than the day Canon put HD video on the 5D2. Without the paint tube Van Gogh would not have been able to afford paint or take his wide, rich palette of colours outdoors. Monet could not have painted so "fast and loose". Ditto Cezanne. As Renoir said - "Without tubes of paint, there would be no Impressionism"! 
 
ALL art is bound up with technology. All of it. You cannot separate the two things. Cameras and paint-boxes are not so different. We have very sophisticated technology now, but to say paint is not technology is simple ignorance.
 
Affordable video ILC's's have made cinematic images available to almost anyone. They are todays paint tubes. This is not the time to say - "yes I have a kind-of cinematic camera, but the image is not quite up to "real" cinema standards - it needs to be "better" before I can compete with the gallons of dross Hollywood vomits on us every year." Now is the time to say, "Finally! I can make a film the way I want to! I don't give two sh*ts about whether it stacks up against the f***ing Alexa! I'm going to go out and do my thing. If it does what I want it to do then that's all that matters to me."
 
"Better"!?! For F's F'ing sake! 
 
Seriously, I enjoy a bit of heated debate on this forum and genuinely get very valuable info here, but sometimes I wonder if half of you know what you have in your hands. Today NLE's can be put on any computer going; the internet is a readymade distribution network; video DSLR's give wonderful, creative images. It's genuinely revolutionary. Stories make the world go round. And all you can do is compare your tools to the Alexa and suck on Ridley Scott/Terrence Malick/[insert canonised director of your choice here]'s great big Cooke. 
 
The world is changing. Art is bound up in technology and revolution is bound up in art. Why can't we go out and tell our stories the way we want to tell them? If for you that's ultimately with an Alexa with a view to cinematic distribution, great - all power to you. But every representational system has its limitations. In 200 years time the Alexa will be as funny as a box of paints, for sure. I love the image from that camera, but don't bloody tell me that it's images are "better" than mine. "Better" at what? Resolution, dynamic range, colour? Yes, for sure. But if Upstream Colour had been shot on an Alexa, would it have been the same film? I really doubt it. That film is it's own thing in a way very, very few features are able to be. Did I do much pixel peeping while watching it? Personally, not much at all. 
 
If you need ergonomics and usability for what you want to do, great. If you want to sacrifice your creativity at the altar of ever-improving image quality, fine. But images are what they are made of as well as what they show us - as Marshall McLuhan famously said "the medium is the message". I'd like my message to be my own, and not translated into the fascistic hierarchy of aesthetics that rears its ugly head here pretty regularly.
 
Note to dstillo: this rant is, , as usual, mainly directed at Andrew (who wrote the original response to me). I'm not really this mad at you :)

what his videos scream out is that the camera and the lens he is using are the least important aspect in the whole production.  His resources are likely spent elsewhere; socialising with fellow creatives, travelling and subconsciously scouting locations, living a cultured French lifestyle - he probably has parents who are also artistic or creative.  Writing, reading, watching independent cinema.
 
I imagine he's a guy who would decline an alexa 4:3 and a set of round fronts because it would hinder his apparent efficiency and holistic working process to film making.
 
I'd also hazard a guess Kendy won't even have realised he had a staff pick award or the notice a boost in vimeo plays thanks to this topic on eoshd.
 
On the complete opposite end of the spectrum we have the forum culture who are driven by the technology side of things.  Resources spent on things like:-
electricity, regularly upgraded computers and camera gadgets, socialising with other tech driven people in an artificial social environment, sitting at a computer desk rather than viewing the world, writing (forum posts), reading (forum posts), watching camera test videos rather than real films.
 
 
Obviously there are half way housers who are interested in both creativity and technology but ultimately having the technology and consuming taking up valuable time is going to impact on the pure creative aspect.