A6700 - FX30 sensor 👀

[newfoundmass]

2 hours ago, SRV1981 said:

Starting to agree this is absurd.  They are in a bind to keep up With spec races versus waiting til engineers develop better thermal dissipation for high powered tech.  
 

I was really ready to buy this setup. It’s got everything I need on paper.  Would the Fuji attachable fan work with this? 
 

otherwise I’d consider a used a6600 for photo portraits and sports and an fx30 for video documentary work. 

I'm starting to think it's intentional. I don't think they want to release a hybrid camera that is capable of doing both, at least not at this price point. There really was nothing stopping them from adding a fan, even if it added to the price. Releasing a camera that overheats is a choice.

[SRV1981]

3 hours ago, newfoundmass said:

I'm starting to think it's intentional. I don't think they want to release a hybrid camera that is capable of doing both, at least not at this price point. There really was nothing stopping them from adding a fan, even if it added to the price. Releasing a camera that overheats is a choice.

That’s fair. Could also just be profit motive in another direction: “we have all these parts let’s just throw these extra parts in a smaller body and call it a day”

[kye]

6 hours ago, newfoundmass said:

I mean it's pretty hot, haha, but not hot enough that it should cause a camera to overheat in under 20 minutes! When I am filming events it can get even warmer (mid 90s and up) in venues May through September and I work in Vermont!

But companies will keep releasing cameras like this until people stop buying them and making excuses for why it's acceptable. 

88-90 degrees is only hot if you live in the global north where it snows in the winter.  

The only reason that manufacturers aren't concerned about things like this is they're making cameras for the richest countries, which are all freezing.  The majority of the worlds population live in places where 90 degrees is so mild it's laughable.

My sister lives in Edinburgh, and her summer is like our winter.

[Marcio Kabke Pinheiro]

Not to defend Sony (did not have a Sony camera, and their overheating history is not the best), but the guy in the video did not give too much info:
- The overheating threshold was set to "High"?
- The back screen was flipped outside the camera (which improves the heat dissipation)?
- And using that live cropping mode for sure increases the camera processing (which is not invelid to test, lost of people could use it).

Telling that beacuse I'm monitoring the X-S20 situation (my unit had not arrived - maybe this week) and the overheating reports are all over the place. One person said that the camera overheated just navigating the menus. Other people recorded 30 mins in 6.2k open gate 10-bit 4:2:2 in Malaysia under the sun (the place is humid as hell) and the camera never even get a warning.

Or the QC of these cameras are all over the place, or there is a lot of variance depending on the modes / resources used.

[newfoundmass]

6 hours ago, SRV1981 said:

That’s fair. Could also just be profit motive in another direction: “we have all these parts let’s just throw these extra parts in a smaller body and call it a day”

It's probably a combination of both, but I just don't think Sony is interested in releasing a camera in that price range that is capable of doing it all. I think Sony has become the new Canon. They realize that they can get away with it, that most people will look the other way or make excuses. Ultimately the goal is to funnel people towards spending more money, because the reality is if you want to get a camera that takes good photos and has more reliable video, you need to look towards their more expensive full frame options (though even the A7IV can overheat.)

[SRV1981]

The reality is that Sony, compared to other lines, offers a great image with leading DR and log performance along with the best open lens mount in the industry.  They’re pushing us to their fx like and I may be okay grabbing an fx30 for video work as it seems like a better buy than the alternatives when you consider quality, price, and lenses. I currently own an griiix and it’s pretty cool for most of my photo needs but have yet to try snapping my runners. Could always grab a used a6600 for some action shots of runners to pair with an fx30 for documentary stuff

[SRV1981]

Just another thought for a hobbyist here - I can’t imagine why I’d be filming for 20-60m straight in 98 degree humidity continuously. And if I was using it for work/professionally I’d probably be using a cinema camera. 
 

id love to have a c70 but I can’t afford it and don’t need it.  So maybe an a6700 does make sense. 

[Eric Calabros]

This phone has active cooling fan.

Thickness and bulk is no longer an issue.

Yea, not using this tech looks intentional.

[kye]

3 hours ago, SRV1981 said:

Just another thought for a hobbyist here - I can’t imagine why I’d be filming for 20-60m straight in 98 degree humidity continuously. And if I was using it for work/professionally I’d probably be using a cinema camera. 
 

id love to have a c70 but I can’t afford it and don’t need it.  So maybe an a6700 does make sense. 

I would have thought that a hobbyist is as likely to shoot long takes in hot conditions as anyone else.  

Pros would do it because they're covering an event, and hobbyists would do it because they haven't yet heard of "shooting for the edit" and so tend to just wave it around indefinitely, potentially with a stream-of-consciousness narration to go along with it.

One of the users who is most likely to want a nice camera with reliable AF is that person that insists on filming everything all the time.  I'm sure we remember these people from the handy-cam days, and human behaviour hasn't changed, and neither has the fact that they're filming the kids swimming in the pool, the family on the beach in Greece, the tour on the boat through the islands of Ha Long Bay, the summer BBQ birthday party, etc etc.

[newfoundmass]

18 hours ago, SRV1981 said:

Just another thought for a hobbyist here - I can’t imagine why I’d be filming for 20-60m straight in 98 degree humidity continuously. And if I was using it for work/professionally I’d probably be using a cinema camera. 
 

id love to have a c70 but I can’t afford it and don’t need it.  So maybe an a6700 does make sense. 

I don't think hobbyists are less likely to film longer takes, but regardless, their new $1200 camera should probably be more capable than their cell phone and not overheat in the event that they DO decide to film for longer periods. We really do need to stop making excuses for this stuff.

Most professional videographers I know don't use cinema cameras. I don't, and I'd like to consider myself a professional. 

16 hours ago, Eric Calabros said:

This phone has active cooling fan.

Thickness and bulk is no longer an issue.

Yea, not using this tech looks intentional.

100%. Even the argument that it'd prevent them from hitting their intended price point doesn't hold water. How much, realistically, would adding a fan to these cameras cost per unit? Maybe $10 in parts?

[SRV1981]

I’m not an engineer and I take it nobody else here is so this is just resentment and speculation. On my part as well. Trust me - I’d pay a little more for active heat dissipation/cooling. 
 

Still, I’m not convinced that non-pros are recording for 30 minutes at a clip. I’ve never seen it, I don’t see it on YT, I don’t do it, and anyone I know with a cam doesn’t either. The only folks I’ve seen film weddings, movies, or YT video podcasts. 
 

At this point, it is what it is. Sony offers affordable options in the fx30 for video creation. It would be nice to have both film and video in one camera. I suppose LUMIX is an option for that crowd. I, personally, find FF bodies and lenses too large for travel/my needs and so APSC seems like a great option for a non-pro. 
 

Curious, if a professional why not use a cinema camera? Are we using the word professional differently?

[ntblowz]

1 hour ago, SRV1981 said:

Curious, if a professional why not use a cinema camera? Are we using the word professional differently?

Professional means you earn the money through you skill, you can use whatever gear you want, that how I interpret. Like you don't judge the chef by their cooking gear would you? 

Most people would be hobbyist chef, cause they don't cook to earn money.

How chef cook using their equipment is their choice, all we want is delicous food that come out.

Anyway there are bts wedding video people using just iPhone..I guess they are "professional" if they earn their income that way?

[kye]

5 hours ago, SRV1981 said:

I’m not an engineer and I take it nobody else here is so this is just resentment and speculation. On my part as well. Trust me - I’d pay a little more for active heat dissipation/cooling. 

Me too.

5 hours ago, SRV1981 said:

Still, I’m not convinced that non-pros are recording for 30 minutes at a clip. I’ve never seen it, I don’t see it on YT, I don’t do it, and anyone I know with a cam doesn’t either. The only folks I’ve seen film weddings, movies, or YT video podcasts. 

I think it depends on where we draw the line between pros and non-pros.  The proportion of people who "do YT" but work a seperate job is large, but the "I've finally gone full-time on YT" posts seem to be very common once people have built up enough of an audience and income streams.  
From a usage point of view, I'd suggest that most people who are doing YT trying to go pro would buy the same cameras as a professional YouTuber (they have a job to pay for expensive equipment and they'd view it as an investment) and would also film and edit in the same way as a professional YouTuber.  Obviously this greatly expands the number of people who fit into this discussion.

I know lots of YT people record long takes and then cut them up in the edit, or speed them up to make time-lapses.  The idea of filming a time-lapse by just recording video seems to have become the default approach now, as it means that if anything interesting happens then you can cut back to normal speed to show the interesting thing, and will have full audio of it etc.  It also means there's no mode juggling.

I see little hints frequently that people are recording many takes, or recording for much longer periods and cutting things up in the edit.  One trend that happened a while ago was to include little "mistakes" in the edit, so you'd appear less polished and more authentic.  Tom Scott talks about it a little bit here:

Of course, some of the examples I've seen clearly indicate that they had done lots of takes, and had left the camera rolling between them.  Occasionally I see an example where they've paused, then started the section or statement again, but didn't spot it in the edit and it made it through to the upload.

I also don't know kind of YT content all of us are watching, so that when we have discussions like this we probably all have different ideas about what kind of videos people make.  I watch a lot of videos of people who do things, and document them for YT.  These are often people that want to go professional on YT so they can do their thing full-time.

This guy is an example of the kind of person who I think might be in the market for a lower-budget Sony camera like the A6700 - he bought a $15K house in Portugal and his channel is about renovating it.  I believe he has a separate job, but he's making great progress on YT.  His first video was 2 months ago, he's uploaded 11 videos (although one is 18s, so doesn't really count) and he's got 13.7K subs and ~560K channel views so far.

I suspect he shoots on his phone, but I could be wrong, and certainly there are people who shoot only on their phone despite being able to afford "better" cameras.  One example of a professional phone user is Hannah Lee Duggan who has almost 1M subs and (last time I checked) shoots exclusively on several dedicated iPhones.

https://www.youtube.com/@hannahleeduggan/videos

My conclusion is that:

• People who do YT and want to be pros but aren't yet, still buy and use cameras like the pros (or are less prepared and therefore record longer clips)
• People who do YT have far larger shooting ratios than you'd think, and work hard in the edit to hide it
• People who shoot time-lapses commonly do it by just shooting real-time video so they can capture anything interesting..  
• People who film themselves actually doing something record everything and then find the good bits in the edit..  this is more akin to documentary shooting, where we all know the ratios can be huge

[Eric Calabros]

6 hours ago, SRV1981 said:

Still, I’m not convinced that non-pros are recording for 30 minutes at a clip. I’ve never seen it, I don’t see it on YT, I don’t do it, and anyone I know with a cam doesn’t either. The only folks I’ve seen film weddings, movies, or YT video podcasts. 

The main problem with overheating is not the max time for recording. Its inconsistency and unpredictability. 

[MrSMW]

7 hours ago, ntblowz said:

Professional means you earn the money through you skill, you can use whatever gear you want, that how I interpret. Like you don't judge the chef by their cooking gear would you? 

My definition also.

Some would add ‘conduct’ to that, but I think that that is a different definition of ‘professional’.

The tools are not a benchmark and someone else’s opinion does not matter.

Unless their opinion stops you from getting the or any other work with them.

I am a full-time ‘professional’ and have been for over 20 years but have used all kinds of kit that would not be considered as such.

Most of a season shooting all my hybrid video on a tiny pocket Sony RX100v (before switching to its bigger brother RX100). 

Most of a season (photography only) with a single card slot, original X100 with a pocketful of batteries.

The tools I find are just the limitation.

The RX100 was fantastic…except it overheated all the time and was not great in low light.

The X100 produced the most sublime film-like images…but it was fixed 35mm and if stuck at the back of a church…

But the sole source of my income and a pretty decent one.

Some might argue it wasn’t actually very ‘professional’ of me to have relied on those ‘non-pro’ cameras, but exploration and pushing boundaries is part of the enjoyment for me.

Today I am a bit more cautious but still take a punt every now and again…

The other week I did so with a vintage zoom lens.

I got away with it but flipped it at the mid point of the 3 day job as I knew it wasn’t working as I would have hoped.

A professional making an arguably slightly unprofessional choice initially with an arguably non-pro piece of kit before making a professional decision to switch back to a more ‘pro’ piece of kit 😉

[kye]

7 hours ago, MrSMW said:

My definition also.

Some would add ‘conduct’ to that, but I think that that is a different definition of ‘professional’.

The tools are not a benchmark and someone else’s opinion does not matter.

Unless their opinion stops you from getting the or any other work with them.

I am a full-time ‘professional’ and have been for over 20 years but have used all kinds of kit that would not be considered as such.

Most of a season shooting all my hybrid video on a tiny pocket Sony RX100v (before switching to its bigger brother RX100). 

Most of a season (photography only) with a single card slot, original X100 with a pocketful of batteries.

The tools I find are just the limitation.

The RX100 was fantastic…except it overheated all the time and was not great in low light.

The X100 produced the most sublime film-like images…but it was fixed 35mm and if stuck at the back of a church…

But the sole source of my income and a pretty decent one.

Some might argue it wasn’t actually very ‘professional’ of me to have relied on those ‘non-pro’ cameras, but exploration and pushing boundaries is part of the enjoyment for me.

Today I am a bit more cautious but still take a punt every now and again…

The other week I did so with a vintage zoom lens.

I got away with it but flipped it at the mid point of the 3 day job as I knew it wasn’t working as I would have hoped.

A professional making an arguably slightly unprofessional choice initially with an arguably non-pro piece of kit before making a professional decision to switch back to a more ‘pro’ piece of kit 😉

There are obviously lots of definitions of 'professional' but one of the most important things I'd associate with someone being a professional would be the ability to get solid results out of even very modest equipment through applying their knowledge and skill built over years of experience.

Before I transitioned from stills to video I used to love watching those "Pro Photographer Cheap Camera Challenge" videos on Digitalrev with Kai and Lok.  Seeing how the pro photog would take the barbie camera (or whatever other completely ridiculous camera they were given) and take a test shot which looked average, then make 2 or 3 small adjustments and get a shot that really had something to it, it really was something to watch and enjoy, and try to learn something from.

[kye]

7 hours ago, MrSMW said:

Some would add ‘conduct’ to that, but I think that that is a different definition of ‘professional’.

I agree, and sadly, that seems to be a lot rarer than it should be.

[SRV1981]

Well then there’s no purpose in distinguishing pro and hobbyist as it seems we’ve deducted professional into a postmodern whatever we say it is. Not in a bad way just that good points were raised. 
 

the reality is what we have so we have to decide what we’re willing to accept and what makes sense for us. 
 

the fx30/a6700 makes a ton of sense for me when i dip back in. Small bodies for travel and compact lenses are hugely important for me as a non-paid user. Throwing it in a bag for a flight and filming is great and the aesthetics of the Sony image is desirable. The Fuji like burned me on AF for both video and photo.  Canon lens game is too pricey for a hobbyist like me. Panasonic is looking good but body and lens size are a bit big. 
 

all good points here 

[newfoundmass]

22 hours ago, SRV1981 said:

I’m not an engineer and I take it nobody else here is so this is just resentment and speculation. On my part as well. Trust me - I’d pay a little more for active heat dissipation/cooling. 

I mean, it doesn't take an engineer to come to the conclusion that Sony has made a calculated choice in releasing cameras that overheat. I think it's a very reasonable conclusion.

 

22 hours ago, SRV1981 said:

Still, I’m not convinced that non-pros are recording for 30 minutes at a clip. I’ve never seen it, I don’t see it on YT, I don’t do it, and anyone I know with a cam doesn’t either. The only folks I’ve seen film weddings, movies, or YT video podcasts. 

They do. But it also isn't really the point: they SHOULD be able to do it, whether they ever do or not. They're spending considerable money for a camera, it should function.

22 hours ago, SRV1981 said:

Curious, if a professional why not use a cinema camera? Are we using the word professional differently?

A professional is someone that, in my opinion, makes money from their craft and is knowledgeable of said craft.

Why would I use a cinema camera when my Lumix S5 setup gives me professional features and the reliability that I need for a fraction of the price? Mirrorless cameras (well, good ones anyway) are such versatile tools and are a much better investment. I will have spent less on my three S5 bodies than it would cost to buy one FX3, and that FX3 won't even have all the features that the S5 has packed into it despite it being a "cinema camera".

 

15 hours ago, Eric Calabros said:

The main problem with overheating is not the max time for recording. Its inconsistency and unpredictability. 

That's the other issue. Whether it's the overheating, or the recovery time, not having consistency or predictability is unacceptable, whether it's for professional or personal use. Have some respect and appreciation for your consumer.

[Andrew Reid]

On 8/8/2023 at 12:04 AM, Eric Calabros said:

This phone has active cooling fan.

Thickness and bulk is no longer an issue.

Yea, not using this tech looks intentional.

I tried that phone, it's really good... Redmagic 8S Pro?

These things are doing ProRes and 6K RAW video now and of course no overheating.

However they have much smaller sensors vs a mirrorless cam.

Which makes me think it is the sensor that gets too hot in something like the A6700, or that they are using an inefficient old LSI to cut costs... Or it is both.

Either way, it ain't cricket is it?