With the possibility to use focal reducers on the low budget route, I restarted to do some researches about Sony cameras. Also the Sony full frame is improving a lot so it deserves some attention. Used NEX are very cheap at this moment so I downloaded some native mts clips to confirm if the aliasing/moire problem was that bad or not. I am doing some tests with deinterlace and also found the QTGMC which can do 60i to 60p conversion and/or remove 24p and 60p progressive shimmering with promissing results, it seems to be a good approach to solve the aliasing in old NEX cameras.

For my surprise I found in the waveform that the Sony NEX F3 and 5N can record highlights up to 109 IRE, almost 10% above 100, and this 109 value can be lowered to under 100 in post to a nice improvement in dynamic range avoiding highlight clip. It is amazing how good results from lowering 109 to under 100 can delivery just lowering video gain to 91 or 93 %. It does not turn the highlights into a grey mass, there is gradation and texture in the super whites.

This super white combined with DRO (5 levels of shadow lifting) can give a interesting dynamic range result. If the QTGMC can reduce the aliasing and shimmering to an acceptable level the old cheap NEX will become very useful with the lens turbo, more wide, 1 fstop more light. The iso 1600 from the old NEX cleans OK with Neatvideo.

It seems there is a new life to the old cheap NEX-F3 for who cannot afford the new A7s or the new A6000.

Interesting reading about the super white 109 ire and sony S-LOG 2 1300% dynamic range:

http://blog.abelcine.com/2013/01/18/sonys-s-log2-and-dynamic-range-percentages/