Sony FX6 Firmware 6.0 Announcement (BRAW Recording, Big Six Menu, No FX6 Mk2?)

[@spongedid2875]

From the Sony roadmap, it's not clear for me if the FX6 is already ready to output RAW for the videoassist or not... My understanding is that the only work to do is at Blackmagic

[@TheUnMarketingGroup]

Thank you for this summary. Some (hopefully positive) feedback - your 1/2 way through the video before getting to the new firmware. I get it, but we're pretty familiar with previous firmware.

[@igorzhidkov1957]

New firmware in 2026 means opposite to heavy investment by sony. It means couple junior software developers will try to bring some minor updates into firmware, and they have a whole year to do that.

[@danbrockettDOP]

As an FX6 and FX3 owner, none of these features are groundbreaking but fit more into the "nice to have" category for me. I don't really get the whole BRAW excitement? I guess it's a nice option but to use will require a sizable investment to buy a Video Assist when I already have a Ninja V that I don't use with the FX cameras at all anyway as the XAVC codecs look great. I do edit some projects in Resolve but I don't see enough significant, meaningful overall gains from editing BRAW over XAVC in Resolve. Will clients see any differences? No. Will BRAW take up a lot more storage room? Yes. Will shooting BRAW make my company any more money over shooting XAVC? No. So for me, meh. It is good to see that Sony doesn't seem to have plans to update my two cameras with MKII versions anytime soon. There really aren't any features that either camera lack that warrant updating for me. Big 6 is nice but not a big deal. The overlays thing is kind of nice I guess but I am looking at external monitors 98% of the time so meh for me. I approach this stuff as a business person first. Buy good gear, use your skills to shoot great projects for clients. Get paid. All of the camera nerding stuff is becoming less and less important by the day to me. 6k? Meh, not needed. Open gate? Wouldn't mind it but fortunately our clients are fine with shooting UHD or at times even 1080 and doing a vertical extract. It's nice to just be content with your gear instead of GAS and always wanting the new toys.

[@JedCamara]

As an owner of an FX6 and a Blackmagic 6K full frame I can push the BRAW much more and get nicer results when grading. It’s by far my favourite codec, can’t wait till it works on the fx6.

[@dathofilms]

BRAW on Sony would be sooo soo good.

[@danbrockettDOP]

If I may ask, why? What will shooting BRAW on a Sony do for your end product that XAVC can't give you? Just curious. BRAW is pretty heavily compressed, I like BRAW but I don't get the hysteria with Sony users over shooting it?

[@dathofilms]

@@danbrockettDOP Well, I am assuming it would give us 12BIT as BRAW holds more information on Blackmagics, I would assume that would be the case with Sony as well. Another factor I would conisder it that it would be direct sensor data, just like Prores RAW, which means no procession on the image, which XAVC has that sharpenning and most importantly noise reduction on 12800 ISO. And as addition, I would also say that BRAW was so much smoother playback on my Mac compare to Sonys codecs.

[@danbrockettDOP]

@ I shot an entire feature documentary in RAW and deeply regretted it. I’d guesstimate that only about 1-2% of people shooting RAW actually need it. Great for keys, composites or if you massively eff up and shoot incorrect white balances but other than that, the practical, noticeable benefits of shooting RAW video are simply overkill for most projects. My mindset is, does shooting RAW make me more money? No, it costs me more in drive space. Does it noticeably make footage look better to my clients? Heck no. As a mentor always said to me, “To what end?” I did shoot RAW for some green screen shoots for Hulu. The RAW really helped with challenging composites, was going for photo realism in the key and it helped a lot. But so many people are wasting space, money and time shooting RAW where it totally is a worse choice than just shooting regular footage. Task and purpose. If something I’m shooting will benefit from RAW, I’m all for it. But 95% of what I shoot, it’s superfluous.

[@dathofilms]

@@danbrockettDOP Great to know you do not need BRAW. I am super excited and can't wait for it.

[@danbrockettDOP]

@@dathofilms Long wait. Why does Sony put out FW notices more than year in advance? I’ve never seen another camera company do that, pretty strange. Guess it’s Sonys way of saying, “We’re not updating the FX3/6 until late 2026”?