How good is Sony's Electronic Variable ND?

[DougJensen]

Sometimes I hear people say that Sony's revolutionary Electronic Neutral Density Filter (found on the FX6, FX9, Z280, etc.) affects the picture quality and isn't as good as using a traditional glass ND filter. So I decided to shoot a few test shots with my FX6 to see if that was true or not. In these split-screen tests, the Variable ND Filter (set to 1/8 ND) is on one side of the screen . . . and a very good Tiffen .9 ND filter (3-stops) is on the other. Both were shot with the exact same camera settings (S-LOG3) and only very minor adjustments have been made in Resolve to fine-tune and match the exposures. Having the white card in the shot helped me match exposures and check for white balance variations -- there were none Can you tell which is which?