Sony announces FX9 4K camcorder with 6K fullframe sensor

[Run&Gun]

I wouldn't want to do a 12 hour reality TV show shoot with an Amira on my shoulder all day (which I don't do that, because why would I want to do a 12 hour reality TV shoulder mounting with any camera? ), but for say a narrative film, commercial, doc/corporate (interviews and short b-roll), etc., having a 30 lb camera on my shoulder for 5-10 minutes at a time typically isn't so tough. And if you can't handle that weight for a short period, probably good to either hit the gym or grow 20 years younger. More weight equals more inertia which means more organically stable footage without having to rely on artificial looking stabilization like optical IS, electronic IS, or a gimbal.





Yeah, I mostly use 280w batteries with my Amira which last around 4 hours (also powering a SmallHD and sometimes other accessories). Four hours is long enough for me to not be complaining, about the same amount of time I get with the larger BPA-60 batteries on my C300s.

Yeah, I wouldn't want to do a 12 hour reality show with anything, because I hate reality shows. But like you said, too, realistic shooting scenarios, you're fine with "heavy", well-balanced cameras. I did BTS on a commercial a few months ago and I used my Vari and there were plenty of times, especially during the first day, where I'd just leave the camera on my shoulder when not rolling, because it was balanced. There was no fighting it, even though it was 25lb+. I would have wasted more energy putting it down and picking it back up again. Obviously I'm not talking about an hour of down time, but if nothing was going on for a few minutes, it was fine sitting up there.

 

[Grug]

So, there is a recorder. It's just that it won't be made by Sony but rather in cooperation with Sony.

But they ain't talking about it yet. At least, not loudly. But without it, the whole extension unit makes no sense.

It sounds like a recorder is very much TBD at this stage.

I get the impression the extension unit is primarily targeted at ENG/Broadcasters for the wireless audio receiver slot.

 

[davedv]

It sounds like a recorder is very much TBD at this stage.

There was discussion of the RAW output and recording situation earlier in this thread. I posted a summary here:
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthrea...sensor&p=1986802516&highlight=#post1986802516

The short of it is that the only external RAW recording option announced to-date is the Atomos Neon monitor recorder line (the smallest of which is 17-inches) with a modular recording unit upgrade (8K MCU) for the Neon. The pricing and release date for this Neon 8K MCU upgrade has not been announced, but the base 17-inch Neon costs $3995 by itself.

 

[Grug]

There was discussion of the RAW output and recording situation earlier in this thread. I posted a summary here:
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthrea...sensor&p=1986802516&highlight=#post1986802516

The short of it is that the only external RAW recording option announced to-date is the Atomos Neon monitor recorder line (the smallest of which is 17-inches) with a modular recording unit upgrade (8K MCU) for the Neon. The pricing and release date for this Neon 8K MCU upgrade has not been announced, but the base 17-inch Neon costs $3995 by itself.

Which is obviously a case of the Neon being the only unit they have with the hardware capability to be adapted to receive the raw signal from the camera. No one is actually going to be buying a 17" monitor to use as an onboard raw recorder with the FX9. They'll have to come up with an onboard option, which is TBD.

 

[DLD]

I'll opine that the TBD - Grug can claim credit for the name - will have to accommodate not only FX9 and FX6 but the inevitable 8K model. But the 8K model would not be above ~ $25,000. Anything higher would have to have a high end pro recorder with a greater redundancy. That would be my version of their roadmap for the TBD.

 

[JPNola]

I wouldn't want to do a 12 hour reality TV show shoot with an Amira on my shoulder all day (which I don't do that, because why would I want to do a 12 hour reality TV shoulder mounting with any camera? ), but for say a narrative film, commercial, doc/corporate (interviews and short b-roll), etc., having a 30 lb camera on my shoulder for 5-10 minutes at a time typically isn't so tough. And if you can't handle that weight for a short period, probably good to either hit the gym or grow 20 years younger. More weight equals more inertia which means more organically stable footage without having to rely on artificial looking stabilization like optical IS, electronic IS, or a gimbal.





Yeah, I mostly use 280w batteries with my Amira which last around 4 hours (also powering a SmallHD and sometimes other accessories). Four hours is long enough for me to not be complaining, about the same amount of time I get with the larger BPA-60 batteries on my C300s.

Good to see you on the forum again, Eric.

I also don't worry about power-draw of cameras all that much. Back in "the day" it was standard to go through 4 big brick batts in a day's shooting. If I am not mistaken the Amira and the Fx9 draw about the same as the widely used PDW 700 disc-camera from the 2/3-inch era. And people regularly shot reality-tv with those cameras. With microwave transmitters on the cameras sucking even more power.

 

[Gary T]

Which is obviously a case of the Neon being the only unit they have with the hardware capability to be adapted to receive the raw signal from the camera. No one is actually going to be buying a 17" monitor to use as an onboard raw recorder with the FX9. They'll have to come up with an onboard option, which is TBD.

I'm not so sure there will be a better RAW recording solution. Atomos's Jeromy Young mentioned at IBC that the Neon would need faster SSDs to capture the FX9's RAW. Current SATA SSDs could easily capture the compressed RAW coming from the F5 and F55 so it sounds like Sony could be expecting Atomos to capture uncompressed 16-bit RAW.

There is precedent for Sony limited RAW recording with third party recorder. My understanding is that with the FS700 both the Shogun and Odyssey 7Q which were not allowed to record that camera's compressed RAW signal.

I'm starting to think Sony might not want RAW recording to be easy or make sense on the FX9. Atomos says they will be able to capture "16bit RAW from the FX9 to our Neon cinema monitor-recorders." If Sony wanted to allow the FX9 to record 4K 16-bit linear RAW they could just let the FX9 record to the R7 and R5.

I think Sony don't want the FX9 to compete with their Cinema line any more than it already will. That helps explain why the only acknowledged recording solution is desktop monitor-recorder combo that Atomos estimates will cost around $9K. Maybe something smaller and cheaper may eventually come along but I certainly wouldn't buy the FX9 expecting Sony to deliver anything besides the Neon as a RAW recorder.

 

[Grug]

I'm not so sure there will be a better RAW recording solution. Atomos's Jeromy Young mentioned at IBC that the Neon would need faster SSDs to capture the FX9's RAW. Current SATA SSDs could easily capture the compressed RAW coming from the F5 and F55 so it sounds like Sony could be expecting Atomos to capture uncompressed 16-bit RAW.

There is precedent for Sony limited RAW recording with third party recorder. My understanding is that with the FS700 both the Shogun and Odyssey 7Q which were not allowed to record that camera's compressed RAW signal.

I'm starting to think Sony might not want RAW recording to be easy or make sense on the FX9. Atomos says they will be able to capture "16bit RAW from the FX9 to our Neon cinema monitor-recorders." If Sony wanted to allow the FX9 to record 4K 16-bit linear RAW they could just let the FX9 record to the R7 and R5.

I think Sony don't want the FX9 to compete with their Cinema line any more than it already will. That helps explain why the only acknowledged recording solution is desktop monitor-recorder combo that Atomos estimates will cost around $9K. Maybe something smaller and cheaper may eventually come along but I certainly wouldn't buy the FX9 expecting Sony to deliver anything besides the Neon as a RAW recorder.

To add to that, Atomos have something of a history of announcing raw support for cameras in their recorders, and then said support never actually arriving.

But yeah, I'd say "TBD" sums it up at the moment.

 

[DLD]

... There is precedent for Sony limited RAW recording with third party recorder. My understanding is that with the FS700 both the Shogun and Odyssey 7Q which were not allowed to record that camera's compressed RAW signal...

There are posters who are very familiar with the Odyssey. IIRC, it wasn't what it could capture; the debate was what it could output. At first, it was Cinema DNG only, then ProRes after all the kinks were ironed out to Apple's satisfaction. Now, Apple has ProRes Raw but Sony has X-OCN to counter it and a TBD would be competing as well as complementing Sony's own product. And they would rather have TBD do the complementing part only, i.e., they want it to help it sell more FX9's and FX6's. A good-but-not-great solution would be a TBD that takes the uncompressed 16-bit but then compresses it internally into manageable file sizes and great-but-not-Venice-quality-if-you-pixel-peep images.

 

[Gary T]

There are posters who are very familiar with the Odyssey. IIRC, it wasn't what it could capture; the debate was what it could output.

Years ago I shot with the Odyssey 7Q and I currently use a Shogun Inferno. With both units it has always been about what the recorders can read AND what they can capture. As Mitch noted in the post linked below, Sony asked Convergent Design not to record the FS700's compressed RAW signal forcing CD to capture uncompressed CDNG files.

This is the precedent I was referencing. Sony honored their promise to allow RAW recording with the FS700 but they went out of their way to make sure recording the camera's compressed RAW on third party recorders wasn't possible. The fact that Atomos is talking about much higher data rates to record the FX9's signal suggest it may also be true here as well.

My point is Sony is in control of how the RAW signals from their cameras is recorded. If I were looking at the FX9 I wouldn't assume Sony is going to make it easy to record it's compressed 16-bit linear RAW since Sony has already said the camera won't be compatible with the R7. I think this is consistent with Sony's view of the FX9 as a handheld camcorder and it is not a member of their Digital Cinema line.

I'm not bashing the FX9 and as I've said before I think it will likely be quite successful the way it ships in February. I'm just not sure it will ever be easy to record RAW on it.

We do not change the nature of the signal we receive from the camera. ARRIRAW is faithfully ARRIRAW, Canon RAW is faithfully Canon RAW, and Sony FS700 -- well we do change that one. Sony asked us not to use their file format so we instead change it to Cinema DNG. But otherwise we leave such things alone. That is unless we're converting it to video.

 

[DLD]

That's (roughly) the way I see it too. But I do think there's enough room for compromise here without going to X-OCN and the AXS cards - two CFexpress slots or two internal SSD's recording in parallel can deliver compressed 6K Raw up to a certain frame rate.

 

[dadoboy]

I checked the FX9 out at Cinegear Atlanta yesterday. The rolling shutter was not as bad as most DSLRs and mirrorless SLRs, not BM pocket camera bad, but neither was it good enough for a professional video camera. Obviously, the sensor is based off one of their SLR sensors. What was Sony thinking when they thought up this product? Why would I choose the FX9 over the FS7 II, or even the lowly Canon C200, just for the full frame view without a Metabones? They were showing the C500 II at the Canon booth and I was impressed by its low light / high ISO capabilities, and the rolling shutter was a lot better. The chip they told me was the same as the one in the C700. Not even considering the built in RAW advantages of the C500 II, it's not worth it when I can get the FS7 II for a lot less, or the C500 II for some more.

EDIT: a few blogs claim the FX9 sensor is Global Shutter. Hard to believe with the amount of rolling shutter I saw.

 

[Newsguy]

For the new color, the dual ISO, the fact that at 12,800 ISO you can get usable images. Full frame is great for some situations, then switch to S35 for run and gun stuff.

 

[Grug]

I checked the FX9 out at Cinegear Atlanta yesterday. The rolling shutter was not as bad as most DSLRs and mirrorless SLRs, not BM pocket camera bad, but neither was it good enough for a professional video camera. Obviously, the sensor is based off one of their SLR sensors. What was Sony thinking when they thought up this product? Why would I choose the FX9 over the FS7 II, or even the lowly Canon C200, just for the full frame view without a Metabones? They were showing the C500 II at the Canon booth and I was impressed by its low light / high ISO capabilities, and the rolling shutter was a lot better. The chip they told me was the same as the one in the C700. Not even considering the built in RAW advantages of the C500 II, it's not worth it when I can get the FS7 II for a lot less, or the C500 II for some more.

EDIT: a few blogs claim the FX9 sensor is Global Shutter. Hard to believe with the amount of rolling shutter I saw.

How would you rate the C500ii's rolling shutter compared to current S35mm cameras? Was it just better than the FX9 or solid in it's own right?

 

[JPNola]

I checked the FX9 out at Cinegear Atlanta yesterday. The rolling shutter was not as bad as most DSLRs and mirrorless SLRs, not BM pocket camera bad, but neither was it good enough for a professional video camera. Obviously, the sensor is based off one of their SLR sensors - or it may be the same - the A9II?? What was Sony thinking when they thought up this product? Why would I choose the FX9 over the FS7 II, or even the lowly Canon C200, just for the full frame view without a Metabones? They were showing the C500 II at the Canon booth and I was impressed by its low light / high ISO capabilities, and the rolling shutter was a lot better. The chip they told me was the same as the one in the C700. Not even considering the built in RAW advantages of the C500 II, it's not worth it when I can get the FS7 II for a lot less, or the C500 II for some more.

I note that you characterized the $2000 savings between the Fs7M2 and the Fx9 as "a lot less", while you characterized the $5000 increase from the Fx9 to the C500MkII as "some more".

$2000- "a LOT less"

$5000- merely "some" more.


____________

"Why would I choose the FX9 over the FS7 II, or even the lowly Canon C200, just for the full frame view without a Metabones?"

For the true 4k, for the higher rez lcd, for the dual native ISO, for the better color science ( Cineform ), for the improved control grip, for the better AF than that of the Fs7M2, for the slot-receiver capability, for the proxy recording to SD card capability, for the Fx9's ability to apply a viewing-LUT while in S&Q, for the Fx9's ability to send a feed to a smartphone. Any or all of that, and maybe also for the cool ARRI-like space-grey body.

____________

"They were showing the C500 II at the Canon booth and I was impressed by its low light / high ISO capabilities"

Early feedback from some who have demo'd both is that the Fx9 is a better low-light performer than the C500MkII.


____________


"What was Sony thinking when they thought up this product? "

A rhetorical question, obviously. But let's address it anyway...

"I know a lot of people will be comparing these two cameras. But it should be blatantly obvious by now that the Sony FX9 and Canon C500 Mark II are meant for two different markets.

It is pretty clear that the design goals of the Canon C500 Mark II lean more towards a two-person operation while the Sony FX9 leans firmly towards a one-person operation. Both can be used by a single shooter, but the FX9 is more friendly for all kinds of video work when you are a one-person operation.

Are you a solo shooter on a tight budget?

If yes, then the Sony FX9 is the right investment for you. Factor in everything and the C500 Mark II is still a few thousand dollars more expensive. And what you get are:

6K
RAW internally

Both of these features are good to have, but don’t really contribute to food on the table. Not many clients pay extra for 6K or RAW workflows. Not only does it add to the cost of the camera, but also the time to work with RAW and the cost of additional storage and processing power.



https://wolfcrow.com/sony-fx9-vs-canon-c500-mark-ii-which-is-the-best-camera-for-video-and-filmmaking/

 

[JPNola]

EDIT: a few blogs claim the FX9 sensor is Global Shutter. Hard to believe with the amount of rolling shutter I saw.

The Fx9 has a rolling shutter. There currently isn’t a full frame camera with a native global shutter, or so I just read.



Here is some Fx9 sample footage put online a couple of days ago:

 

[Newsguy]

To be honest I’m almost positive that isn’t actual FX9 footage. That channel is about as reputable as a Chinatown purse.

 

[Grug]

The Fx9 has a rolling shutter. There currently isn’t a full frame camera with a native global shutter, or so I just read.

Venice doesn't "technically" have a global shutter. But they've worked some kind of voodoo on it - because there is zero shutter skew, even on whip pans.

 

[JPNola]

To be honest I’m almost positive that isn’t actual FX9 footage. That channel is about as reputable as a Chinatown purse.

Good call, Newsguy! I did some sleuthing online and found another video that reveals the clips were shot with a Sony Fs5.

My apologies to all. It didn't even occur to me that anyone would lie about such a thing. Anything for hits, I guess.

 

[Newsguy]

He debunked his own video haha.