USER REVI EW | SONY FS5 I I
SONY’S INDIE WINNER The FS5 II gets upgrades, including some previously paid for options, to make it even more attractive as a do-all workhorse for independent filmmakers PRICE £5099/$6485
WORDS & PICTURES ADAM DUCKWORTH
plus four seconds of 120fps footage in 4K, which is buffered. It’s like the FS7 – but faster. A second £568/$499 HFR firmware upgrade also allows the camera to record 120fps continuously in HD. So that’s a cool grand or more on top of the camera price, but for many it was worth it to squeeze the ultimate quality out of such a small package. MARK II Now Sony has revealed the FS5 Mark II, and on the surface there are few
higher-quality images at higher bit rates, with lots more colour information. The FS5 codec may not be the ultimate in quality, but that didn’t bother many clued-up filmmakers who invested £520/$499 in Sony’s Raw firmware. This enables the option to output full-size Raw footage from the SDI port to an external recorder. You can also simultaneously record HD footage to your FS5’s memory card (for an instant backup) and 240fps to an external recorder, without buffering,
ony has enjoyed huge sales with the FS5 cinema camera, and no wonder. It’s about half
ABOVE On the outside, little has changed from the original FS5 – but as the saying goes: it’s what’s inside that counts...
the bulk and a significantly lower price than the FS7 II, yet has the same Super35 sensor and E-mount, and writes to cheap SD cards. It can be rigged up as a full-size cinema camera or stripped down for run- and-gun use. COMPARE AND CONTRAST Of course, there’s a reason the FS7 body is more expensive – it outputs
62 DEF I N I T ION | JANUARY 20 1 9
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