SONY FS5 I I | USER REVI EW
SPECI F I CAT IONS SENSOR: EXMOOR SUPER35 CMOS FORMATS: XAVC, QFHD: MP4 AVC/H.264, 4:2:0 LONG PROFILE; XAVC HD: MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 4:2:2 LONG PROFILE; AVCHD: MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 AVCHD FORMAT COMPATIBLE, RAW FRAME RATES: 1-23.98/25/29.97 QFHD, 1-23.98/25/29.97/50/59.9 4/100/120/200/ 240/400/ 480/800/960 HD MAX BITRATE AT 24P: 100MBPS STORAGE: 2X SDXC SLOTS MOUNT: SONY E ND: BUILT-IN VARIABLE ND FILTERS PLUS 4-STAGE OPTICAL ND OUTPUT: HDMI, 12G SDI ISO: 500-6400 WEIGHT: 830g/1.83LB
it to the camera, as well as batteries and a charger for the Atomos.) So it’s a significant investment, but you get a seven-inch monitor/recorder and lots of memory space. You’ll need it, as recording Raw or converting Raw from the camera to an editable format like ProRes or ProResRaw takes up vast amounts of space. For example, if you record XAVC-L UHD (3840x2160) internally at 30fps in 100Mbps, an hour of footage takes up roughly 60GB of space. If you were shooting it in Raw 4K at the full size of 4096x2160 at 30fps, the data streams at 3GB/s, so an hour would fill 1.5TB of hard drive space. If you shot at the maximum
ABOVE For version 2 of the Sony FS5 there are minimal cosmetic changes, a black ND dial is one.
changes. The most obvious is that the camera is cheaper than the FS5 was a year ago, and comes with the Raw and high frame rate upgrade free as standard – a big saving. Externally, the only difference is the new badge and the black (rather than silver) ND dial. If you don’t want the expense and hassle of recording Raw externally, the camera also has a new colour processor that makes images recorded internally look far more natural. It’s based on the algorithms from the full-frame Sony Venice cinema camera, and it makes a big difference. You can’t upgrade the original FS5 to do this. For pure quality you’ll still want to use the Raw output, and will need a monitor/recorder that offers support, such as the Convergent Design Odyssey Q7+ or Atomos Shogun Inferno. The Odyssey is £1560/$1495 and needs a further purchase of a ProRes licence for £750/$999, compared to the Atomos at £1350/$1295, which includes ProRes. For Final Cut Pro X users, the Atomos can convert Raw files to the new ProResRaw format. SSD You also need to budget for an SSD to record onto, which can easily cost £200/$250 for a 480GB version that’s fast enough to cope, and a dedicated card reader. Add an SDI lead and, potentially, Atomos’ own HDMI cable if you want to use the recorder for HD recording. (You’ll also need some sort of small ball head to attach
“EXTERNALY, THE ONLY DIFFERENCE IS THE NEW BADGE AND THE BLACK ND DIAL”
JANUARY 20 1 9 | DEF I N I T ION 63
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