Sony’s latest release Sony FX3 is said to be filmmaker’s first camera- that Sony A7S3 hailed for so long. But it’s the same camera as A7S3; it literally is same from inside the body. The simplest & cheapest cinema camera from Sony that costs $3,900 in the United States, and for $5,000 in Canada. The Indian price is not available yet & in official websites its labeled as ‘Coming Soon’.
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What it lacks
It have a On/Off switch on top left of the LCD display instead of rapping around the shutter. Because the shutter button now has the zoom control lever. You can use it for clear zooming on go. Unlike FX6 and FX9, this camera doesn’t have shutter angle, DCI 4K, true 24p, face-only autofocus-similar to Sony A7S3. Not even ND filters facility. Just can’t understand why Sony took ND filters from this model, the filters are so cool. The record button is illuminated & bigger. All other buttons & ports are pretty much similar except this doesn’t come with HDMI bracket protection.
What it have
It have tally lights on the front and back which is pretty. A new facility is that it comes with built-in fan. The fan is configurable in the menu and so are the tally lights. The main reason behind the fan is related to hot dissipation. Being a cinema camera it is bound to be used for longer periods and additionally if it’s in hotter environment, you can turn it ON that helps in cooling. Quite impressive to last long without overheating. Switch it OFF and it’s back to A7S3.
You can also adjust the Power Save Start Time in menu. It happens that we are shooting without shutting down the camera in between because we don’t want to miss anything. So in that moment our camera goes to power saving mode. The ‘Power Save Start Time’ can be turned OFF this never allowing the device to go to sleep. This is a new change to the last two Sony cameras. The prior models game maximum of 30 mins to shut down.
Another huge change is that the device do not have an electronic viewfinder which means you always have to use the full flip LCD screen. It does have the same modes like A7S3 that can be changed using ‘Mode’ button on the back. Also have an impressive white balance facility that other FX3 stop series models lack. It precisely calculates the white balance and can be set before shooting. The new have the same dynamic range as the former with S-Cinetone log profile. It captures Full-Frame beautiful image & recording video at 4K@120fps & 1080p@240fps.
What’s the new thing?
The joystick is on top that can be weird for the grip hence, need to build a habit of shooting at hip level. The record button is illuminated & bigger. The other buttons & ports are pretty much the same except this doesn’t come with HDMI bracket protection. The main attraction to its release is that the top attached handle which first slides into the multi-interface shoe on the top of the body. It is then screwed down. The handle then replaces those two occupied holes with three new ones on the grip , that includes the audio interface.
The sturdy build handle have a selector switch to enable/disable the K3M switch without any need to remove the handle- a smart move. But yes, it gives you the feel of a RED Cinema camera because of its handle grip style. If you are planning to buy the Sony A7S3 & the XLR-K3M & not use the viewfinder then FX3 will be less costly that way.
