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After months of rumors circulating around the Internet, yesterday Sony finally revealed the newest shooter they’ve been working on. Meet the new FX5 compact cinema camera, which serves as a mesh of both the FX3 and the FX6 cameras—essentially serving as a middle ground for creators and professional videographers. The company calls the FX5 a ‘Hollywood handheld camera,’ which weighs only 1.62 lbs, and it is armed with the proper specs to become a reality.
Sony equipped it with a new 16.6MP 5K full-frame and fully stacked Exmor RS CMOS sensor and powered its latest BIONZ XR2 image processor with an integrated AI processing unit, capable of internal X-OCN raw recording via Sony’s own proprietary codec. The latter is capable of providing 16-bit linear RAW recording with 280 trillion colors and 1,000 times more color data than 12-bit ProRes RAW or Canon’s 12-bit C-RAW offerings.
Sony also equips it with an optional and tilting OLED electronic viewfinder with 3.68 million dots and 2,500 nits of brightness in addition to its 3.5-inch 16:9 four-axis articulating display. It’s also armed with a 5-axis in-body image stabilization and AI-powered autofocus and white balance and can record 4K @ 240fps, 4.5K @ 120fps, and 5K @ 60fps video (which are firsts for Sony’s FX cameras). Also new are its three base ISO settings at 800, 4,000, and 12,800, which allow for better dynamic range (up to 16 stops), cleaner shadows, and crisp sharpness. Sony also added some stabilization with an updated Dynamic Active mode for smooth video when walking.
As far as its input/output, the FX5 has dual CFexpress Type A/SDXC card slots, utilizes the newer high-capacity NP-SA100 2670 mAh battery (which is quoted at delivering up to 130 mins of recording), a set of two USB-C ports for charging, full-sized HDMI and Ethernet ports, a mic and headphone port, and tri-band Wi-Fi.
The FX5 starts at $4,900, or you can opt for the kit with an XLR handle for $5,500 or simply buy the XLR handle separately for $798. Pre-orders are already open, and it’s set to arrive sometime in mid-August. Also coming soon is an upcoming software update in 2027, which will add RAW video at a higher frame rate and vertical shooting support.
