Sony dropped the F bomb: announces F5, F55 4K cameras

by Sebastian WöberOctober 30^th, 2012

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This is a guest post by Nino Leitner. Read on for a full in depth look at Sony’s new cinema line of cameras.

Introduction

After teasing us for ages, Sony today announced what has already been all over town:

The Sony F5 & F55 cameras were just announced, alongside an entire range of workflow infrastructure that goes along with. It is one of the most massive announcements of new cameras to date, with Sony showing of a lot of “F” squarely aimed at challenging Red with their Epic, Canon with their C300/C500 and even Arri with their Alexa. Sony is truly flexing their muscles and showing off what they do best, providing entire production pipelines to go along with their cameras.

There’s a completely new codec, a 4K 30 inch monitor, new and faster SxS cards for high frame rate acquisition of this new codec (XAVC, see below), an all-new lineup of their prime lenses, even new batteries. Insane!

But let’s start with the most important bit …

Sony F5 & F55
The two cameras feature the same exact body and 4K sensor, with the only visible difference being the silver ring around the mount of the F55. The F5 is positioned as a direct competitor to the C500, with 1080p/2K internal recording at up to 120fps. I have to add that both the F5 and the F55 seem to ship with “only” up to 60fps 1080p at the beginning, but with a “planned free upgrade” they will be able to shoot 120fps in XAVC 2k/HD on board (F5/F55), and 120fps raw with the optional AXS-R5 outboard recorder. The F55 will be able to record up to 180fps internally in XAVC 2K/HD, and 240fps 2K raw with the AXS-R5. Confusing!

Here are Sony’s details on the F5 frame rates:

High speed shooting at up to 120 fps in 2K
From stunts and explosions to the fall of a single raindrop, high-speed shooting is a powerful storytelling tool.

• 60 fps out of the box (XAVC HD).
• 120 fps with a planned upgrade (XAVC 2K/HD). Unique to this process, there is no line skipping or sensor windowing. So there’s no crop factor, no loss in angle of view.
• 120 fps 2K RAW, with the optional AXS-R5 outboard recorder and a planned upgrade, achieves high frame rates while retaining exceptional, 16-bit image quality. This not only exceeds 12-bit RAW with 16 times as many Red, Green and Blue gradations. By design, it exceeds the capabilities of human vision!

F55 frame rates:

High speed shooting at up to 240 fps in 2K
From stunts and explosions to the fall of a single raindrop, high-speed shooting is a powerful storytelling tool.

• 60 fps out of the box (XAVC HD at launch; XAVC 4K, QFHD and 2K with a planned upgrade)
• 180 fps with a planned upgrade (XAVC 2K/HD). Unique to this process, there is no line skipping or sensor windowing. So there’s no crop factor, no loss in angle of view.
• 240 fps 2K RAW, with the optional AXS-R5 outboard recorder and a planned upgrade, achieves the highest frame rates most productions will need, while retaining exceptional, 16-bit image quality. This not only exceeds 12-bit RAW with 16 times as many Red, Green and Blue gradations. By design, it exceeds the capabilities of human vision!

The Sony AXS-R5 raw recorder
(rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?) for 4K raw with the F5

Only the F55 will be able to record 4K internally, also in the new XAVC codec. The F5 needs the external recorder for 4K acquisition – just like a C500. With the biggest difference being that Canon doesn’t do their own recorder, meaning that you have to get a third-party solution like the upcoming KiPro Quad or the Gemini 444 recorder with its promised 4k upgrade. The downside? Cables running from the camera to the recorder, and that’s the main problem I have with external recorders. Sony’s new AXS-R5 recorder (how do they come up with these names, seriously??) just sticks on the back of the F5/F55 without any fuss – very neat solution indeed!

The F5 ONLY outputs 4K in raw … there seems to be no possibility to the 4K XAVC codec out of the F5. For the output, both cameras feature 4 SDI-ports.

Sony says both the F5 and F55 have a 14 stop exposure latitude. If this holds true it will on par or even beat Canon, very impressive. And in 16 bit colour depth.

The native mount is the FZ mount like on the F3, but with an included PL adapter.

Global Shutter in the F55

Sony has impressively pulled off something that we have been waiting for years since the first CMOS sensors were introduced: they managed to build a global electronic shutter for their F55, meaning that this camera will know no rolling shutter artifacts like we have them on all other CMOS based cameras to a certain degree. That means it is possible to use this cameras much more easily for fast movement and action shoots. No more skewed buildings, trucks and so on! This is a massive development and hopefully it will find its way into all new cameras sooner or later. It was probably the only still remaining downside of CMOS sensors compared to traditional CCD sensors.

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