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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Sony FX9 - Wow

D

Derek Doublin

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So, I wasn't really considering the FX9 as my next purchased as I was currently weighing between the C500 II and the Gemini, but this test is pretty incredible. It looks like Sony have not only fixed their weird color science, but when it comes to color gamut, the ACS have found it to produce the best result of any digital cinema camera that has been tested to date. Yes, they claim the FX9 even beats Red and Arri in these regards. Pretty crazy.

Additionally, the Venice's Cinetone profile (best seen at the 10:00 mark) looks absolutely stunning as well. Hard to believe I'm looking at a Sony image there. In that section of the video, the female model's skintones really do look like they're from an Alexa. The rolloff is absolutely beautiful and you can see true red in her dress. Very impressed. The FX9 looks like it's a real contender, especially at that price.

Lastly, at 14:15 they go into depth about the autofocus and there seems to be some really cool AF features in the FX9 that I wasn't aware of, like a hybrid AF/MF assist. With this feature you can manually rack to whatever you want, and then the camera will predict where you're going with it, see that you've gotten close to your goal, and then pick up the rack at the end so it can fine tune things and hit your focus point on the money. This sounds so very cool to me. It essentially gives you all the benefits of manual focus control while making sure you land on your mark at the end of every pull. And apparently it even works for objects as well. I mean, who wouldn't want that?

Overall, this is the first real review of this camera that has me considering the FX9 as my next purchase. Looking forward to more tests between this and the C500 II...

https://www.newsshooter.com/2020/01/02/acs-technical-committee-evaluation-of-the-sony-fx9/
 
Color-wise Sony is doing good things. Their Highlight Clipping is a telling sign that works needs to be done however (even seen in the shot you are referencing), it's similar on the Venice. Used in range though you'll be getting some nice imagery.

AF is indeed interesting and looking forward to it advancing further even though I personally won't necessarily need it, it will be a nice tool to have.
 
I agree the Sony FX9 does look interesting. Nice to have the option of 4K s35 and at full frame. Better colour science than we have seen from Sony in the past and impressive auto focus for those situations that require it. Also the dual ISO make is incredibly versatile. Definitely looking to upgrade my Fs7 as soon as the Fx9 is available here.
 
crazy around the 10 min mark how much better the fs7 sees highlights than the fx9 in that comparison. Sunny in one, cloudy in the other? its so far off it cant be right.
 
damn what lens are they on at 21:56? thats INSANE CA
 
IMHO the chromatic problems on the whater bubbles is due to partial debayer of the image.
I think it's because it's slowmotion and it takes a half debayer or does pixel binning when in slowmo.

Pat
 
Domenic Barbero said:
damn what lens are they on at 21:56? thats INSANE CA
Click to expand...

Domenic,

Initially that was my thought on the purple fringing but Patrick is probably correct as we were also unofficially advised that it is a debayer issue when down sampling and running the camera at high frame rates. Apparently these artefacts can also be seen on the FS7 under the same circumstances. Please note that on the seawater foam shot at 21:56 I have pushed the saturation hard emphasising the purple fringing. If you pixel peep you can also see some of the debayer artefacts in the metal bangles the girl is wearing when she is facing into the sun.

Lenses on the beach shoot were Sony G Series. I used the 24-70mm f2.8 zoom, 70-200mm f2.8 and the the 24mm f1.4. These were good performers. The 28-135mm f4 kit lens while being super practical was uninspiring.

Domenic the highlight retention difference you see on the “interview setup” is mostly a function of the S-Cinetone on the FX9 with its softer highlight roll off compared to the 709-5 setup on the FS7. In our under and overs test shooting S Log and no LUTS the FX9 saw most of its DR improvement in the shadows.

In context of its price the FX9 is very impressive and Red’s Komodo will have to be equally impressive to compete. But I will qualify that if you drill down into the image of the FX9 you see the signal processing and the compression from the XAVC codec. You don’t see the same thing with Red Cameras. But if I had a high end doco to shoot the FX9 would be a serious contender but if I had a top end drama project the FX9 would not be on the top of my list.
 
Would anyone know if the current version of the Sony FE PZ 28-135 f4 G Lens has had any tweaks or changes since it was introduced a few years ago?
 
Tom Gleeson said:
Apparently these artefacts can also be seen on the FS7 under the same circumstances. Please note that on the seawater foam shot at 21:56 I have pushed the saturation hard emphasising the purple fringing. If you pixel peep you can also see some of the debayer artefacts in the metal bangles the girl is wearing when she is facing into the sun.
Click to expand...

This debayer artefact tipically happens also on a R3D (and on all CMOS) when some highcontrast/colors are present in the picture and the debayer isn't set to full.
 
Had a quick play with my friend's FX9 last night. Seems there's little to no penalty to shooting in 4kS35. Noise at high ISO's show little to no chroma subsampling.
Noise is muted/monochromatic as far as I could tell, a major improvement over FS7.

White balance in S.Cinetone seemed to have a mild bias toward green.
Need more time to test and shoot with the camera.
 
Tom Gleeson said:
Domenic,

Initially that was my thought on the purple fringing but Patrick is probably correct as we were also unofficially advised that it is a debayer issue when down sampling and running the camera at high frame rates. Apparently these artefacts can also be seen on the FS7 under the same circumstances. Please note that on the seawater foam shot at 21:56 I have pushed the saturation hard emphasising the purple fringing. If you pixel peep you can also see some of the debayer artefacts in the metal bangles the girl is wearing when she is facing into the sun.
Click to expand...

Did you see those artefacts in Slog-3/S-Gamut3.Cine ?
 
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This stuff from the FX9 looks absolutely stunning. Highlight rolloff looks beautiful. Very cinematic stuff. Venice color profile looks great. It really does look like Sony has fixed their weird color issues of the past. There is still a slight biased towards green, but it's not unpleasant. It actually looks quite nice.

I think this is some of the most "cinematic" stuff I've seen with the camera to date. The highlight rolloff is just lovely...

https://vimeo.com/383382022

https://vimeo.com/384441991
 
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I’m all for the FX9, the FS7 was always well talked about and an FS700 and FS5 were in the running to film my first feature and we even considered the A7S too for the full frame low light factor. This camera seems to combine all of of those aspects into one camera and with the 4K down sampling it’s almost like a simplified F65 setup, which still looks great itself. My only problem is that there isn’t an option for getting the full 6K out of it and the RAW output is still up in the air at this point as I worry about potential pitfalls and weirdness in the RAW footage like the FS7 notoriously had. Otherwise it’s a great option and all of these great footage samples are proving that more and more.

As for the image artifacts in high speed situations, that’s something I’ve always expected as even in the SD and HD days, more defects in the image became apparent when filmed at higher frames per second, even in “The Hobbit” movies at 48fps a lot of unnecessary details and lighting effects became more noticeable whereas 24p hid a lot of it. It’s a shame that we’re still having to deal with technical limitations on that point but someone will figure it out at some point I’m sure.
 
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