Sony FX9 vs Canon C500 II.. First Impressions

𝗦𝗼𝗻𝘆 𝗙𝗫𝟵 𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 - it's a baby Venice, but a more advanced Venice that doesn't do as much as a Venice in some directions and way more stuff in the other areas. Positioned squarely against the C500 MK II from Canon the big ecosystem divide comes down to modules. The ecosystem difference manifests in who and how these cameras will be used. Sony has some really smart wireless audio stuff via module and strangely I see this is a very ENG camera. Well not strangely, they are pushing that route. There are many planned firmware updates incoming to the FX9, but it plainly states 4K on the camera w/ a 6K FF35 sensor. Sony absolutely can't poach the Venice market but also want this camera to benefit from Venice tech. And it appears anything in development is focused on getting 4K RAW out rather than the full 6K resolution. I get that, just a hard pill to swallow, but I wouldn't be shocked if there wasn't a paid upgrade/firmware thing in Summer 2020 that expands it's capabilities on this front. This really is about XAVC, which is good for some markets. FX9/C500 MK II is really about 10-bit 4:2:2 with Canon giving you the ability to get 12/10-bit Cinema RAW Lite right on camera, if that's you the choice is silly easy. On the RED side, this really would be a Dragon-X/Gemini battle if you are looking for a higher bit depth RAW codec. Talking to some filmmakers last night alluded to some of the harder decisions surrounding camera choices as of late 2019. Once kitted out properly these sort of fall in the same general price point. One thing the ENG cams have though is built in ND straight away, which many people want for run n' gun. The autofocus variance between Sony and Canon is fascinating, two different schools of thought in practice. Likely highlighting the need for more AF control, that's weird to say, when configuring it for a shoot. You do get E-Mount here and Canon didn't rock RF on the C500 MK II, but they have something else coming that will focus on that mount eventually and of course RED Komodo will likely be the first little banger to use that mount in the motion picture world outside of the mirrorless cams themselves.

𝗖𝗮𝗻𝗼𝗻 𝗖𝟱𝟬𝟬 𝗠𝗞 𝗜𝗜 𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 - I've been fortunate to checkout the C500 MK II three times now, most recently with the latest firmware build at Hotrod Cameras. It still has a lot shaded out, but it's getting there. I should make a YouTube review and monetize the hell out of it, but the TL; DR review is this is Canon's best digital cinema offering to date and I think it's going to do pretty well. She's a complicated beast and if you're into the big button simplicity of certain cameras, the C500 II is a deeper menu driven and many physical button riddled camera. Fine if you know how to tie your shoelaces, rough if you prefer Velcro or sandals. There's still lots to get done before release, but some interesting things have risen. Sounds like you do need a minimum of a 512GB CFexpress card to record 5.9K Cinema RAW Lite. And to complicate matters, most of the good CFexpress cards are a 2020 release, i.e. after the camera actually is released. It's a really new media format, but it will be around for a while. Be careful removing the cards, they get HOT and there's even a warning sign inside the media bay. Everybody has received the RAW, oversampling, and module memos at this point and Canon's done a good job with their XLR stuff. Nice little protective doors on there. Of course makes the body bigger, but you can make the camera smaller when you need to, something the C700 couldn't do, and I like that. Though the base sensor tech is the same as it's papa-cam daddy, you will see an improvement in image quality due to new hardware. There are some quirks on the XAVC side of things and electric stabilization is only available there, but most people really should be aiming at the internal RAW recording here as it's one of the camera's biggest strengths. So thumbs up from me here. Welcome back to the show Canon.

*taken from Phil Holland Facebook, for demonstration purposes only