You can make videos on phones and cameras, but you’ll more than likely be stuck on a specific frame and size.
Hold your phone or camera horizontally, and you’ll get a landscape 16:9 video, whether it’s Full HD or 4K, or maybe even something a little higher. And if you hold it vertically, you’ll get Full HD or 4K in the portrait tall approach, the likes of which you can watch on social streams, such as Facebook and TikTok.
But if you want to kill two birds with one stone, you are largely out of luck.
Most cameras only cover one view, locking you to it during capture. You can’t change after the fact, because your camera captured it in a specific way, unless you don’t mind upscaling and cropping the image to a specific place.
However, that doesn’t mean all technology is locked down in this way. Changes to the way cameras work are coming, with “open gate” technology essentially expanding a video camera’s sensor to more than just the wide and tall offerings you can find. Rather, you’ll get the whole sensor to work with, and not just a single view.
It’s a concept Canon showed in its R6 V only recently, and one Sony appears ready to join in its own filmmaker-focused attempt, the FX3.
A similar variation on the theme (of pro-focused enthusiast cameras), Sony’s FX5 uses Sony’s E-mount on top of a full-frame 18 megapixel sensor, capable of capturing in 5K open gate at 120 frames per second, or downsampling back to 4K at 240 frames per second when an update lands later on, but will launch with 5K at 60 and 4K at 120.
The camera supports three base ISO settings across ISO 800, 4000, and ISO 12,800 to deliver low amounts of noise in varying levels of darkness, and will handle 16-bit RAW video for wider amounts of colour.
For filmmakers keen to change the aspect ratio or recompose the shot after the fact, Sony’s flavour of open gate capture will mean supporting other sizes, including a Super 35mm size ideal for filmmaking.
The body itself will see 5-axis optical image stabilisation, AI-enhanced auto-focus and machine learning-based light estimation to work out the correct balance for shaded spaces and indoor scenes, as well as an LCD on the back. Interestingly, there’s no electronic viewfinder, though there is an optional addition in the form of a $999 extra you can use if you want.
“Guerrilla filmmaking just went to the next level, the FX5 is the run-and-gun cinema camera to beat,” said Gareth Edwards, director of Rogue One and Godzilla, after testing the camera in a project used across Cambodia, Nepal, and Thailand.
With filmmakers using the camera, it may not be the model built for enthusiasts off the bat, but more photographers and videographers keen to make the leap into the more professional filmmaking careers.
As such, they may want a reasonable amount of money, with the Sony FX5 set to launch in Australia this month for $7849 body only, or with an XLR handle with professional audio inputs for $8849, BYO lenses.
