LEDE ON
The camera makers are finally waking from their annual and management meetings, and still-greenlit projects are starting to appear as the chips they need get delivered. Word from Godzillaland is that Canon, Fujifilm, Nikon, and Sony (again) all have camera announcements that will be made either just prior or just after Labor Day.
The talk at the Sushi Bars in Tokyo these days is all about component costs, as in “what are we going to do about those cost increases?” Meanwhile, the yen has weakened 10%+ to the dollar this year, so these two items now have all the bean counters frantically counting beans. How many beans you’ll need to spend is still not known for a couple of those new products. I hope you’ve been saving beans up.
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News
If You’re a Video User, Sony Has Something for You
This week gave us the FX5, Sony’s latest “handheld” video camera. The big but slightly strange news is that this is a 5K Open Gate camera (meaning 5K across a 3:2 aspect ratio). The camera will do that 16.6mp capture at 60P open gate, or you can have it do 120P in 16:9 format, or even 240P in 4K. Sony finally gave one of their lower end cameras raw recording (X-OCN, plus new C1 and C2 compressed versions not yet supported in editing applications).
The new stacked full frame sensor has a triple base ISO with dual gain outputs, and sits behind a 5-axis sensor stabilizer that you can pay Sony remove permanently (not recoverable). And instead of the usual Alpha menus, the FX5 gets the Hollywood style menu system from the top-end Venice/Burano video cameras. Not wanting to look weak compared to the Nikon ZR, the FX5 gets a bigger 3.5” touchscreen. Up top there’s Sony’s hot shoe with audio connectors supporting 32-bit float, so there’s also an XLR handle that’s available. Once again, Sony is using CFexpress Type A cards (requires VPG400 certification).
As you might expect, the FX5 gets the latest AI goodies and focus system from the latest BIONZ XR chip, and the new battery from the A7RV. While there’s an optional 3.7m dot OLED EVF, some of you will be shocked to learn that the FX5 doesn’t take still photos at all. Nikon, after all, didn’t market the ZR as a still camera, so now Sony has taken things further and won’t even include the features, should you be so inclined.
Price is US$4900 with deliveries starting next month.The XLR handle is US$800, the EVF US$700.
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News and Commentary
FCC Follows Through
Xtra, Skyrover, and the other supposed DJI clones or enabled products were recently sent a demand letter, followed by a fine, and now a proposed ban (July 17, public notice DA-26-742). All this because the Executive Branch (which includes the FCC) failed to do what Congress asked it to do and are by guess banning things from China that might in some way phone home. But they’ve never been proven to do so, nor has any back door been discovered. For what it’s worth, this hasn’t just been about cameras, as the withdrawal of the Polestar EVs from the US market was for similar reasons.
So essentially the US is saying to its citizens “we want you to have fewer options than Canadians or the rest of the world. We’re banning things we don’t make or that are better in some way than we can make."
I’m all for security. But what’s being practiced in Washington is not even security theater. I fail to see how an action camera akin to a GoPro or the novel gimbal cameras are threats to the US in any way, even if they were communicating something to China (which, again, nobody has shown that they do). Moreover, if you already have one of these now banned devices, you can still use it, so how’s that help deal with the imagined threat? What’s happening here is nationalism at its worst.
Since this is a photo site, I should point out I own an Insta360 Luna Ultra gimbal camera, and it’s awesome. If I were a TikToker, influencer, or streamer, I’d have that product constantly in my hand while walking around talking to myself the world. It also integrates more seamlessly with a mobile phone than does any dedicated camera I’ve used (and I’ve used most of them). But it was made in China, therefore it must be bad. Yeah, right.