Sony made a weird choice for a reason! - FX-3
ShortCircuit
·ShortCircuit
·2021-05-05
·
2,711 words · ~13 min read
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- Today I have in front of me, another Sony camera.
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Man, I feel like they really are going for the world record here
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because does it, has anyone ever released this many cameras in like a single 365 days a year?
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I seriously doubt it, but yet another camera the Sony FX3, which is the baby of their cinema lineup
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and let's check it out, see what it's like. This is gonna be the new trend.
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We actually use knives to open boxes on ShortCircuit
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which is the way that it always should be.
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Okay, whoa. It's actually pretty heavy. Holy, I believe this is a lens
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so we'll take a look about the second, okay.
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So this camera is the entry level in Sony cinema lineup.
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So if you're just getting into video or are trying to operate from an older camera,
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like an A7S II, this might be for you because it's essentially an A7S III
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which is an already excellent camera but redesigned with a couple physical tweaks
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to make it a little bit more video friendly. Okay, so we have the camera itself.
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Take a look at that in a second. We have a power cable.
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The battery charger, okay.
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A card reader, which I actually don't think comes with the camera, but Sony sent one
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so that we could actually ingest footage off this camera. Thank you, Sony.
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We've got the same battery as the the A7S III. The, I think this was FZ100.
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The type C cable, oops.
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A memory card, again, it doesn't come with the camera
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and the top handle and a shotgun mic.
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Now, this top handle, I'll talk about more in a second.
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Unfortunately, the shotgun mic itself
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does not come with this camera, but they did send one so that we could test it,
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but this is essentially the same shotgun mic that comes with the Sony K3M.
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So if you're an owner, or you have ever used the Sony K3M, it's essentially the same thing
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and that's what the handle is as well. And the last thing we have in this box
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is Sony 24 to 105 F4
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which is again, just a standard lens you'd use especially for testing on camera like this.
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I've tested this lens many times and I like it a lot. Okay, let's take a look at the body itself
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because that is the main thing that Sony has changed. This is mostly a physical upgrade or side grade
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depending on the way you look at it. You know what, like it feels slightly heavier
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than the A7S III. They are slightly different.
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The A7S III grip is a little bit more rounded,
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whereas the FX3's grip is a little bit more pointy
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and triangular, and the A7S III horn towards
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more towards the back of the head, whereas I feel like the grip of the FX3's
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a stronger grip on the front of the camera which I think I like better
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but I'm curious to why they would change that. I mean, I guess it's maybe because you would use this camera
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without a cage a lot of the time because as you can see here,
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it's got quarter 20 points all over the body. One on the left, one on the right, three on the top
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and the idea is you don't necessarily need to use a cage
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for this camera, even though you could very easily but unlike the A7S III
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which has no quarter 20 points on the body, you have to put a cage like this on it
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which adds a significant amount of weight. But with both topics handle's installed
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let's see how much each weighs.
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Okay, so the FX3 weighs 2.26 pounds
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and this A7S with a tripod plate of course,
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weighs 2.8 pounds and this actually has the audio module and this does not.
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So you are saving quite a bit of weight if you don't need the amount of quarter 20 points
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that you get from a cage set up like this. Let's look at the rest of the differences
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between these two cameras. So on the top of the cameras they've changed the layout of the buttons.
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There's no dial like on the A7S III, you just have a larger record button, which I appreciate
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and a button for iris white balance in ISO which you could set as custom buttons
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on the A7S but you only have one custom button here
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and the dials on the top and the back.
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So I think that the labeled button approach here it's actually quite nice
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and a even quicker way to access things from the top of the camera,
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and then instead of power, they've added a zoom rocker here,
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which I really like because you can map it to clear image zoom and just get that extra punch in
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really easily from the grip without having to let go of the camera at all.
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So you could zoom in on the longest end of your lens and if you need a little bit more range,
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you can do the clear images zoom here, or it works with Sony's servo cine lenses like that 16 to 35
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that I checked out in the FX6 video a while back.
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So you can control full servo on a camera this small
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and the fact that they just put it in this little zoom rocker is pretty awesome.
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Now the body itself has this gray styling versus the black that they typically go with
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for the A7S III which is the same as the FX3 and the FX9 and the VENICE,
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so they've just tried to make it look as close to those cameras as possible yet it's still in
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a very very tiny form factor. For kicks, I'm just going to actually put the 24 to 78
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that we have here on this camera to see how they feel.
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This lens is not light but the setup is so compact.
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Mount stuff here, you can mount two more things here. You can mount something here and to the right of the camera.
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If you're smart about your cable management and your accessory choices
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you really don't need to Mount that much more. This is probably one of the most
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running gun cameras available. Now on to the rest of the changes.
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The, on the right of the camera the SD card slot is exactly the same.
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So you have SD and Cf express type A
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data rates are exactly the same since both cameras use the same processor and sensor.
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On the left of the camera, the IO, whoa.
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On the left of the camera, you have different IO doors so instead of the HDMI dropping down on the FX3,
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the HDMI just flips up. It's a smaller door and it's a little bit more secure.
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I actually almost forgot, they've added a fan so there's two new slots on the camera.
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One on the left here, and then another one on the bottom.
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If you can see that right there. You get completely uninterrupted 60P recording
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which I've never really had an issue on our A7S III, but I haven't used it like for three hours at a time,
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but if you are the type of person who shoots 60 FPS for let's say six hours or more,
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you could very easily get all of that time with no interruption or overheating issues on this camera
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and still have no real noise issues, but if the fan ever does become a noise issue for you,
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you can turn it off in the settings. It's fairly quiet and the really cool thing about it
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is it's still weather sealed. Oh, before I forget, one of the things that they changed
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about the top of the camera that I am not a hundred percent sure I like,
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is they've moved the date joystick control to right here
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on the right corner of the camera which some people might like shooting from the hip.
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You can control the menus fairly easily without changing
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and looking like this way or going like there's no EVF now. So, or looking through that,
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but when you're using the LCD on the back
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having the joystick on the top is actually kind of annoying.
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Some people might like that change. I personally, I'm not sure I like it
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but they are trying something with it. On the bottom of the FX3,
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even though it's a cinema line camera, I am disappointed to not see a second quarter 20
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or three eights mount on the bottom because Sony, if people put a tripod plate
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on the bottom of his camera it will likely twist
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because there isn't a second mounting point. Not something that any person
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who uses a camera for any period of time will like, because that will be one of those annoying fixes
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that you have to do mid shoot and then let's move on to the back of the camera.
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On the A7S III, you see that it's ISO
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the self-timer continuous shooting or display by default
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and then they've actually made video settings the priority here. So on the control wheel, you've got display,
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peaking, shutter and zebras, which is just, again, more for video people.
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All those features would be very quick to access
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right out of the box with this camera. Whereas you have to configure the control wheel
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in the A7S III to be different. Next two buttons, we have the FN for all the quick settings in the menu.
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You can just change your slow motion really fast or change your picture profile or your zebra rating.
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You've got focus magnification. So really quick punch in which you can do while rolling.
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I'm surprised more cameras still can't do that. Like RED, can you guys do that,
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punch in while recording, people do long interviews. The play and then you have another macro
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that you can set to something else. On the top left of this camera
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they've actually changed the power button. So now it's a slider, which is more similar to the FX6
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which I think I prefer because it feels more solid overall.
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On the rear of the camera, there is also a tally a large tally light at the top of this LCD here
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and then you get this mode dial, which is in replacement of the mode dial
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that's on the top of the A7S III which I prefer this button a lot more
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because as soon as you click it, you can just touch screen away
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and you can, or you can just cycle this and you get the mode that you want a lot faster,
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instead of having to look at the top of the camera, press this down and especially since we're using a cage
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on our A7S III, it's actually sort of annoying to press this down.
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And the last little change on the front here is you have a record button
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on the front of the body and it's also a sixth custom key
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so you can set it to something else, and I think that's pretty much it on the physical side,
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So here's a couple of clips from videos that I used the FX3 to shoot this week
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and honestly, I was really impressed by the usability improvements
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because when I was packing especially, I grabbed the camera, I grabbed a lens,
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I grabbed my memory cards and batteries, this top handle and that's it.
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Even though they're very similar cameras and I like packing both of them
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because they're both really easy to pack, I will say that the FX3 was easier out of the box,
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especially since we don't personally own a Sony K3M and so the fact that this top handle
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is included with this camera is a huge plus. If you shoot stills with the A7S III, as well as video,
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the lack of the EVF might bother you,
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but personally, I didn't really miss it. The fact that you also use a small LCD on this camera
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if you don't like using smallest LCDs and you want to use an external monitor,
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then that makes the setup larger and you sort of don't get the benefits
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of the fact that this is such a small form factor already.
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Considering this is the entry level in the cinema line of Sony's cameras,
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I'm a little bit disappointed that they didn't figure out a way to include shutter angle
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because I was using the slow motion modes and this is a gripe I have with the A7S III as well
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that neither camera has shutter angle. For those of you who don't know the benefits
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of shutter angle, when you switch between a standard recording mode like 24 FPS or 30 FPS
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and then you shoot at 60 FPS or 120 FPS,
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if you're using shutter angle you don't have to change your shutter at all.
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You just don't touch it. Whereas if you're using shutter speed, every time you change your frame rate,
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you have to adjust the shutter speed to match almost every other camera we have in the office,
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the REDs, the Blackmagic's have shutter angle and that could be the difference,
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especially if you're trying to capture something fast between getting your shot in slow motion properly
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or missing it. So Sony, I don't know if there's a way
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for you guys to do it, in all of your future cameras even the mirrorless ones, please add shutter angle
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because if you want this to be a cinema line camera
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I think that's what would complete it. You might be asking who is this camera for?
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If you bought the A7S III in July, 2020
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then it is unlikely that the FX3 is for you
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because you've probably figured out your setup or maybe you bought a Sony K3M
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which would give you the audio features that this has built in in the box.
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But if you're still looking for a camera
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you want something that is amazingly light and a body that is made for the cinema professional
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in terms of layout and buttons and things like the tally light,
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then this camera might be for you because out of the box it is more usable than the A7S III.
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It is $400 more expensive but that is a pretty solid one value
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because all you need to do is add a shotgun mic, memory, batteries and you're good to shoot.
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So I don't think that many people who own an A7S III already
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are gonna go out and pick up this camera but as an entry level to Sony cinema lineup,
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honestly I think it's a welcome addition because when I was shooting with it this week,
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I quite enjoyed it. It was an easy to use camera, pretty smooth.
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A couple of gripes about things like the joystick but all in all a good addition.
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So thank you guys for watching. If you guys have any other cameras you want me to check out
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please leave the comments down below and please subscribe.