New Sony FS7 Mark II in the Studio!
Sony surprises us with their newest camera, the FS7 Mark II. This follow up to the extremely popular Sony FS7 comes with few upgrades but a serious price increase that makes it as expensive as the Canon C300 Mk II. Even more surprising, the FS7 Mark I will still be produced as Sony considers the FS7 Mark II to be a premium version of the FS7. But who is it for? Is this a sizable enough upgrade after 2 years?
Locking E-mount
The Mark II features a new locking E-mount similar to a PL mount. This new mount is a lot stronger, capable of holding pretty much any cinema lens (rated at 100kg torque force). This is great news for dual operator settings and single operators using mount adapters such as Metabones as this makes the setting more robust. However, this makes it impossible to change lens with one hand or with the camera handheld, making this a not so great system for single operators using E-mount lenses that need to swap lenses fast.
Electronic ND filter with auto ND
The FS7 Mark II has taken the Electronic ND from the FS5 and now allows fast smooth setting of NDs. You can now also set the camera to auto ND and have it automatically adjust exposure even with fixed shutter, iris and ISO. This saves many shots in a news or documentary setting.
Anything else?
Unfortunately not. The sensor, max framerates, codecs, electronics are unchanged. What is new is the BT.2000 wider color space option, more assignable user buttons (10 instead of 6) and few little body improvements such as the LCD attachment.
The price unfortunately has been updated… almost $10k which makes it almost as expensive as the Canon C300 Mk II, which has a much better autofocus, better colors (before grading) and is also extremely robust and reliable. Is this enough upgrades to justify the 2000€ price bump?
Sony has made much more impressive technology upgrades the last few years and we hope this is not a new trends for them. They will keep selling the FS7 Mark I as they see it as a premium version and not a replacement. It now seems like the next real sensor upgrade will be for the F5/55 series
