310.450.4365
Monday – Friday, 10am – 5pm Pacific
12636 Beatrice Street  Los Angeles CA 90066 (map)

Sony Announces the PXW-FS7

Sony's versatile new Super35 Camera should appeal to a lot of different kind of filmmakers.  With features appropriate to many different types of productions, the PXW-FS7 should be big hit.  From Sony's announcement:

PXW-FS7. Hand held. Long form. Just right.

What if you built a camera from the ground up for hand-held and long-form shooting? What if you were free to optimize everything from the lens mount to the recording codec to the media? What if you reconfigured and refined the body for an entirely new level of comfort? Now imagine giving it 4K resolution and a Super 35 sensor. The result would be Sony's PXW-FS7. It's the ideal camcorder for documentaries, unscripted TV, newsmagazines, indie features, corporate video and more.

Sony's Native E-Mount System: the smarter choice for moving pictures.

Unlike still photography, motion pictures benefit from lenses with ultra-quiet and continuously variable power zoom and iris. That's what Sony's new generation of E-Mount lenses delivers, superb optical quality along with auto focus and the perfect balance of build quality, affordability and light weight. With an extremely shallow, 18 mm flange-back distance, the camera's E-Mount also accepts an extensive range of PL, Canon EF and other SLR glass via third-party adaptors.

Exceptional 10-bit 4:2:2 imagery at just 50 Mbps.

Long-form projects shine with Sony's XAVC-L recording system. Here's the superior grayscale rendition of 10-bit recording, plus the uncompromised detail of 4:2:2 color—all at a budget-friendly 50 Mbps (HD mode). Other options include on-board 4K (3840 x 2160) recording, the same 113 Mbps XAVC-I recording as Sony's high-end F55, well-accepted MPEG HD 422, the Apple® ProRes™ codec (with future upgrade and extension unit, sold separately), and even outboard RAW recording (with extension unit and outboard recorder, sold separately).

Next-generation Memory

Long-form programs need media that's both reliable and affordable. As specified by the CompactFlashAssociation, XQD™ memory cards score big on both accounts. Reliability comes from in-camera recovery. You get very low cost per minute compared to CFast™ cards. And robust communication between the camera and the card's controller enables read/write speeds up to a sizzling 600 Mbps.

Shoulder-mount comfort without rigs—or rigmarole

It's ironic that so-called affordable cameras need to be outfitted with expensive rigs, cages, hand grips and accessory viewfinders before you can put them on your shoulder. The PXW-FS7 is different. It was designed from a clean sheet of paper to balance beautifully on your shoulder. Zoom, Start/Stop and Assign controls are comfortably located on the sculpted, telescoping hand grip. Sony supplies a proper viewfinder that's perfectly offset to the left with a huge range of fore-aft adjustment. Want more? A viewfinder extension box (sold separately) and a 15 mm rod mount provide even greater flexibility.

Key capabilities

•     Sony's Super 35 Exmor® CMOS Sensor
•     Sony α-mount system with 18 mm flange back distance
•     On-board 4K (3840 x 2160) and Full HD (1920 x 1080) recording
•     Wide choice of recording systems
•         XAVC (Intra/Long GOP)
•         MPEG HD, 4:2:2, 50 Mbps (HD only)
•         Apple Pro Res codec (with future upgrade and extension unit, sold separately)
•         RAW recording (with extension unit and outboard recorder, sold separately)
•     Slow & Quick Motion for over-and undercranking
•     Dual XQD card slots
•     16-bit analog-to-digital converter
•     ISO 2000
•     Supports S-Gamut3Cine/S-Log 3 encoding
•     Die-cast magnesium frame
•     Environmentally sealed electronics
•     Wireless operation with CBK-WA100, sold separately
•     GPS