I have been given an official statement from Sony about the image artefacts that some people are seeing from the PXW-FS5:
“Sony has investigated the PXW-FS5 image artifact issues reported by users. Our engineers have been able to duplicate these issues and identify their root cause. Sony plans to provide a firmware update. Our goal is to issue this revised firmware toward February/end.
To ensure that users achieve the best results from the FS5, Sony is also preparing guidelines to help professional shooters take full advantage of the FS5’s features, including S-Log and S-Gamut.”
My understanding is that this primarily relates to the edge tearing issue as well as the blocking type artefacts that can be seen, particularly at higher gain levels. It’s great to see solid proof that Sony do listen to us. They always have done, but often simply went away and investigated and fixed the issue without actually saying anything.
It does still need to be remembered that in UHD the camera is an 8 bit camera and this firmware update will not change that. Nor will it change the recording bit rate. I also do not expect to see a change of the cameras base ISO, so don’t expect to see any significant difference to the cameras noise levels. So while I am sure the firmware will bring a useful and welcome improvement to the image quality, you will still need to be careful how you shoot with the camera, especially in low light or with S-log in UHD. The user guides that are being prepared will hopefully address these areas.
Sony are making a very big effort to become more customer focussed. On Monday I was asked by Sony Europe to present a free webinar for customers that have registered their cameras with Sony Prime Support. Over the coming weeks and months there is going to be a lot of new content in the form of user guides, webinars, tutorials, videos etc on the Sony website. So if you haven’t bothered to register your camera with Sony Prime Support, now is the time to do it as this will give you free access to all this new content as it becomes available.
It’s good to see Sony supporting their cameras after release—that’s always a fear of mine when investing in a camera.
I think it’s important to note that this fix isn’t about noise, it’s about image artefacts. A lot of people are not actually reading what is said in the statement.
Hi Alister.
Firstly thanks for all the extremely useful info you post!
I’m based in NZ and I just received my FS5 today. I have been trying to register but the New Zealand site simply won’t accept the model number. I’ve tried PXW-FS5K XDCAM, PXW-FS5K, PXW-FS5 XDCAM, PXW-FS5 and any other variation I can think of. Am I missing something REALLY obvious?
Also I’m hoping that the new user guide content you mention will be available to non European Sony users as well?
Cheers
John-Jo
Don’t know why the model number won’t be accepted. Best to give Sony a ring, there normally pretty good at sorting registrations out over the phone.
I believe the content will be available globally.
Any word on when this content may be available? I’m really, really looking forward to it.
Am I to understand that when/if Sony updates the FS5 for 4k raw output, it will still only output in 8 bit? Not sure I’m understanding this correctly. Also, with raw output will it be able to record in 240 fps continuously?
No. Raw would not work with 8 bit. It is almost certainly going to be 12 bit linear raw the same as the FS700 and FS7. You will probably be able to record at 240fps in 2K raw.
Thank you!
sony a6500 has the same issue!
Please Sony fix it ASAP!