Before you get too excited – these firmware updates are not coming just yet. But they are coming.
FX6
The FX6 will get an update to Version 5 to quote Sony “in May 2024 or later” which will include:
– The addition of 1.5x setting to the De-squeeze function
– Monitor & Control app compatibility (ex. Waveform, False colour such as FX3/30 already supported)
– A new preset 709tone to support to colour match multiple cameras (I assume this is to match the older Sony Rec-709 look)
– The expansion of supported lenses, such as the SEL100400GM & SEL200600G, for breathing compensation.
FX3 and FX30.
Then later in the year, in September 2024 or later the FX3 and FX30 will get:
– A Shutter Angle option
– 709tone support
– SRT/RTMP/RTMPS support for Live streaming demand
The addition of shutter angle in the FX3 and FX30 is going to please a lot of owners of these 2 cameras.
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Hi Alister, this is shutter angle not variable shutter? Variable would be so helpful.
Angle. I is possible that the FX3 hardware is not capable of finer shutter speed steps, the FX3 appears to use an earlier chipset version than the one in the FX30.
The lack of variable shutter/clearscan in the FX3 has become a serious issue for me on professional shoots, especially when shooting in theatrical venues with LED lighting, or when doing a multicam shoot mixing the FX3 with the FX6 & FX9. Placing this camera in the cinema line without clearscan capability was a major oversight and is disappointing since it’s such a wonderful camera otherwise. If it’s at all possible, clearscan/variable shutter, in my opinion, should truly be a bigger priority than shutter angle as the lack of this feature can ruin a shoot. (and has for more than just me I’m sure). Fingers crossed Sony can figure out how to work around any hardware limitations to add this feature.
On a side note, I was recently doing a small personal multicam shoot using the FX3 for closeups and an iPhone for the wide shot…No LED flicker/banding on my iPhone footage but it was there on the FX3…very embarrassing…
Unfortunately this has been a limitation from the FX3 from day 1. Like many cameras it doesn’t have clearscan. But this has always been known, its not a secret. This combined with the use of low quality LED lighting with low refersh rates can as you have found cause issues. The FX6 has clearscan. Perhaps the FX6 would have ben a better choice. But even then clearscan is not a miracle cure-all if there is more than one light source or if the light source’s refresh rate isn’t stable flicker can still occur even with clearscan.
Another consideration is that perhaps Sony chose to make this one of the differentiating features between the FX3 and FX6. We might not like that as end users, but it should be expected that the cheaper camera may not have the same feature set as the more expensive one, there does need to be a reasonable feature/performance difference between the two to encourage sales of the more expensive camera. That is unfortunately just the way things are whether that’s cars, phones, computers etc.
Out of curiosity, if Sony offered an update that added this feature for lets say $400.00 would you be willing to pay for this update?
Hi Alister, first of all let me apologize for making you bear the brunt of my rant. I know you have nothing to do with the situation . You have such a good relationship with Sony and so much experience their camera systems I hoped you could have their ear and might have more pull with end user requests.
With that being said, FX6 was my first choice but it was not available at the time due to stock issues in 2021. I have really enjoyed using the FX3 though, and now that timecode was enable, besides the built in ND and clearscan of the FX6 I’m still happy with my choice.
However the argument of the feature being a premium for the more expensive FX6 does not track when they put it in the cheaper FX30. It was quite an oversight when they had designed the FX3 and they realized it when they out it in the cheaper FX30. I’ve had clearscan in video cameras for as long as I’ve been shooting, going back to BetaSP, so for it to have been omitted on a professionally marketed cinema line camera is something I’ll never understand.
The idea of an upgrade is interesting but at $400 I’m only a little over $1k more away from just buying an FX30 backup body if I run into an issue. With the FX3 already nearly three years into its life cycle I’m not sure how many people would jump on that. Maybe if it involved some other upgrades as well, although besides built in ND I don’t know what else I would honestly want or need. The FX3 is nearly a perfect camera already for me…except for the lack of clearscan.
Thanks for listening!
These things never go down well, but the FX30 didn’t come until a year and a half after the FX3. We know that the FX3 is essentially a re-housed A7S3 which had been in the market for a year before that. It seems that the FX30 is using a chipset that is at least 2 years younger than the FX3 and unfortunately it appears that this chipset has a bit more flexibility when it comes to frame rates and a couple of other things. Unfortunately this does tend to be the way of things with electronics. Although the FX30 outperforms the FX3 in a few areas, including image quality at 800 ISO the FX3 remains exceptionally good in very low light and has that bigger sensor, so they remain quite different cameras, each with strengths and weaknesses.
These cameras are a tiny fraction of what a Betacam unit used to cost or the current equivalent (the Z750 is $30K USD). Even a Z280 will set you back $7K. There are a great many things I wish the FX3 and FX30 could do, such as output over HDMI while still being able to monitor on the LCD screen, but I knew this going into them and have to face the fact that these things are limitations of these really very cheap cameras. Having recently used similar cameras from other brands I have to say that wouldn’t swap my FX3 or FX30 for anything else, despite their limitations.
We do need to consider that firmware development takes a lot of time and effort. It is not something that is free. If Sony, or any other manufacturer continuously provided free firmware updates rather than offering newer replacement or alternative models they would soon go out of business. The margins on these low cost camera are small. So it becomes a difficult balancing act between offering a range cheap and highly affordable cameras with new models with upgraded features or image quality coming fairly frequently or selling a camera with more spare processing capacity at a much higher initial price with more firmware updates but less frequent fresh models but more firmware updates (with the downside that it takes a long time for the camera to become “finished). Or – they start charging for firmware updates. They do need to make money somehow.
I hear what you are saying. I really appreciated the v2 firmware update that added timecode. Thank you for your input on the matter and for all the wonderful tutorials you post.
Hey Alister,
Thanks for the exciting news. You stated that the FX6 will get “False colour such as FX3/30 already supported”. Did I miss something here. I find no option to enable false colors on my FX3.
Greets from Germany,
Benjamin
False colour is available when you use the Monitor and Control app to monitor with the FX3. It’s in the app, not the camera. I suspect the wording in the press release means that false colour will not work with the FX6.
False colour is in the Monitor and Control app.
Fantastic !
And for the FX9 top 10.000 USD Cine camera ?
Nothing ?
What is it you are expecting? The FX9 does everything it is supposed to do and Firmware can’t add features the hardware isn’t capable of.
Hi Mr Chapman,
Every camera “does everything it is supposed to do” … until the pretty firmware that unlocks or develops some new functionalities.
I remember -and you insisted on this point yourself – that FX9 when it was unveiled in 2019 was not supposed to have touch screen functionalities. Never . This major hidden functionality was unveiled later by SONY.
What could we have on a 2024’s FX9 ? ….
Simple :
1) Modern Codecs (allowing true 6K recordings for instance + 12 bits if possible )
2) allowing RAW signal to pass through HDMI or SDI ports (FX9 seems to have same specs on these ports than FX6).
…
and a second line on the screen showing the grey level chosen in combination with the white level line.
It should be great to transmit those ideas to Sony’s staff.
FX9 is not a cheap tool. It deserves some attention from this marvelous company.
Cheers !
Firmware cannot add a feature the hardware isn’t capable of, it is as simple as that really. These cameras do not have CPU’s that can be programmed to do many different things like a computer. The cameras functionality is determined by the hardware that was included in the camera during the design stage and the design team will have determined what the camera will be capable of many years before it is released and designed a chip set to do those functions at that time. Firmware can’t ever change that.
The FX9 uses a hardware codec chip and you can’t add new codecs to it, its all done in hardware. The internal architecture of the camera is such that the only way to get the raw out is via the data bus on the back of the camera, it cannot be passed to the internal HDMI or SDI, it is not the same camera as the FX6 and uses totally different hardware – firmware can’t ever change that.
And firmware isn’t free, it takes a lot of time to write new firmware and then test it throughly, this equates to a lot of money. Sony are not a charity that makes cameras for our benefit. They make and sell cameras to make money, to pay the engineers and other staff, so why should they just give away endless freebies?
Would you prefer it if at release Sony withheld a lot more of the cameras features and then gave us a much longer firmware roadmap with a lot more releases so that they can trickle out everything the camera can do over a much longer period? That way we might still be getting firmware updates for the FX9, would that make you feel better?
Of course this could also mean that even now over 4 years from launch the camera wouldn’t be complete and do everything it can, but heck, at least you couldn’t complain that it is no longer being supported. Is that what you want?
Sony is a great company, but it should pay much more attention to its customers.
FX6 owners are delighted with the latest announcement.
But those who have invested in an FX9 can take heart: this camera is not much older than the FX6. There’s only a year’s difference between the two.
The situation is all the more astonishing, given that the FX9 is still offered for sale at twice the price of its little and very capable sister.
I’m reminded of something the fashion designer Paul Smith said during an interview, as the boss of a company that was appreciated the world over:
“I never forget that it is the customers who pay my bills.”
I found this statement profoundly accurate.
All companies should adopt this rule of conduct. All the more so in the constantly revolutionising image industry, which is a fiercely competitive field.
Customer loyalty has a value.
What’s better to have : a camera that is perfect when it is launched ?
Mr Chapman, I can only answer, ” certainly! “.
But I’ll accept a camera that is excellent when it’s launched (that was the case with the FX9 in 2019 and the FX6 in 2020), but planned from the outset to be improved over the years.
I feel able to wait for improvements.
In fact, that’s the path taken by a large part of the electronics-based industry.
There is a downside to this (you have to wait for the stripping), but the advantages of this practice are numerous. I can mention two of them:
Firstly, as a user/owner/investor, the value of your investment is protected.
And for the company, that’s the beauty of firmware stripping: it keeps the “audience” interested. Finally, it preserves and even enlarge its customer base (SONY’s customer base), which is the source of future income.
These two parameters (protection of the investment by reducing obsolescence / future sales of the company) are intimately linked.
I’ve owned on last years four Sony cameras (including the FX6). So I have a bit of experience. And I think there’s something wrong with the way the life of this superb machine, the FX9, is managed.
In this case, the ratio between selling price (very high) and obsolescence time is unbalanced.
This ratio relationship should be taken into account from the outset of product design, by planning software (free or paid options) and even hardware upgrades.
It would be great if you could pass on my comments to the Japanese staff .
Best !
Exciting about shutter angle, do you ever think the HEVC h265 codec will be added to the fx6?
No, I am pretty sure the FX6 uses a different codec chip – which is how it has XAVC-I, XAVC-L and .mxf compared to the codecs in the FX3 and 30 etc. It’s a shame as the HS codecs are good.
Yes that would be a shame. Interesting to know about the different codec chips. I think I remember seeing the Burano got the HS codecs? They really are great for projects not requiring the full capability of the mxf wrapper, and are so much more lightweight.
Burano has a new H265 codec – XAVC H-I which comes in 2 versions HQ and SQ and also XAVC H-L. These are different to the HS in the FX/Alpha cameras and have considerably higher bit rates.
Will there be something similar for the a7s3?
I have no idea.
Now if Sony would only grace us with 25p and 30p XAVC-HS option.
I’ve never understood why there is no 25p of 30p.
we recently asked Sony for the monitor and control app to work across a broader network / vpn
We have managed to get it working with some fancy layer 2 routing to auto discover but why can’t we just type the ip address to add a camera ?
We also want to turn off video preview and only have the control layer the video layer for us uses extra data which in our remote environment is being handed via SRT we simply want to control the camera and use the one touch AF and control iris etc etc
These are our two big feature requests for remote production with camera menu control
I’m sorry that I’m posting in this thread, but…
did you solve the iso conundrum?
I bought my FX30 a week ago, and the lightmeter and FX30 are way different. There is almost 3 stop difference in non slog3.