(Suspenseful  piano)
Whilst this is a review of the Sony PXW-FX9 
and I am going to call it just the FX9 from now on 
because that’s way too much of a mouthful. 
It is going to be looking at 
features that we have wanted,
or didn’t know we want 
in cameras over the years, 
because I’ve done so many reviews,
and we’re always looking for
something that ticks all the boxes. 
Always looking for that perfect camera.
Is this the perfect camera? 
Well, spoiler alert! It’s not. 
Why? 
Because no matter what 
any manufacturer will give us, 
we’ll always want something else. 
But just how close does the FX9 
come to that mythical thing.
(Angelic choir)
I asked social media,
 what was the most important factors
when they are looking 
to get a new camera.
I got a lot of responses, 
and they were very interesting.
On the Facebook FX9 user group,
at the top, was dynamic range
and then high frame rate, 
which was interesting.
Then colour, then variable ND.
A full frame sensor, switchable to super 35. 
Autofocus is down there.
Further down the list,
 we have raw internal recording. 
6K, or higher resolution.
Superb audio capabilities
should be a lot higher. 
Very surprising to me was global shutter,
being very far down the list. 
Three or four years ago,
 that would have been a lot higher.
I think people have just 
gotten used to CMOS.
On Twitter, I had hundreds of replies,
and for the most part they 
were very similar responses;
dynamic range being very high up,
as was full frame 
and actually, autofocus 
was mentioned quite a few times.
It is impossible to define 
what is a perfect camera, 
because everybody has different needs 
and even if manufacturers put in 
everything we asked for, 
then we would ask for something more.
You give us 4K, 120 frames per second,
 then we will ask for it to be 6K. 
You give us 6K, 120 frames per second, 
then will ask for 6K,
 240 frames per second.
You get the idea!
(Heavenly chords)
Certainly for me, 
when it comes to features that 
I look for in a dedicated video camera, 
the image quality is essential.
So, that does combine things like, dynamic range,
colour science, resolution is very important,
I do need 4K, or higher.
A great codec, with 10 bit 
internal recording is very important 
and auto-focus has become 
one of the key features I’m looking for these days as well. 
And, interestingly not many people
 talked about the lens mount, 
the switch ability of the lens mount
because I actually think, 
that is actually, really important.
 Even if you can’t switch the lens mount, 
the ability to put on other types of lenses, 
I think is very important.
Ease-of-use is actually one 
of the highest things for me,
something that isn’t too complicated, 
it has nice simple menus, 
simple operation.
Another spoiler alert, the FX9 
isn’t the easiest camera to use
as it has lots and lots
 and lots of options.
It’s just a bit of a learning curve.
My FS7 review, which came out in May 2015 
was about 42, 43 minutes
and I did actually cover,
 a huge amount in that, 
but I also had the camera for a lot longer
and I used it for the Wonder List 
and all sorts of stuff, 
so I had a lot of footage.
Whereas this review doesn’t 
have near as varied footage
and doesn’t cover as many things,
 but what it does cover,
I cover in much more detail. 
What I wanted to do was focus on 
the real differences between 
the FS7 and the FX9.
The things that would make you, or I want 
to buy this camera whether you 
are upgrading from an FS7,
or it’s appealing, as a first dip into
the Sony video camera world.
(Excited strings)
If you are the sort of person who gets bothered 
by bad continuity, I'm sorry now,
I have no control over my cats.
Sometimes, I could have three 
or four  in a big lump there 
and now I have none,
which is probably worst case scenario for me,  
it’s nice to have that company,
when I’m editing in my edit suite,
 which is where I am now,
or doing these things to camera.
I made that decision to have them in the frame, 
I could’ve framed them out, but I didn’t,
so i’m apologising right now 
for that terrible continuity.
(Light percussion and bongo)
I have always felt it’s 
important to have context 
when it comes to these sort of reviews, 
because not everyone’s going 
to know my background.
A bit about how I got to this position,
how I got to this camera on my journey,
so when I explain my thoughts and opinions 
you do understand them a bit better, 
because they may be quite different to yours,
because you may have, and probably do have 
a very different sort of background to me. 
But, understanding that context
will really help you,
so quick recap of my history 
in case you don’t know.
17 years working in TV news in England 
and travelling the world, doing all sorts of
wonderful and awful stories. 
ENG cameras, so broadcast, 2/3 inch, 
on the shoulder type stuff.
Freelance for the past 14 years, 
doing all sorts of things, 
but mostly documentaries,
of course the DSLR revolution came along then, 
and I embraced that fully.
I love that full frame image, 
super 35 mil cameras came along which were
finally affordable and you know,
we're terrific, and we’ve 
been on quite a journey with them. 
There’s so many different cameras.
Three or four knockouts.
and maybe three or four 
stopped in the first round. 
 
(Boxers skipping rope)
You don’t go clubbing, drinking, smoking.
Not for me, 
it is better doing boxing, 
than doing those things.
(Suspenseful music)
A really key player in this story is the Sony PXW-FS7 
and I will be dropping that PXW as well.
A really important camera,
 that came into my life
 in about November 2014.
Now, of course the moment
 I put Harriet down
I am going to be completely 
covered in white hair, 
So, you going to stay here?
Good. 
So, prior to that camera 
 the most expensive cameras 
I have been using,
well I bought a Red Epic 
in 2011, 2012 I think.
then, after that I got a C 300 
and then the Sony F 55, 
which was a beast of a camera,
 and I was using that 
initially to film the 
CNN documentary series 
 the Wonder List
and that was in, from 
about September 2014
was when I first started 
shooting that show.
(Magical percussive chimes)
And it was, and still is, 
a really terrific camera, 
 slightly overkill for what I needed
to be honest with you. 
That is why when the FS7 came out
and ticked the boxes 
I needed which was
4K 60p, some nice, 
high frame rate in HD,
which was up to 180 frames per second. 
It’s not that it was a better camera
than the F 55,
 because it wasn’t.
It was very similar image wise,
it was lighter, the key thing 
for me it was lighter, 
with most of the same features. 
I could use smaller batteries as well. 
(lonely guitar)
From the worldwide reach of CNN.
Journalist, Bill Weir, and filmmaker, Philip Bloom
comes a quest to tell the untold stories 
of extraordinary people, places,
cultures and creatures 
that are at a crossroads. 
Will they choose tradition, 
embrace progress
or just fade away? 
The Wonder List with Bill Weir, 
coming soon only on CNN.
And I think I’ve shot 
some of the best stuff 
of my career with that camera.
It’s not surprising, 
because of the places
and opportunities that I had
 to actually use this camera, 
just mind blowingly incredible. 
And, it was also a pretty solid camera
when it came to reliability.
It actually only went wrong twice. 
And both times were right 
at the beginning of its life
and both of them were avoidable. 
The first one was 
the very first day I got it.
I put it out on my kitchen table 
and I nipped into the office, 
where I am now, to get, 
I don’t know what it was.
I was gone for like, a minute, 
maybe two minutes maximum
and I came back,
 and my beloved Noodle, 
who sadly left me
 a couple of years ago,
she had chewed through the EVF cable,
in that very short period of time. 
 So, it’s my own fault,
I should have not have left 
the camera out like that.
She just absolutely adored, chewing cables.
And the way that it is designed,
 is still on the FX9
is it’s not a cable that can be 
detached from the LCD screen.
The whole thing needs replacing.
And, the other issue I had was, 
I was filming in the floods
of Venice and, I got it splashed. 
 I wasn’t careful enough, 
I didn’t have any waterproof  
cover over it, and 
it is splashproof camera,
 but it was a big splash,
 and one of the circuit boards got fried. 
After that, no more issues. 
Rock solid.
It became my main documentary camera
for a number of years after that,
 so much so that
I did sell the F 55,
 because I just didn’t need it 
for the type of work 
that I was doing, 
 the FS7 did it all.
But, there’s always a 
couple of things which
weren’t ideal about the camera.
One, which was important at the time 
and one which became 
important later on.
The first thing being the low light 
performance was never great. 
It was never really a clean image,
 it always needed some work in post,
 to get the best out of it.
In low light it definitely did struggle. 
You know, you could shoot at 3200 ISO 
and it was alright. 
6400 was pushing it,
with some noise reduction, it looked fine, 
but I always just wanted it 
to be cleaner straight off
To have a nicer looking image 
without having to do 
too much work in post
The second thing wasn’t an issue when I 
first started getting it. 
It became something important later on
and that was its ability to autofocus,
which basically was zero. 
Contrast based, and was utterly unusable.
I didn’t need it initially, 
but once I started using 
cameras with autofocus, 
 it became such a useful and practical tool,
especially when doing, 
talking head interviews...
and also, tracking subjects.
And, Sony video cameras, 
large sensor video cameras
were just incapable of having anything,
anything close to usable auto focus 
as it was all contrast based.
The only video cameras 
with sensors which were any
good with auto-focus, 
were from Canon. 
Sony’s stills cameras we’re 
getting better and better, 
the A7R2 was I think the 
first time I saw pretty good auto-focus 
in the video, and it’s gotten better and better and better, 
but not for the video cameras. 
And, also these are full frame cameras 
and I love full frame
going back to that DSLR revolution 
and wanting that 
full frame video camera. 
Wanting a full frame video camera 
with great autofocus and 
much better performance in low light, 
can I even say, great performance in low light?
That brings us onto this camera, the FX9.
(Jazz drums, cymbal smash)
In September 2019, I was 
invited to the launch of a new
professional, large sensor 
video camera from Sony. 
They didn’t tell me what it was and
and I didn’t find out 
exactly the name of it 
and features until I got there.
 The first day was going through
 and listening, watching 
PowerPoint presentations 
and having a quick look at it.
They very much emphasised that the FX9 
was not a replacement for 
the FS7, FS7 mark 2. 
It was a separate camera above those 
and they would still be making 
and selling the FS7 cameras.
On the second day, there was 
a few of us that had a chance 
to actually shoot with the camera.
We had about 2 to 3 hours, or so 
and we could take the footage 
back which was great, 
but this was literally my first 
chance of using the camera. 
And, one of the first things you do 
when you get your hands 
on a new camera is try and understand
the set up of it. 
I didn’t want to just start
filming straight away,
I needed to know the camera a bit more, 
understand the menus, 
get the settings right,
which probably took 
half of the time
that I was actually allotted 
to have the camera.
Pretty annoying to the guys in Japan, 
because I was asking 
so many questions, 
can it do this? how do I do this?
can it do this?
Whilst the menus are 
very similar to the FS7,
there is some differences, 
but nothing major and 
that’s one of the things that 
would be so nice if Sony 
could go and change completely,
because this is a menu system which feels
very, very, very old.
It’s time to have a new interface, 
a much nicer, slicker, cleaner, 
more customisable interface.
(Slow, dramatic piano)
When I finally got everything
 up and running, 
I did decide I really wanted 
to concentrate on 
the auto-focus especially 
and, see what that 
image looked like.
(Slow jazz trap drums)
One of the headline features of the FX9
is this new colour science,
 because you know,
a lot of people will criticise 
the Sony colour science
and say, oh, the Canon 
one is so much better 
or blah blah blah.
Look, if you know how to colour grade, 
you can make anything look like anything.
And, I never had any major problems,
that being said, the look out 
of camera from the FX9 was
so much nicer.
All this footage you’re seeing 
was shot using the S-Cinetone profile,
so normally I would shoot 
everything in Log, S-Log3,
S-Gamut3 Cine, I think it’s called,
with the camera, 
but this was a big thing, 
 having this Venice look, 
even if it was a much more contrasty, 
more saturated, baked in look, 
something that wouldn’t require grading, 
because I’d never 
really filmed in that sort of way, 
it looked so nice, and the 
auto-focus did really well.
I was mostly shooting with the 50 mil 1.4
Sony Zeiss Planar, which is actually what 
I am being filmed on right now,
and the 70 to 200 
and I think I did use 
a wide angle at 
some point as well.
And, of course I was shooting wide open
for most of it, just to see
 how well it could work.
I didn’t know the auto-focus settings at all, 
compare to what I do know now and 
I will be going through those in depth.
Super, super in-depth 
later on in the video.
(Gentle atmospheric music)
In mid-November Sony
lent me the camera 
for a couple of weeks,
so I could make a review 
based upon the pre-release firmware.
Like a first review, type thing...
before the camera was shipped 
and everybody had it.
And that was my original plan,
that was what my original video 
was going to be, of course that 
didn’t happen, you know,
 because you’re watching this now 
 and, it’s a different type of video,
mainly because the camera shipped 
basically at the same 
time I gave it back, 
so when I spent all that time filming,
was potentially out of date.
Not necessarily, just that 
the camera ws shipping
with version 1 firmware, and I shot with 0.5.
Even though this camera 
that I’m using right now
has 1.0, it is still missing lots of things
which are coming to this camera 
in the future, in firmware updates, 
they have a roadmap of what’s coming
and they will be stuff 
which will be added 
which isn’t actually on there right now.
Some of the key things that 
are missing right now
 that of course we want, is there 
is no full frame slow motion.
Not yet. 
There will be, in version two,
although that still won’t be the full sensor, 
it will have a slight crop,
which is a little bit disappointing, 
but that is coming in the version 2 firmware.
If you need 50p or 60p, 
you need to drop into 
Super 35 mil mode.
And, right now, high frame rate in HD
 is limited to 120 frames per second,
whereas the FS7 went up to 180,
so that is something else that 
we are waiting for in the firmware. 
So, all I can test is 
what is in this camera, 
there’s lots more to come.  
Lots of things from using this camera
that I would love them to add in there
and again I will be going 
through them in this video.
This review is using stuff which 
I shot from that initial filming
with the .5 firmware and the 
rest of it is with version 1.
(Mischievous strings)
That sun is really low. 
I think I’ve missed it! 
Certainly, I’ll get the sunset colour,
but I’m not going to 
get any direct sunlight.
So, this will be 
my first Sony FX9 shot.
(Strings)
Two-handed operation with this lens mount, 
compared to the standard E Mount. 
Have I lost my lens cap already?
It’s 17 minutes ‘til sunset. 
I’m not going to get the daylight 
comparison shots that I wanted to
do between the different profiles.
I’m shooting in S-Cinetone right now,
 in the custom mode,
which is what I used 
when I first used the camera
a couple of months ago, 
I wanted to see how, well I will see 
how S-Log3 etcetera compares to it,
just not today, because I want it 
with daylight, I want to see that dynamic range
and everything, so I will have 
to come back, maybe tomorrow.
But, at least I can do some testing with the lowlight.
Lowlight is one of the key things to me,
that I need this camera to be good at,
so I’ll make the most of it
and do some auto-focus testing as well.
See how well different lenses 
and the adapted lenses 
work in low light auto-focus.
So, I am actually in auto-focus 
right now of course
and it is in face only.
So in theory, 
when I step out of frame, 
it should stay, this sort of shallowness 
in the background 
and not revert 
onto the background.
Here goes!
(Whimsical music)
Did it work?
Yeah.
That’s good, isn’t it.
(Whimsical music)
That works pretty well. 
I don’t even know what 
setting speed I set it to.
If I switch to face priority,
 so I am the priority of course,
but if I step out, then it 
will revert to the background.
Nobody wants that now do they?
There is another way 
of stopping it reverting
onto the background and I will 
show you that when I do some
following people shots, tracking shots,
because especially if 
it’s the back of the head,
 it won’t recognise that as a face,
because it’s not, 
it’s the back of the head…
Anyway I’m waffling.
Bye.
The lever locking E-Mount 
was introduced on 
the FS7 mark 2.
I never considered upgrading 
my FS7 to this camera 
because it was basically that and the variable ND.
when I was first using it, 
I found it really fiddly. 
The great thing about the 
E-Mount is, it’s so easy
to change lenses one-handed,
 which is basically how I change lenses,
because it’s mostly just me. 
Unless I’m lucky enough 
to have an assistant,
it’s always going to be 
me changing lenses,
so it is a case of, remove the lens
 using both hands, put it down 
leaving the lens mount open to any dust that can get in there.
Pick up a new lens. 
Put it in.
I’ve got used to it now
and kind of found a way of holding a lens
 under my arm and doing it that way.
I don’t recommend it, because the chances
 of you dropping a lens Is quite high.
It means I can change 
lenses pretty quickly. 
The upside of the lever mount, 
the lens feels so much more secure, 
so whilst it’s fiddlier, 
it’s definitely worth it. 
I use the Atmos Ninja 5 to 
record the screen information
you can see the settings
and what is going on 
with the auto-focus.
The camera is capable of sending 
out 4K, 10 bit via the HDMI,
so if you want to record in ProRes
obviously take off all of 
that stuff on the screen.
You may think, yep, 
I do know that,
well somebody did email me once 
and said they accidentally recorded
everything that was on 
the menus and asked 
how they could remove it.
I broke the bad news to them, that you can't
and you’re just going 
to have to crop in.
As I’ve already mentioned,
 I’ll be going through auto-focus
a lot in this video and they’ll be 
dedicated tests, 
but just here I just want
to introduce you to something.
On this shot here, 
the FX9 has picked up this gentleman,
 because he was the biggest face in the frame,
in face priority mode, and yes, I’m still in HD.
Whoops!!
And on the Ninja you can see
the white box shows that it’s tracking him
and the yellow line beneath is a cursor,
because when there are other faces
you can then move that cursor 
with your D-pad on the camera.
The most important tip I can give you
is when using auto-focus
 and tracking people
is make sure you have 
a shortcut on your camera
for Focus Hold.
By default it is set to some native lenses
on the actual lens it self,
but just put it on the camera,
on an easily accessible, shortcut button,
so when you get to that point 
where you want him to exit frame,
hold down Focus Hold
and the focus motor 
will hold just there,
otherwise it will revert 
on to the background.
When you’re on a crowd and 
you have face tracking on 
it is going to get a little confused, 
especially if people are 
walking across each other,
that’s where Face Registration 
mode will come in for this.
So, to use Face Registration, 
you simply press select
when you have a box around somebody, 
then you get a double box,
so now it will not focus
on to any of these other faces, even 
though there are four faces there
it should stay on this lady.
It doesn’t always work, there’s occasions 
where it might lose them and 
when it does lose that focus,
the focus motor should hold 
in that position until it sees
the registered face again.
It’s not foolproof, 
but it is the only way you can stop 
it from getting confused when you 
have a lot of faces in the frame.
I filmed everything in S-Cinetone,
so nothing using the Cine Mode or Log.
The only way, at this point to get 50p
or 60p in 4K is 
in super 35 mil mode. 
This will change when 
we get version 2 firmware.
Because the camera 
has dual sensitivity ISO,
so as a base, ISO of 800 
which is low mode
and 4000 which is the high mode,
both of these should have pretty 
much the same amount of noise.
It looked incredibly clean.
If you’re needing to push your ISO up 
in the low mode, you 
may well be better off 
shooting in the high ISO mode
and bringing it down a little bit,
because it’s going to be cleaner. 
3200 ISO using the low mode
is noisier than 3200 ISO 
in the high mode ISO.
(Gentle piano)
I’ve been mostly focusing, 
forgive the pun, on auto-focus
and for the most part 
it’s worked really well.
That isn’t just with native 
lenses I’m now on the
35, 1.8 and it’s great, 
but I’ve also used
the Sigma 105, 1.4 quite a lot 
with the MC-11 adapter,
because it’s an EF mount version, 
and it’s worked really well too.
A lot of stuff with the 70 to 200,
 2.8 GM, really good. 
The only issue that I've really had is with
that face tracking. 
 
It gets confused.
Alot of people, I feel like 
I have selected somebody,
but somebody goes across and 
even though it’s in the locked-on mode,
sensitivity number one…
I think I’m going to have to move. 
But, other than that it’s 
performed really impressively,
even at, wide open and even on adapted glass.
I was going to do some 
lowlight tests tonight, but
I’ve used all my batteries. I had three 
big batteries and they’ve all gone down.
It’s definitely a thirstier camera 
than my FS7, for sure.
So, I think I do you have one more 
battery in the car, so what I might do is,
pack up from here and head 
off down to Richmond lock 
where I can park right 
by a place I can film 
and just get some last shots
 and just push that ISO up high.
I think right now I’m at 4000
and that previous shot,
 where I had light on me
was that 800 sensitivity
and we are at S-Cinetone, so yeah.
I’m just checking. 
Yeah, it is.
(Engaging piano)
This is a very common way
of testing out lowlight performance
and it’s fine, but if you want to see
what noise levels are really like,
all you need to do is shoot in
normally lit places and 
push up the ISO there
and just compensate 
with your shutter speed
or your ND of course,
so that’s what I’m going to do
for my next low light test anyway.
Let me see if I can make these skintones
look a bit better, for white balance.
I mean this is natural, 
this is what it looks like here,
these halogens outside 
my house I have LEDs
and whilst they’re not 
particularly nice colour,
they are great for filming in,
 because you actually get colour, 
but let’s see what I can 
do with the white balance.
Ah!
I’m very blue now!
Pushed up a little bit,
so now a little bit better,
it needs to be a little bit orange, because 
that’s what the natural light actually is.
I really would recommend trying to 
get your white balance done in camera,
especially in extreme light like this.
Whilst you can do it in post,
it will degrade the image,
but still try and make sure 
you get a reference white
like an X-Rite colour checker.
 But, if you do it in camera, you are 
actually going to get better results
and that image isn’t going
 to fall apart as much.
(Piano music)
 By far the most time-consuming 
and, at times very frustrating
part of the review tests, 
has been auto-focus.
A big chunk is going to be that. 
There will be auto focus throughout the video, 
we’ve already seen quite a few bits already,
but if you’re not interested in auto-focus,
well, you’re missing out. 
It’s amazing technology
that is very good, it’s not perfect
and there’s a lot of quirks going on
in this camera when it comes to auto-focus.
I took the time to make these tests, 
so please just watch them,
and if you get bored,
you can always scrub through
don’t though, it will make me cry!
(Piano)
I just want to take this 
moment to explain why 
 think autofocus is an 
incredibly important thing
and one of the most, 
if not the biggest
feature of this camera.
Quite frequently, when 
I talk about it online,
I get met with,
ah! Autofocus is for amateurs,
 it’s not for professionals.
Poppycock!
Any tool that can be used 
to help us and make our 
life easier whilst filming
should be embraced.
Auto-focus has been on a journey,
a very slow journey. 
My very first video 
camera in 1987 or 86
was a Video 8 from Sony 
that had autofocus
and I’ve had many,
 many cameras since then 
and apart from the ENG cameras,
they all had auto-focus 
and they were all ****!
Utterly unusable.
There is no point in having auto-focus 
if it doesn’t work. 
Auto-focus in video 
needs to be accurate, 
smooth and and reliable.
You need to be able to trust it.
You won’t be surprised to learn 
I get ridiculous comments on 
social media, things like, well,
'if your production can’t afford a focus puller,' 
' ...you shouldn’t be doing it.'
While this may be news to some people,
but not everybody works 
in narrative fiction 
or high-end commercials, 
where you get a focus puller.
I’ve probably had a focus 
puller maybe four times
in 30 years. 
It’s not often.
Most of the time it’s me... 
with my hand on the barrel of the lens.
The problem we have, is the 
larger the sensors  have got
the harder it has become, 
to make sure our focus is accurate.
(Playful music)
The ability to have a shallow depth of field 
is very, very easy to get,
even at smaller F stop’s,
meaning, to get accurate focus you
need to be pretty damn good
on your focus barrel.
You need to have a great EVF
 and great focus assist tools.
Even then, it’s still hard especially as
the majority of us who are using 
these large sensor cameras, 
are using photographic lenses
which are not the greatest 
for any manual focus.
Most of them have infinity 
focus rings with no hard stops.
Some of them aren’t even linear. 
They are focus by wire,
which means trying to get manual 
focus accurately is incredibly hard.
If there are tools like auto-focus
which can help us then great. 
I don’t use auto-focus for everything, 
it's just for certain situations.
I won’t say the words, it will
 never replace manual focus,
because never is a big word.
What about in 500 years time,
where we just use our thoughts to change focus, 
Who knows, it could be sooner.
In our present day, and 
in the foreseeable future
it is not going to 
replace manual focus, 
it’s not going to replace focus pullers,
it’s just going to be 
an incredibly useful tool 
for certain situations.
Things which are added into 
cameras, are there to help us.
Yeah, autofocus is a big one,
so is dynamic range, 
but things like viewing LUTs 
are there to help us, waveforms are 
there to help us to get exposure.
How about a spirit level in the viewfinder, 
so you know you’re 
not on the squiff!
If you are going to go old 
school, get them all removed,
I don’t need that, I don’t need that, 
I’ve got a light meter, 
I know when I’m level.
To be totally blunt, 
if you think like that,
you’re a bit of an idiot!
Just remember, auto-focus 
isn’t just a switch you turn on
and everything is magically perfect. 
Like everything, it takes skill
and manual focus is still there and 
it is what I use most of the time.
It is a hybrid system,
 of phase detection
for the speed and smoothness
and contrast for the accuracy. 
The problem is, certain types of contrast
do cause issues, if you have 
ever tried to get autofocus
on somebody with a 
really bright background.
Even if you’ve got great 
phase-detection auto-focus,
because it does 
use contrast as well,
it will struggle.
As my lovely Jimmy the Greek is a black cat
and the background is much brighter,
it does cause issues.
What I could do,
 is throw more light on him,
darken the background 
and it would work a lot better
but this would happen whether 
it’s a black cat or a person 
with a bright background.
So, these are the sort of issues 
you need to be thinking about 
when using auto-focus.
Bag is too heavy!
(Whimsical strings - music)
So, I need to do more tests.
 That’s what I’m 
heading off to do right now,
is see my friends 
Julian and Guy 
at their production company,
 Teralon Media in Wandsworth,
which is about 7 miles from me, 
so in London terms,
at this time of day, 
it’s not too bad.
Hey, good to see you.
You just covered my camera.
Oh God!
See what I mean, it’s really heavy!
You’ve probably got a bad back.
Oh my God, the number one rule 
about getting an office - ground floor!
(Philip laughs and groans carrying the bag)
It’s warm.
You can see I have 
lots of different lenses.
It wasn’t about the types of lenses
and the adapted lenses 
that I wanted to see here.
This is coming in the next big test.
Guy has never looked better, 
and that is saying something.
I wanted to see how well 
that face-only tracking worked, 
so if you want somebodys 
face and you lose them,
does it hold in that position?
Way more controlled than doing it out
in the crowd in the town centre. 
With controlled subjects, 
that I can actually direct, 
well sort of.
Most of the time I’m just 
going to be on the main 
Atomos Inferno screen
because it shows you all the information, 
and I’m doing this in slow motion,
so I can go through 
this shot in particular. 
 It’s auto-focus, face only.
Not Registration, because there’s 
two people I want to go from, 
because in Face Registration
it will ignore the person 
who is not registered.
 It sees Guy, as you can 
see from the square. Perfect.
And, as I pan off of him, 
the focus motor disengages
because it has lost the face.
It’s only re-engages 
when it reaches Julian
and it recognises another human face.
Just at that point, 
Julian turns around, 
so it loses the face and again,
 the focus motor holds in that position
 It doesn’t revert to anything else.
If there was another person in the frame,
then it would probably go onto them.
In which case, I would most likely
press the Focus Hold button,
because I don’t want
 it to go onto them.
 I just need to wait for 
Julian to be a face again,
and when he turns around when 
he is off his Instagram story,
It picks him up again 
and we are working.
Perfect result.
The camera desperately needs the 
LCD screen to be touch enabled
so you can select who you want to be in focus. 
You know, like the Sony stills cameras.
I have heard though, that this 
actually is a touchscreen,
whether it can be enabled, I don’t know,
but it would make 
things so much easier. 
Right now, you’ve got to 
use the flexible spot mode,
which is actually on 
one of my shortcuts.
So, you move the cursor, 
it’s easier to do it on the joystick, 
which is on the hand grip,
but if you’re not on that 
side of the camera,
 you use the D pad on the side.
And, it does work, 
it’s just not ideal,
it would be much easier 
to just touch the screen.
I don’t know what actually 
constitutes a face for Sony, 
so I decided to try 
and draw my own.
I didn’t know Sony 
was an art critic. 
I thought it was pretty accurate 
as a face, but apparently not.
(Whimsical music)
This review has been 
brought to you by Quavers. 
The cheesy, what are they called?
The cheesy, curly.
The cheesy, curly potato snack.
This sort of silliness, is the 
perfect way to do these tests.
They are controlled, but they 
are real world as well.
I can imagine, many, many shoots where
this sort of particular situation would come up. 
Well, maybe not exactly this,
but this kind of unpredictability
is definitely a big thing. 
What you don’t want 
is the auto-focus
to just be going off onto the background 
and getting completely confused, otherwise 
you would have to go manual focus
and you wouldn’t stand 
a hope in hell of nailing it.
So, it seemed adding a 
little bit of extra facial hair,
meant that the Sony now considered
my drawing to be essentially, photorealistic.
Two, equally handsome visages.
I think the hair is a bit nicer, on my drawing!
(Laughs)
I mean, look, can you tell 
which is the human being there?
And which is my drawing?
(Piano)
Today, was very much an educational day.
No, no you can see the fun, 
but it was educational in that I got 
to know this camera a lot better,
because I’m in a controlled situation,
with the same subject and
 playing with the settings,
figuring out what is, 
well, what works best.
It’s a journey of discovery when 
you are using a new camera.
I haven’t even looked at the 
stuff yet, about 2 1/2 cards,
so that’s 128 gig and another 64, 
so, I’ve probably shot about 150 gigs.
Not too bad. A lot less than yesterday.
(Playful strings)
You had a nice day? What you been up to?
I’ve been filming. Mostly auto-focus again.
I know, 
there is no animal, eye auto-focus on this, sorry. 
Maybe one day, you never know.
Maybe one day, you never know.
The FX9 is the first Full-frame camera 
to get an electronic variable ND.
First introduced in the FS5 
and then the FS7 mark 2,
it makes getting perfect 
exposure so much easier. 
Other cameras have built-in ND, 
have fixed amounts.
Could be a filter wheel, or 
another way of implementing it.
You can use the FX9 in that traditional way, 
with three fixed presets,
But you can actually define 
how much ND you want on each one,
but the best way by far 
is by using variable ND. 
And, there is a dedicated switch on the FX9,
to go between the preset modes
 and the variable ND mode.
My shots are going to have the 
exact depth of field that I want
because I have far more 
control over my settings. 
My shutter speed can remain the same, 
the ISO can be what I want it to be
and I just dial in the amount 
of ND until I get my exposure.
And, it is implemented in a better way 
than the previous two cameras.
Now, when you turn the ND off,
you have a clear piece of glass,
which not only protects the sensor,
but maintains the 
back focus on the lenses, 
whereas on the other two cameras, 
when you turn the ND off, 
it was completely open.
This way, much better...
and it protects the sensor
(Beeping)
We all know what a focus pull is. 
Here is one for you, 
and this is done manually, so it’s almost spot-on. 
Good enough. 
 One of the cool things you can do, 
with a camera, with variable ND,
 is a depth of field pull, so right 
now we are super shallow
and I’m going to increase my depth 
of field so you can see Lil Bub.
It’s a pretty easy thing to do, 
 you simply put your 
variable ND into auto mode. 
You do need to have a lens 
with a smooth virus – absolutely.
So, when you start wide open 
and close down your iris,
then your depth of field will increase 
and you will see the 
background much more,
but of course it gets much, much darker,
so the idea is that the 
variable ND will compensate for that.
There’s a few bits of 
fiddling with the settings
so when you are wide open, 
you should have 
the maximum amount of variable ND,
and then when you close down
it will go to its minimum amount of ND.
The lens that I am using has 
a seven stop rating from 1.4 to F16.
The variable ND of the 
camera is a five stop control. 
It does have seven stops in total,
but when you get down to the 
least amount, that is two stops,
and then if you want to add more 
light you have to off the variable ND, 
so there is no control 
over those first two stops.
So, basically you have a window of five stops.
If you do try and close down your iris, 
you will see that as I 
go past that five stops
I end up two stops under exposed, 
so you will need to limit 
yourself to those five stops.
There is a way round that, and that means
 having something else auto on,
which is basically the ISO.
Getting your settings right for this, is a bit fiddly,
but after a bit of experimenting 
you can make it work,
so I basically set my auto ISO 
max to be two stops higher 
than what I had it set for the
 non-auto ISO,if that makes sense. 
You may be asking, this is all very cool,
but what is the point of it.
Well, think about it, the way that we 
draw attention to something in the frame, 
normally is to have 
a shallow depth of field.
By starting off with 
a deeper depth of field
and making it shallower 
as part of the shot,
we are drawing 
the viewers attention
to that person in the frame.
Alternatively, we could be doing it as a reveal,
showing more of the background. 
A focus pull is about changing 
 the attention from one thing to another, 
but with a depth of field pull we
 are still on that same subject
and that can have a very powerful 
impact on your shot.
If I haven’t convinced 
you yet, this will.
The unique system uses 
a motor on the iris
to change depth of field 
and our variable ND filter 
automatically keeps exposure constant,
enabling a noble form 
of cinematic expression.
I am five years from retirement.
It isn’t personal Mike.
Your salary benefit package is too much
 against your return.
You work hard, you play by the rules, 
you’re a good soldier 
and you don’t deserve it, 
But the reality is, sometimes 
soldiers end up casualties.
Even though there’s loads of cats behind me, 
it won’t focus on to those 
because it is for humans only.
Some of the stills cameras from Sony,
 do recognise animals
for stills mode but not in video. 
Hopefully, that will come.
And, it works really, really well,
but it does need to be a
 human face for it to work,
which is why this section is called, what exactly is a human face?
what exactly is a human face?
(Galant march)
(Marker pen squeaking)
(Lively swing)
I mentioned earlier how 
important I think it is
to have either 
interchangeable lens mounts 
or lens mount that works across all sorts 
of different types of lenses with adapters. 
The E-Mount is one of the most 
flexible lens mounts out there.
I don’t mean flexible in a bendy way,
especially with the new lever lock,
it’s really quite the opposite of that.
As long as the lens 
that you want to use
has a larger flange than the E Mount, 
with an adapter of course,
because if it’s just a little bit bigger 
than the E-Mount, it’s not going to work, 
you’ve got to get an adapter in there.
As long as it covers the sensor,
you are going to be able to use it,
whether you can use the electronics or not,
that is a different thing
With more and more mirrorless cameras out there,
so there are now different types of lenses 
up there with flanges, which are 
about the same or even smaller.
You really cannot use these 
on this camera, sorry.
I’ve already talked about 
my love of full frame,
and for many years on 
Sony videocameras,
we have been able to get a full frame look
using the Metabones speedboosters.
I first used them on the FS 100
and the FS 700 and it was a really 
important tool on the FS7.
One of the biggest joys 
of using Canon EF lenses
with the FS7 was, the speedbooster
and the normal adapter.
If you wanted that field of
 view and look of full frame,
 you used the speed booster. 
If you wanted the extra length on the lens 
and the Super 35 mil look, 
use a normal adapter.
It made the camera super flexible.
I can hear you saying, 
you’ve got your wish,
Sony have made a Full-frame,
professional video camera
with the FX9, so you 
don’t need that anymore,
but actually the 
speed booster is 
still a very useful tool 
to have in your arsenal.
More for me, Tottenham Hotspur,
or for you, whatever it is 
that floats your boat,
especially until version 2 firmware comes out, 
so if you want that 
Full-frame aesthetic in 4K,
the only way you’re going to 
do it is with a speed booster,
but if you want to do this, you can’t 
use your native glass, obviously.
As I’ve shown you, you can still 
get autofocus to work, in slow motion,
if you shoot in 50p or 60p scan rate.
So, this brings me onto that question,
which I have touched 
on a little bit already,
is, how well do adapted lenses work on the FX9?
especially with auto-focus, 
because away from speed boosters
we have the normal type of adapters
which we will put in 
Full-frame mode and hope 
they will work really 
well with auto-focus.
I promise this will be my last section,
obsessing over the autofocus,
but I am just going to do this
very controlled test, using 
Nathalie the mannequin.
She is called Nathalie after my sister, 
who was a model in the late 
80s, 90s and early noughties.
And, I’ve used her before 
in a video about
how to practice your lighting, because 
it’s a great way of practising your lighting.
And, I don’t think I’d 
find anyone willing
to be filming with me at 
11:15 on a Friday night, 
for the next two or three hours, 
to get this done.
So, that’s why Nathalie is there,
and she is on the Rhino slider, 
with motorised head, so she
 is going to rotate slightly
and move backwards and forwards, 
adding a few little conditions, 
like rotating and 
seeing how it works, 
so, what do you think Lollipop?
This was to see how Face tracking
 and just general auto focus works
with all of these different types of lenses, 
native and and adapted lenses. 
To see at which point 
it would lose the face,
the amount of variables was huge.
From the different types of lenses, 
to the focus speed, 
the focus sensitivity, the focus area,
face priority,
Face only, no face detection. 
The picture profiles, because the 
auto-focus works much better
when there is good contrast, 
because it uses that
as well as phase detection.
From my experience so far,
the auto-focus still 
works really well
in Slog 3 mode, 
just not as well
as in a contrastier 
profile like S-Cinetone.
Then there is things like under exposure,
over exposure, 
auto exposure,
low base ISO, 
high base ISO
Just thinking about it now 
makes my head want to explode.
I did my best, I didn’t cover everything, 
that was impossible,
but hopefully just 
enough to get an idea
of what works and what doesn’t work.
So, what were my findings?
Kinda obvious really.
The native glass worked way 
better in all the modes
and even did pretty well in some of the 
slightly challenging set ups in Cine EI mode.
Adapted glass with a straight EF adapter
 and the Metabones both worked,
they just didn’t like the face tracking 
that much, they weren’t that reliable.
In normal mode, they were okay, 
 but I must stress the okay, 
and auto-focus that is okay 
isn’t the same as 
auto-focus that is great.
And, to get great results you 
really do need to use native glass.
Although, going back to 
that Sigma 105 Art the 1.4,
the EF version with the with 
the MC adapter did so well. 
Maybe it’s down to the 
fact that it’s a newer lens.
Some of the older Sigma Lenses did
well and some I couldn’t 
get to work at all. 
I think it is all down to firmware.
But, yeah, that 105 worked like a native lens, 
and don’t forget they do 
make E Mount lenses as well.
I am sure that there are new
 lenses like the 35 mil 1.2,
will do just as well, although 
without having one to test out,
I am totally speculating.
(Relaxing violins)
Summarising my findings with the auto-focus, 
which has been a big part of this video, 
there is a number of key things.
First off, it does work really well,
but it would work a lot better,
if you had a touchscreen.
The other key thing, or 
the other two key things, 
is your lenses, obviously, 
and your settings.
So, these are your key settings,
we have the transition speed,
the sensitivity, 
the area which it scans, 
the transition speed is 
how fast the motor will react,
so, forgive me if I keep 
looking over at the screen, 
 it’s because it’s where the menu 
is on my monitor, on the Ninja 5.
So, I have it set to 4 right now.
You can see the difference 
if I have it set to fast,
but what is important as well is the 
sensitivity to know when it is moving, 
so let’s go to responsive. 
One of the key things 
apart from the settings, 
is going to be how 
good your lens is at this.
You can see it's not, 
it got a bit thrown there, 
that’s because it’s not 
on any face tracking mode,
and that definitely makes a difference, 
so right now, anything, 
because on super sensitive,
 anything I put close 
or that's going to be in frame,
it will switch today switch to that.
Which, whilst is a, is pretty cool,
 and you can see how quick it is,
if you’re doing something just on 
the face, it’s a bit of a nightmare
Even just something like your glasses,
but look how good it is, 
look how fast it can be.
 Look at that, it is absolutely 
fantastic for certain things.
Transition speed, but 
the sensitivity is slow.
So what we have there, 
is, it’s fast when it 
figures out there 
is something changing.
It takes ages to realise that
there is something more important. 
That’s not good.
This could be the optimum settings 
for this situation right now.
(Classical music)
It could be more reactive, but 
it feels a little bit more organic.
Now, with face priority, it will 
literally do what it says,
prioritise the face when
 it comes to autofocus.
It’s on me, I’m the 
biggest in the frame,
it’s going to default to me. 
What happens though, 
when I do what I did before?
See, it loses me and goes on to
another face you can see 
then comes back onto me,
 because I’m biggest in the frame.
So, there’s a couple 
of things we can try.
So, we can try face registration, 
so I’m gonna press enter
 and now I get a double white box,
so now it will not be distracted 
by any other faces at all, 
so even if that face becomes 
bigger and frame it will stay on me,
but if I do this, it will 
still do the same thing. 
Face priority will always 
default to a face 
even if you have a registered face. 
What can you do about that? 
Well, that’s when 
you go in to ....face only.
 Hide my face.
Don’t do it.
Don’t do it.
So, it should not be distracted by any 
other faces, but what about objects? 
Hand - it came on to me.
It didn’t come onto her, 
it came onto me. 
It doesn’t track though, right.
Now, it tracks my face – hand up in front.
Didn’t do it.
Move all the way, 
really out of focus.
Problem is, I’m barely a face,
 I’m just a very, very out of focus blur.
so, in this sort of situation, just
 use your manual focus override - here
to give a helping hand,
 
because it is looking in the frame, 
it is looking to see, what is the face, 
but if you’re so blurred out of focus, 
you may need to help it.
But, this thing, how 
do we stop this happening 
if we just want it to be a face.
(Racing violins)
So, I think this is a bug.
 I'm pretty certain this is going 
to be fixed in firmware,
and I’ve already given 
this information to Sony
 and sent them clips,
 so fingers crossed.
It’s not a massive fix, I don’t know 
how often you’re going to go - hand.
It didn’t do it that time.
Hand.
Oh my God, fixed it. 
It’s fine now - look!
I don’t know what I did.
For God sake.
I’m losing it. I can’t do anymore.
(Laconic jazz trumpet)
I’m going into bloody, 
manual focus mode.
Where is the switch?
Where is the switch? 
Give me the switch.
So, I gave my footage to Sony
and they were very reassuring,
saying that this is clearly
 not supposed to happen
and with all these examples,
it’s going to really help to figure 
out what is causing these issues,
so they can sort out the algorithm, 
So you’ll never have to go 
through the experience, 
from what I’ve had to go through,
because, the thing is the
 auto-focus works brilliantly
It’s just on the couple 
of really, extreme situations,
 that it goes a bit funny.
My faith hasn’t 
been lost at all in
the autofocus still, 
it’s still absolutely amazing.
I just need to remember, if I’m doing 
any interviews using auto focus, 
I just need to make sure that 
whoever I’m interviewing,
doesn’t suddenly put their 
hand up in front of the camera
and go - hand! 
Otherwise, I’ll be fine.
 (Mysterious chords)
It is very important 
that I touch on this,
although I do totally
 recommend going to
Alistair Chapman’s website
and he can explain this stuff 
in way more technical 
detail than I ever could. 
Just want to give you a 
slight little guide, a taster for it. 
So, we have two different ways 
of recording in the camera;
We have Custom, 
and Cine-EI Mode.
Now, I’m currently 
in Custom, in S-Log3. 
Now, I wouldn’t normally shoot 
in S-Log3, in custom,
 I’m just using it for 
an example right now.
You’ll see that our base 
ISO is that set to low. 
This is ISO 800. If I press 
my shortcut button, 
which I programmed I 
can change it to the high,
 it says 4000. 
So, the noise levels 
at both of these 
should be very similar.
So, this is S-Cinetone now.
The dynamic range is 
much more challenging.
The 15 stops is actually 
in Cine-EI mode, S-Log3.
S-Log3 has a much higher 
dynamic range than S-Cinetone.
What are we losing, like three
 or four stops maybe? 
So, looking at a waveform, you know,
 we’re not going to hold everything, 
 it’s a very contrasty shot.
You’ll notice though 
that my base ISO
now says 400. 
Will go to my high, 
it says 2000.
Just try and remember
 if you are in Cinetone,
 it is just gonna be lower.
You could, if you want to 
change your mode to dB 
and when you are in
your low mode it is 
0dB at the base ISO. 
I just stick with ISOs. 
That’s what I got used to.
You can increase your ISO by 
standard switches on the side,
low, medium and high – 
a seventh of a stop each, 
but they are user 
definable in the menus. 
But, what Imuch rather, recommend
 is using the multifunction dial 
and then, select  it in and you 
can change it to what you want.
So, when you 
get to 4000 ISO,
when you go over,
 it’s still in the low mode, 
you can go to 6400,
which is not a good idea, 
because it is going to be noisier,
 than it can be, because if 
we are in our higher ISO.
Let’s just drop back down again, 
we can’t go below 4000, 
but obviously we 
can go much higher.
I would love it if it could automatically switch, 
but it can’t, so we are stuck with it.
We do have lots 
more options in Paint, 
which are available in Custom Mode, 
So you really can do all sorts of 
things to your image if you want to, 
but that’s totally up to you. 
When you are in Custom Mode,
you can select a S-Log3, which is 
what I’m showing you right now.
It doesn’t give you the 
S-Gamma3 colour space. 
 I’ve been advised to use the 
BT 2020 to get the best results, 
but it’s not going to match with any 
LUTs that are currently out there,
so trying to get that Venice 
look colour is going to be tricky.
Not saying it won’t look good, 
it does still look good, and
the dynamic range 
is still definitely held. 
It just will be 
harder to work with, 
and that is why 
I would recommend
shooting in Cine-EI Mode if you 
are going to shoot in S-Log3.
So, this is Cine-EI Mode, and it operates
 in a very different way to Custom Mode.
If you have never shot with 
a camera this way before, 
hopefully you will learn 
something, but again 
go to Alistair Chapman’s website 
for some very in-depth stuff.
We have our low base ISO of 800
and hour high, and if I try and change 
our ISO right now, nothing happens.
It doesn’t even say ISO, 
it says EI because
that is the exposure index.
Basically records at two levels, 
4000 and 800
and the idea is, you adjust 
your physical attributes
to make that work at 
that exposure index. 
Whilst I’m already wide open, 
so I can’t affect that,
 I do have ND in, so 
I can turn the ND off.
Yeah, we are pretty much
 there, just with that, 
and so, I would hit record,
 and that’s okay. 
Apart from the NDs the only things 
going to affect the exposure,
Will be your aperture, 
your shutter speed, 
 if you really want to 
touch that – I wouldn’t,
and of course, your lighting.
So you may think, 
'What a terrible way of working!'
'What if I just want to bump up 
the exposure with the ISO a little bit?'
I can’t increase the lighting, 
because it is what it is. 
'I’m already wide open, 
so what am I going to do?'
Shooting in straight Cine-EI Mode 
is a bit like shooting in raw, 
only when it comes 
to the ISO, as such.
So, when you have the MLUT on 
and you are pushing up the ISO,
and you're seeing these changes. 
It won’t look like that 
when you look at the recording, 
 it will still be at the 
4000 exposure index, 
you just need to push that up 
in post the equivalent way.
It won’t look any different, 
because all you’re doing 
in camera is just 
pushing up gain anyway. 
The key is when you are 
shooting Log you cannot 
be under exposed like this, 
because when you are going to 
add again in post it’s going to look
nasty and noisy. 
This is the correct exposure, 
pushed up in post, in Premiere.
It’s noisy because it was under 
exposed to start with but now 
I’m going to add like to get 
correct exposure in camera first.
You can see the 
difference in noise is huge. 
Just to show you how important it is 
to not under expose this Log image. 
What I’ve done here is recorded the
 viewing LUT internally to show you
the noise level you get 
by doing it that way, 
compared to doing it in post.
(Magical synth)
You do have noise reduction available,
both in Cine-EI and
 in Custom Mode 
and the results aren’t too bad, 
just be very careful, 
because it could cause banding.
To be honest with you, 
if you are in this sort of situation
you can’t increase
 the amount of light, 
I wouldn’t be shooting in this mode.
 In extreme low light,
 Custom Mode does look better.
(Magic synth)
This is the last thing,
 I want to show you here.
 It’s the importance of making sure 
that you are in the correct base ISO, 
whether it’s low or high.
It’s a very simple rule, if you 
need to be pushing your ISO up 
then you need 
to be in the high
and when it’s nice and bright, 
you stay in the low.
If you start pushing up your ISO 
whilst you’re in the low base sensitivity,
it looks really noisy, 
as you can see here.
So, this is 4000, in the low base sensitivity, 
and this 4000 in the 
high base sensitivity. 
You tell me, 
which one looks better?
(Pouring rain)
Oh, rain, rain, rain!
Natures pro mist and anti-aliasing filter, 
in certain situations. 
this is the problem I’ve had, when 
I try and get out and do these tests.
 It’s just been raining so much,
but it does look like there’s 
a bit of blue coming through,
so I might get lucky, because 
it’s awful a minute ago 
and I need to get these slow motion tests
 done and... running out of time.
(Pouring rain)
What should be 
something really simple,
 is actually quite complicated.
 In a way, it’s simple 
once you understand 
what’s going on, it’s just the
 way that it is presented, 
hey, not by me, 
by the menus.
In our record format menus, you have four options. 
Frequency, Imager Scan Mode, 
 Codec, Video Format.
Frequency can vary 
from 23.98p, which is 24p,
25p, 29.97, 50, 59.97p but,
 that depends on the Imager Scan Mode,
but those are the, basically the 
frame rates that we can record in.
The sensor of the camera actually 
isn’t even 16 x 9 or 17 x 9, it’s 3 x 2.
In fact, the pixels are already 
exactly the same as the high end
Sony Venice camera, 
but the top and bottom 
are not touched by the camera,
they are completely ignored. How rude!
Anything in blue, green or red is 
what is actually scanned by the FX9, 
so the highest Imager Scan Mode is called FF6K,
so that is full frame 6K. 
It’s scanning 6K, but it’s not recording 6K. 
It’s downsampling to 4K.
It can’t record 6K, for reasons which 
I'm not gonna get in to right now. 
And, in this mode we 
can record anything from;
24p, 25p and 30p, and that is it.
If you want 50p or 60p, you need 
to drop down to Super 35 mil crop
which is still 4K but it 
is cropping the sensor.
Don’t be fooled by the menu 
showing you 50p and 60p, 
when in full frame 6K, because when you 
select it, it changes the frequency to that
it will drop down to Super 35.
Bit of a tease really.
So there is basically, two Imager Scan Mode 
methods for you to record 4K,
full frame and super 35. 
It’s when we get to HD 
that it gets really confusing,
so if you are in your 
Imager Scan Mode of full frame 6K 
and you go down Video Formats, 
you will see your video options of 
4K and HD.
The HD recording in 
the full frame 6K scan
yields the nicest 
looking image by far,
for HD, that is.
But, it can only go up to 30p, so 
there is no slow motion in that mode.
If you want slow motion in HD you 
need to go down to the full frame 2K.
Now, this is not cropping, 
because it says full frame. 
Other cameras will crop the sensor 
one-to-one, to get high frame rate.
To get those high frame rate
 that 2K scan is 
scanning at a lower resolution
 and that will mean 
a loss in detail. 
You won’t see it all the time, 
but just certain types of shots, 
like if I crop in on these trees, 
you really can see the difference. 
That amount of detail will be the same whether 
you are shooting in high frame rate mode 
or you are shooting 
at normal speed.
This actually isn’t anything new, it’s just 
the way the menus operate is new. 
With the FS7, if we were in HD mode 
and we went to high frame rate,
we would lose detail and 
we would get a noisier image.
If we drop back down to 25p, 
all within the same scanning mode
it would look so much better.
Just, with the FX9 we do really 
need to change our scanning mode 
to get that better 25p, because if we
 stay in that 2K Full frame mode 
our image quality won’t be as good 
as it could be at normal speed.
As the S and Q button when 
shooting in full frame, 6KHD 
only goes up to 30p, 
it makes it kind of pointless. 
 It would be great if they could, 
so when you press that button, 
it would change to full frame 2K, 
so you could get some HFR and then, 
when you press it again 
it goes back to Full frame 6KHD.
Be nice. 
The other thing is,
by just going into 
Full frame 6K Scan Mode 
doesn’t put you back into 4K, you still 
need to change your video format manually
to 4K from HD. 
This is why those early
 shots you saw in Richmond,
I was in HD. 
I really want Sony to look at this menu
and re-label it, so 
it’s much, much, clearer,
and these sort of 
things can’t happen.
(Comedy scream)
(Edgy piano)
Despite this, the 120p still does 
look good in slow motion. 
The shallow depth of field, 
it looks very nice. 
Obviously, the reasons why lights 
are flickering is, I’m being greedy 
and trying to shoot 
120 frames per second 
in a 50 Hz country 
and if I’d left it at 100
frames per second
 I would have been fine. 
Oh well!
Let’s just call it, artistic flicker.
The only time auto-focus is available 
 is when your frame rate 
matches your frequency,
so if we’re in 25p frequency, 
and we are 25p-autofocus,
but if we do slow/quick motion, in 4K mode to 30p, 
not much slow motion - auto-focus disengages. 
And, again those frequencies are
24, 25, 30, 50 and 60p but only 
in certain Imager Scan Modes.
Hopefully this makes you 
understand what is going on now. 
(Suspenseful piano)
 Well, it actually worked out kind of well.
The rain gave the newly reopened 
Richmond lock a nice sheen,
 so it looks really nice behind me, 
as you can see. 
Racking focus is hard 
on these stills lenses, 
especially when you’ve
 gotten used to auto focus. 
Ahh, but I don’t need the whole thing. 
I only need - you know 120 frames. 
I need a small section of it, 
so that’s not too bad.
The thing is, with things like, 
you know the 3 x 2 sensor 
not being entirely used, so we 
don’t have any anamorphic mode,
and no 6K recording, 
only down sampled.
To be honest with you, if the FX9 
had most of the things that I 
wanted to be enabled on it, it would 
essentially be like a Sony Venice,
but with really good auto-focus. 
At some point you just have to 
accept it and love it for what it is 
and not complain
 about what it isn’t.
(Plucky strings)
As you can tell from how
 long you’ve been watching this,
 there is so much to 
cover in this camera
and I’m still not going
 to be able to cover it all.
One really fascinating feature 
which really needs its own video,
is the way it does stabilisation.
I did a 50 minute video, based upon 
action cameras and how they did it, 
and the FX9, in a way, does it in a 
very similar way using gyroscopic data.
There is no in body image stabilisation, 
as in no sensor stabilisation, 
no electronic stabilisation. 
The way that the FX9 stabilises stuff, 
away from optical stabilised lenses
is by recording all the movement,
 all the gyroscopic data 
and keeping that 
associated with each file.
You then run it into the dedicated
 software, called Catalyst browser,
and then you stabilise it.
And, you can set it for 
the amounts that you want.
Results dependent of course 
on how much you are moving, 
your focal lengths, how much light 
there is, and your shutter speed. 
As I said, this is too big a
 topic for this video alone. 
 It is something that I will look 
into in much more detail 
and see how it compares with 
other methods of post-stabilisation.
(Enchanting music)
You have seen the FX9 that I 
have been using in this video, 
with all sorts of 
bits and pieces on,
but do you really need them?
Is the camera that comes straight 
out of the box not enough?
Can you use it like it is?
Well, actually – yes! Unlike the FS7,
which had lots of reallty
 irritating little quirks,
that absolutely had to be fixed 
to make the camera usable,
 the FX9 is much better.
I mean, first off the LCD screen 
is higher resolution, is now 720p, 
so even though I 
don’t like that loupe, 
that comes with it, same loupe 
that we’ve had all the 
way back from the FS-100,
it is much more usable.
You’ve seen me use the 
Zacuto Z finder on that
and it does work very well, 
and it is much shorter 
than the official Sony loupe, 
so it makes it much easier 
to have the camera 
on your shoulder.
I know it’s all money, but if 
you’ve got one from the FS7, 
 I think it still works, in fact I think a 
lot of accessories still work on the FX9, 
which is great. 
Depending on what your needs are 
you may not need most of the stuff,
 but this is what I’ve got 
and I’m going to explain 
to you why I have 
put them on this camera.
The number one accessory 
I would recommend getting
 is the Zacuto top plate.
It’s not that expensive and all it does, 
it’s not even really a top plate, 
it just replaces the bit at the front
 where your rod goes through. 
Now, we did have lots of issues 
with the FS7 version of that
and even with the FS7 mark 2 version 
and this, it’s still not great. 
There is still a screw in there,
that you need to unscrew,
 if you want to change 
the position of that rod
which is silly. 
I don’t want to have to get out any tools. 
I like my cameras to be tool less.
What I do not recommend is 
replacing that top handle. 
That top handle has the MI shoe 
and it has the zoom rocker,
which I don’t use, but 
the MI shoe I do use, 
that’s two of your inputs on 
the audio, so don’t replace that.
I don’t have a full cheese 
plate on there right now,
but I do and one from Smallrig 
and it does work very well. 
The reason this is not on there, is that 
it didn’t play very well with the Zacuto
front top-plate thing.
It didn’t fit on together. I did find a 
way of putting on a rod clamp 
for that EVF, but it looked a bit ugly, 
but I’m still working on it.
Why do you even need a cheese plate?
Well, there’s no places
 to really put anything on.
You’ve got a quarter 20 hole 
on the top of the handle
 and the ones on the body 
that there are, are not ideal.
It’s very difficult to put any accessories on 
top of that camera without any third-party
cheese plate type things.
(Sentimental romantic music)
I actually have a Movcam/Movecam 
side plate and rear plate. 
They do the whole thing and it is wonderful, 
but the version I’ve got, 
was a preproduction version,
and it didn’t quite fit.
Whilst Sony have redesigned
 the shoulder pad slightly, 
 it’s still not ideal 
for shooting handheld. 
You just can’t get the camera anywhere near it needs to be, 
which is, the centre of 
gravity on your shoulder.
So I’m using the Zacuto 
VCT Baseplate here. 
It’s very comfortable and it let me 
slide it backwards and forwards,
So depending on what size lens 
I’ve got, I can get really lovely balance.
And, I know I’ve talked 
about Zacuto a lot, 
butI do love their products. 
Not everything on here is Zacuto though. 
 I use the best bits for me, 
hence my Frankenrig,
 but I’ve really good friends 
with them for many, many years 
and they have actually, very kindly, have given
anyone who wants to buy an FX9 accessory,
 this discount code
 and it is valid for ever.
Well, as long as 
Zacuto are around.
My FS7 uses the 
Shape replacement arm. 
It gives you a really quick adjustment, 
much better than the stock arm. 
 But, this is the Zacuto 
arm and I do prefer it. 
It’s easy to adjust,
 like the Shape one,
but it has a big improvement, 
which I find essential. 
You are able to rotate the whole arm,
so you can get it to settle
in the natural position of 
where your wrist will be,
whereas the other arms you force 
your wrist to be where the actual arm is.
This is so much better 
and way less straining.
I am using a dedicated EVF here, 
so this is the Kameleon pro.
This one has the ability to have 3-D LUTs, 
so you can use your M LUTs in there, 
so you can shoot in Cine-EI, 
you can load up your MLUT in there 
and you can flick between the two 
and monitor your waveform, 
for what is being recorded 
and what you are seeing,
and it also shows audio levels
 and things like false colour 
and peaking and waveform, 
and I have their Axis mini arm on there, 
which gives me 
a lot of flexibility
for moving that EVF 
into the right position.
So, of course by having an EVF
my LCD screen doesn’t have
 a place to go at the front. 
I still want to use it, 
and I have moved it to the back. 
This is the best place 
I have found for it so far. 
I can’t think of anywhere else to 
put it right now, but it seems to work.
You can flip it round
 so an assistant can 
see things and change settings,
and you can flip it to yourself of course, 
and you can flip it down to protect it,
even though I do have a pouch which 
goes over it when it goes in the bag.
And, if Sony ever do enable a touch screen
(Exhales)
I think it’s a perfect place for it.
I have actually changed the mic bracket and, 
God if you’ve ever tried to take it off,
 it is insanely complicated, 
so what I am using right now
is a very simple one from Smallrig.
 I don’t think it’s great, it doesn’t 
seem to have a lot of isolation,
but for now it will do. I think 
I can find something better 
and I am using a Rode NTG5 
microphone, which is superb.
(Musical beeps)
Here is some nice audio 
accessories for you. 
I don’t have a UW-PD which is 
their digital wireless receiver yet, 
but I do have the 
old dual receiver one. 
You don’t need any extra power, 
you don’t need any extra cables. 
Everything goes through the MI shoe, 
so with this dual receiver 
I have two channels of audio which 
I can control within the camera, 
or if I have a single receiver, obviously, one. 
 It’s a neat, lovely system and it 
gets rid of some of those cables.
And, if you get 
Sony’s XLR K3M,
which is meant mainly for their 
stills cameras, but it works well on here,
what it does is, it give you two more 
XLR inputs with full phantom power. 
And, it also gives you an
 MI shoe extension cable.
You can’t buy this on its own, 
but it comes with this,
so you could use that 
to mount your radio mics 
at the back or anywhere else, 
if you want to.
This little microphone is very cool, 
again it’s from Sony it’s the ECMB1M, 
And what is unique about this mic, 
well, it’s two unique things. 
It has three switchable polar patterns
 in one microphone,
super directional, uni directional 
and omnidirectional 
and it also has noise cancellation,
which is okay. 
I wouldn’t use it too much, I’ve used it
 in planes, trains and automobiles, 
actually, not the trains, and it does 
take away that rumble, so it is there, 
you can do it in post though 
and you’ll have more control, 
but it’s a cool thing to have.
We are almost there, I just want
 to talk to you about power.
Now the camera uses the BPEU batteries 
and the camera is more power hungry than before. 
It has a power draw 
of about 60 Watts.
It will use up your batteries from 
the FS7 maybe a third quicker or so. 
You can buy bigger third-party batteries
 – I have some 95 Watt hour ones.
Now, you had two ways 
of getting more power,
Sony's extension unit is great, in that it 
gives you the ability to use external power, 
gives you raw out, and also lets 
you put in these new radio mics,
but the problem is, it is very 
expensive and, it is very big.
Here are a few alternatives from 
Wooden camera, from Movcam, 
from Hawk-Woods and from Core SWX. 
They all need to do a similar thing, 
because the camera needs 19.5 volts dc input.
From what I understand, this is 
down to an excess of old Vaio 
Power supply units, that 
they have reconditioned. 
Good for the environment and all that, 
which means all of these adapters 
need to adapt the voltage from the battery
to that level and the downside is 
because you’re going into a DC in 
and the viewfinder when you 
are using it on external power,
it looks like you are actually
 powering it off the mains, 
so you won’t know exactly 
how much power you’ve got left. 
A couple of the adapters do you have a warning light on, 
but you’re not really 
going to see them. 
All of the adapters do let 
you have a BP battery in. 
The Wooden camera one will 
let you have any size,
the others, maximum, a BP 35. 
This is important, by having 
that battery in there,
when your main battery dies, you 
will instantly switch to that BP battery.
You’ll see it in the viewfinder, so you 
know it’s time to change the battery.
To take that BP battery out
 and replace it and charge it, 
the wooden camera is easiest,
 because it is just a lever open.
The others will require a screwing, 
that is why I do recommend
replacing any of the screws that 
come with them, for thumbscrews, 
so it’s easier to 
replace those batteries.
My two favourites are probably, the Wooden camera one, 
because of our ability 
to put any battery in
and the CoreWX one, 
because it is so neat. 
Both the Movcam and the 
Core give you the ability to
use a four pin XLR input,
 instead of the standard inputs
 that come with the camera. 
These adapters are essential, 
it gives you power out for 
things like EVFs and monitors 
and it makes your camera last longer. 
So there we go, 
I just cost you thousands!
(Classical music)
I’m really not with it.
Thought I was a bit too light.
God, I’m an idiot. 
Wasting time here, being forgetful.
I’ll put another card in now.
Literally, like 50 minutes of 
light left, just get what I can. 
Shooting Cinetone and S-Log3.
I’m going to start with the long lens,
 because I can see something interesting.
The time I had with the camera 
went very, very quickly. 
Far too quickly, a lot of the 
time was spent just fiddling with it,
and getting to know it. 
Spending too much 
time with the auto-focus
and the weather has been 
atrocious for the entire fortnight.
Every time I wanted to go 
out it was pouring with rain.
I so wanted to get some lovely daytime, sunny shots.
Didn’t happen, but I felt that within that
fortnight I got to know the camera pretty well.
I wouldn’t say all of my questions 
from the camera had been answered.
In fact, I’d probably come up with 
about 10 times more questions 
 than when I started with. 
When I’m trying to 
assess a camera like this
in such a concentrated 
amount of time, it is difficult.
As I said, the FS7 review was 
five months in the making.
By the time I put that video out, 
I really knew the camera.
And I had spent so much 
time of those two weeks
trying to understand the camera 
and not enough time shooting with it,
 which really for me,
 is the biggest test.
I really did find the camera 
an absolute pleasure. 
I found the image to be absolutely beautiful. 
There is so much that 
I absolutely loved about it.
I certainly wasn’t disappointed 
by the main things 
that I came into 
this video looking at, 
which was a beautiful,
 Full frame image, 
and it has a beautiful,
Full frame image.
Much better lowlight performance 
and great auto-focus. 
These were the main things, 
especially knowing what’s coming 
out with the firmware in version 2.
I did have this feeling though that 
the resolution and frame rates were
nothing to get excited about,
because these are frame rates and 
resolutions that I had back in the F 55.
It is a 6K sensor, but 
you can’t record the 6K, 
so it down samples it, and it does 
give it a cleaner looking image.
Would I also like the opportunity, if it was available,
 to choose to record 6K?
yeah, absolutely!
The problem is, the XAVC-I codec does 
not support a resolution over 4K DCI.
It does not support 
frame rates over 4K 60p, 
so I do think this is a factor
as to why we are not seeing these 
higher frame rate and higher resolutions.
The camera is certainly 
capable of doing it, 
I mean after all, one of the firmware 
updates to come in version 2, 
is 120 frames per Second in 4K,
it’s just not internal. 
It’s only going to be 
via raw out via their 
large extension back, which I don’t have.
Who knows, maybe there is a 
version 3 firmware coming 
which does let us use CF 
express cards, has a new codec, 
enable 6K internal recording 
and high frame rate of 
120 frames per second in 4K.
I don’t even know if 
the cameras processor 
is capable of those sorts of 
resolutions and frame rates.
I just feel that we do 
need to have a bump up
 in our frame rates and 
resolutions from the FS7.
And, the reality is, most of the 
stuff that I shoot is real time. 
Slow motion is just, occasional. 
The 6K would love to have
for when I am shooting interviews, 
for reframing and punching in a bit closer, 
but as soon as I start filming with 
the camera and looking at the image, 
these sorts of things just go 
completely to the back of my mind, 
because I absolutely adore the 
footage that comes out of this camera.
(Gentle music)
The stuff tonight has 
just turned out so well. 
Way nicer than I ever 
could have imagined it. 
Certainly when I arrived, with 
just an hour of daylight left. 
And, it wasn’t even nice daylight. 
There was no sun, 
it was just cloud
and then it started drizzling,
 and I really thought that was it, 
and I wasn’t going 
to get anything nice,
but so many colours around here,
and this camera 
can see in the dark.
It can see so well,
 it’s just beautiful. 
You combine it with fast lenses,
it works incredibly well, 
but even with the 2.8, 70 to 200, 
pushed up the ISO, I think the 
highest I went to was maybe 10,000, 
it looked great.
Most of the time it was lower than that. 
Just getting some amazing colours 
and just, absolutely beautiful.
You can get it straight out of the camera
 looking fantastic, but you can shoot in Log
and get it to look like that anyway, 
which is going to give you
a better dynamic range.
There is that downside that the 
auto-focus doesn’t work as well 
when you are shooting Log 
because it has the phase detection 
part for the speed and contrast 
based autofocus for the accuracy. 
And, there is less contrast 
when you’re shooting in Log.
It still works, but not as....
I mean, it’s incredible when you have 
some contrast in there, it’s absolutely incredible.
As you have seen tonight, I’ve been
 following ducks and people perfectly. 
It’s amazing.
I’m pretty sure I’ve used all 
the buttons on the camera 
which is good, because if there 
are ones which I wasn’t using, 
that would be a waste of space.
you can customise most of 
them to different functions 
and I thoroughly recommend 
that you do that.
I can’t tell you exactly 
how you should set it up, 
because that 
comes down to you.
I’m certainly saving my set up 
on the SD card and the next time I use 
an FX9 I can remap them straight away
onto the buttons that
 I need them to be. 
I have got one of the buttons 
set up to switch between 
the low and high base ISO, 
which I am constantly 
switching between. 
Now, you do have 
the switches for the
gain or the ISO at the 
bottom of the camera
and they can be 
preset in the menu,
but they can’t change the base ISO.
You are either going into the menus, 
press this button which is a lot easier.
Three of the buttons are 
set up just for the auto-focus
and I could actually
 do with another one, 
to be honest with you, one of them 
is set up to change the type of auto-focus,
whether it is face priority,
face only, or face off, 
not The Nicolas Cage, John Travolta movie,
 just, it won’t get distracted by faces 
when it's doing it’s auto focus.
The other one is to change 
the area where it is looking
to keep things in auto-focus, 
so it’s a wide zone
and selectable area.
And, the other button 
I have set for Focus hold, 
so, if someone is coming towards me 
or I want to override the auto-focus 
and just pause it, I can 
hold that button down.
Absolutely essential. 
Now, some lenses have this button
 on there, but a lot of lenses don’t. 
To be honest with you, 
I just want it on the body, 
so I’m not adding 
any extra wobble, 
which is what you do 
when you press the button
 on the lens, at 
the end of the shot.
The other settings which 
I use a lot for focus,
but not as much as these ones,
 is the changing of sensitivity 
and transition speed
 between things.
You do need to change these 
depending on the type of thing 
that you’re shooting, but 
nowhere near as frequently 
as the other ones, 
so it’s in the User menu 
and easy to get to, 
I have a quite near the top.
One thing I haven’t talked about,
 is one of the features 
that I am so happy
 it is in the camera 
when it comes to audio, it does 
record audio really well of course, 
because it’s a proper video camera,
but we have, I think it’s eight 
channels of audio available with XAVC-I,
but the key thing is, 
we have four inputs, 
now we have had that 
with other cameras with
four inputs and two of them 
via MI shoe on the top,
but one thing I’ve 
never been able to do.
I used to be able to 
do this with my original
Betacam SP 30 years ago. 
I could replicate channels one 
and two, on three and four 
at different levels, and that is a 
nice safety way of recording audio,
so I can have say channel 
one set to radio mic 
and then channel 3 set to replicate
 that but maybe six dB lower in case
somebody starts shouting, or 
have one on auto for example.
It’s a lovely, safer way of 
recording audio and it’s 
not been in the other cameras, and I’ve 
asked and asked and asked, 
and it is now in here, and it makes me 
very happy to have that on there.
So, on that note, note, audio – 
sort of ties in together slightly,
I am going home to 
warm up, I am so cold. 
It is nowhere near as cold as the other day, 
but it is wet and I’ve been outside
for hours, sitting on a park bench 
and it’s soaked through me.
 I just need to change
 clothes and get warm,
so I’m going to leave you with some
 lasting images of this beautiful evening,
despite it being cold and wet 
in Richmond upon Thames.
(Gentle piano)
(Car engine)
And that brings us to today, 
the 12th of February 2020,
down in Whitstable in Kent. 
Done some filming 
with version 1 firmware
on the FX9 and 
look, some sun.
Only got a couple of hours left, of course 
but that’s enough to get a little 
bit of different looking footage.
(Angelic harmony)
This review was only 
supposed to be a first look,
with the two weeks that I had it, 
with the camera back in November.
But, as things changed and I had 
more time with the release camera, 
then I had more time to 
really explore this camera 
and get to know it much better, 
which of course is much 
more useful than 
any first look review.
I just never imagined that I would 
spend so much time making this.
Everything that I came across that was new 
on the camera I wanted to know more about. 
How to get the best results. 
Of course, autofocus was a massive 
part of that, but it wasn’t the only thing. 
There are still many aspects 
I would love to explore, 
especially post-stabilisation. 
That would be fascinating, of course, 
version two firmware and, who knows 
what other firmware is coming out.
Some people will say that 
I should’ve just waited
to release the FX9 when 
version 2 was ready,
but I disagree.
 Version one of the FX9 is a magnificent camera.
I know some people 
might be put off in a way,
by the Full frame, because they 
have super 35 mil lenses like I do,
like the Fujinon MK zooms 
which are amazing lenses 
and think well, I’m not going to be able to use them. 
Well, you’ll not be able
 to use them in Full frame.
The super 35 mil mode 
is still beautiful. 
Colours are gorgeous, the noise is
 so much more reduced than the FS7.
It’s a beautiful camera in super 35.
I for one will still be 
using my MK’s in that mode.
(Classical strings)
I think I’ve got some 
pretty nice stuff. 
No, I know I’ve got some nice stuff. 
The only thing is, that side 
of the beach where I was
in daylight isn’t as interesting, 
visually as this side, 
but I still got some nice shots and 
it was a good test of the auto-focus
with the release firmware. 
I don’t know if it’s improved, because
 I couldn’t do a side-by-side with a 
preproduction one, but it worked so well. 
A good test of dynamic range 
with different picture profiles, 
and here it looks great
 even though it’s really dark.
I am at 12,800 high ISO and 
I’m going to switch to S-Cinetone.
And, it’s gorgeous with this fast lens I 
have here, which is the Sigma 105, 
1.4 art.
It’s the EF version with the Sigma MC 11 adapter, 
and it works great with 
the auto-focus and it picks up 
things that I don’t even know 
how it knows, how to pick up. 
So, so clever. 
Auto-focus is, it’s just great. 
But, it’s absolutely freezing cold,
so I’m going to get the last few shots 
and I’m going to drive home.
However long that will take me, 
but it was worth coming out here, definitely.
Definitely.
As it stands right now, with 
its beautiful Full frame image
and incredible colours, amazing 
auto-focus and terrific lowlight,
taking into account all of those factors, 
this truly is the best camera 
I have ever filmed with.
 I have certainly been frustrated at times, 
with the quirks of the camera
and the way that it operates. 
At times it is counterintuitive.
I do feel that there is sometimes, 
a lack of common sense
in the way that things are done. 
I know they can be improved. 
 I would love them to take on board some 
of the things that I have said in this review. 
It doesn’t hold the camera back at all, 
it just means that your first experience
and first few days with the camera 
are going to be a little bit more 
frustrating perhaps that they need to be. 
In a way, it’s a bit like a person, 
once you get to know them a bit better, 
their little quirks and their ways of doing things,
it’s not going to stop you 
falling in love with them.
Of course, with the biggest 
difference being that
you are going to be pointing 
out the little irritations
and hope with time, 
they can work on them.
Every story should have 
an ending, even a review.
What do I think of the FX9? 
 Is it an FS7 replacement? 
Is it worth it? 
Well you know the camera 
I’ve been working with today,
that’s mine.
(Upbeat violin) 
Subtitles by Adam Loretz 
www.loretzvisuals.co.uk
