Hello everyone in this weeks post I want to talk about a very exciting purchase I made on Friday evening that I hope will take the video side of my business to the next level. Since I have been doing video more and more I decided that I want to invest in a proper video camera. My Sony A7ii is a wonder camera for video and I love it but it has it's limitations. For me having a 30 minute recording limit is the biggest limitation. When I am shooting an event or wedding and I know that after 30 minutes I will have to stop and restart the recording and potentially lose an important moment or have to wait for a pause in the action to stop and restart the recording can be very stressing. The 2nd biggest factor in purchasing a true dedicated video camera is audio. While my A7ii has a mic input and i have a shotgun mic on the top of the camera I also have to use an external recorder to try to capture cleaner audio as I cant always be right on top of the action and depend on the mic to capture good audio.
4K video is another option that I wanted to have. My A7ii can only shoot in 1080HD and since 4K is getting more mainstream these days I wanted to have that ability so shoot 4K video.
So what did I decide on you may ask? Well after doing lots of research I decided on the Sony PXW-FS5 camera. For my run and gun shooting style this seemed to be the perfect fit for me. It's a lightweight, modular 4K cinema camera. It shoots full 4K video in 8 bit format but I have an option to upgrade to full 4K raw output to an external recorder at 12bit. 1080 HD video up to 240FPS in 10 bit 4:2:2 which is what I will be doing most of my recording at gives me a lot of flexibility. As far as audio it has 2 XLR inputs with separate audio control for each input and will allow me a lot more flexibility.
The camera also has a ton more features that I wont go into detail about now but I know this camera will allow me to do so much more and can open up a lot more jobs for me.
I hope to get the camera in my hands this week and start playing around with it. Once I get is in my hands I will do some videos on it and upload it to my YouTube channel as well.
This was an expensive purchase for me as the camera comes in at $6500 with the options that I choose but I hope to make it all back within the year or less. I will do another post on this once I have it in my hands and I can do a full review on it. until then have a great week and I will see you next Sunday.