Hands On With The FX2 From a Non-Sony User Perspective

The FX2 has been one of Sony’s most discussed cameras since its launch. So today, I got my hands on one and decided to take it for a spin.

First, I should start by mentioning that I am not traditionally a Sony shooter. I’ve shot films on the larger Venice body. But when it comes to the smaller cinema bodies and mirrorless options, I’ve always owned Nikon, RED, and Canon. That’s not to suggest one is better than the other. Rather, I mention that to explain where I was coming from when I decided to try out the FX2. I wasn’t coming from a lifetime Sony perspective or comparing it to the experience of something like the FX3. I was observing it coming from other brands on the market to see if it might be a better tool for my specific workflow.

Now, based on the online comment sections, I’m guessing that might worry some longtime Sony users. If you go strictly by YouTube comments, it seems that the FX2 was something of a disappointment to many Sony users who were hoping for more of an FX3 II and instead got a mashup of an FX3 and an a7 IV with a newly designed EVF. But perhaps because I wasn’t comparing the FX2 to any of those other Sony bodies and didn’t have to think of it as an upgrade or downgrade, but instead a standalone tool, my interest remained heavy.

So I begged and pleaded to borrow an FX2 so that I could see for myself if my fascination with the camera was warranted. And here are my three favorite features of the FX2 after getting a chance to use it in the field.

The Tilting EVF

Oddly enough, the main draw to the FX2 that made it so I couldn’t get its potential out of my head was the thing most derided among Sony diehards: that EVF. I heard some Sony users complain that the FX2 was just a retread of other cameras with a funky little EVF added. Well, that funky little EVF is exactly what got me interested in the first place.

Let me take a brief step back. I’ve worked for three decades now both as a professional photographer and a professional director/DP. In three simple words, I love EVFs. I’ve waxed poetic multiple times in this column about how using an EVF instead of the rear LCD allows me to black out the rest of the world and really just disappear into the scene. When shooting, nothing else matters outside the frame. As long as I can be sure that I’m not about to be hit by a train, I don’t want my attention focused on anything except the image. And putting your eye to an EVF does that.

An EVF also adds an additional point of stabilization. Mirrorless-sized cameras inspire us to want to shoot handheld. But their small size works against them, as that can easily add microjitters that even the best of image stabilization systems can’t correct for. The act of physically pressing the camera against one’s eye does more than just put you in the mental zone; it also creates more stability in your final shot. The EVF is a practical advantage as well as an artistic one.

But the FX2 EVF has an even better trick up its sleeve: it can tilt. Now, I’ve been shooting with non-tilting EVFs for years now, so it’s not like one can’t live without a tilting EVF. But the advantages are immense. At 6 feet 2 inches, my back has suffered years of doing that familiar photographer hunch to get low angles. Being able to tilt the EVF up and look down instead of having to hunch over to see is pure ergonomic joy. Also, because it’s less physically painful to get the camera in position, the result is that I’m willing to try additional camera angles that I may have previously not even considered due to physical limitations.

Speaking of physical limitations, there is another, more practical reason why the EVF was the single most important factor in my interest in the FX2, even over the more popular FX3. Now, for many of you, this reason won’t apply. But to those in my age range, it’s quite likely that you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.

My eyesight has never been the best. I was the guy in first grade who already had Coke bottle eyeglasses to read the blackboard. Nowadays, as I get more, ahem, shall we say “experienced,” my vision has only gotten worse. Not worse in the sense that I just need to get a new prescription. Worse in the sense that there are certain fields of vision that for me will just never be truly sharp again. Simply put, while I can see what’s on an LCD, being able to judge things like critical focus is practically impossible in many cases. Everything in that range is just a little soft. So trying to nail focus off an LCD with manual cinema lenses often results in my thinking something is sharp on set only to get home and realize I was just a hair off. So having an EVF I can place my eye against and a diopter I can adjust to my vision has become more than just a preference. It’s a necessity.

This means that on virtually every cinema body, large and small, I am forced to awkwardly jury-rig some kind of external EVF if I want to use it to its full potential. So the fact that the FX2 provides that unique tilting EVF that still remains flush to the body is a massive advantage for my workflow and worth more than a number of other specs all put together.

Sound

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. While I’ve spent a lifetime learning how to properly shoot and expose a moving image, the single most important thing to a successful movie isn’t the visual. It’s the sound.

The sound crew is always the first I hire onto any new project. And even if it’s a one-man-band project, my sound kit is every bit as important as my lighting kit in executing a successful shoot. If you want to shore up the rest of the fundamentals alongside it, the Introduction to Video: A Photographer’s Guide to Filmmaking tutorial is a good place to start. And this is one of those areas where, as someone coming from outside the Sony ecosystem and being unfamiliar with their options, I was most pleasantly surprised.

Specifically, the Sony FX2 can record four discrete audio tracks internally. I’ve had this with my Canon cameras, but my Nikon and RED cameras are both limited to a single track (albeit a 32-bit float track in my ZR). Because of this limitation, I am almost always recording audio separately to a field recorder with multiple channels of audio so that I can keep each mic source separated and clean. In most of my productions, I’ll have, at minimum, three tracks of audio: a boom and usually one or two lavs on the actors. But that can easily balloon depending on the scene. So a single line of audio is really only sufficient for a single-person interview, individual vlogging, or simply capturing ambient in camera.

For my specific use case, the ability to record four discrete tracks of audio in camera via the Sony XLR-H1 Handle Unit was a massive step forward, such a departure that it’s changed my workflow forever and actually led to a different purchase, which you’ll learn about in an upcoming essay.

With the FX2, the way I set it up was to have two booms: one on camera for ambient and one extended overhead via a boom feeding directly into the XLR ports on the handle. That then sent a signal to channel one and channel two separately inside the FX2. I then connected the Rode Wireless PRO, which can split the sound from two transmitters into a stereo track separated left and right, to the 3.5 mm jack on the handle. The result was four clean and distinct channels of audio that could be manipulated independently in post.

This quality-of-life feature was worth way more than any resolution consideration in the overall workflow and in improving on-set efficiency. The video interview I did above for an upcoming film project is an example of sound captured directly into the FX2. With sound quality like that and an ability to capture four separate channels, it allows me to leave the sound recorder at home from time to time and truly travel light. And for a camera this size, traveling light is kind of the whole point.

Scouting

Along with my declining eyesight, the worrying deterioration of muscle mass is also something that comes with, ahem, experience. As such, I have been simply fascinated in recent years by one simple question: how can I get my camera kit as small as humanly possible?

And this is the one area where even I, as a non-Sony shooter, have to admit they have an edge. The FX2, in particular, is tiny. I used it with the Sony FE 24-50mm f/2.8 G lens, and the full package was hardly a footprint. This makes it the perfect camera for filmmakers out on a location scout or just using it as a walkabout camera. It’s probably an even better scouting tool for Sony users or someone planning to rent something like a Venice, because the camera allows you to shoot stills in the video log profiles. This means that, if you are trying to find your LUT and look prior to shooting your next project, you can easily take stills with the FX2 as a tool to help you experiment.

I’m a lifetime Nikon shooter for stills for a reason. Their ergonomics just agree with me as a photographer. So I won’t say that I would switch over to the FX2 purely for still photography reasons (even with its impressive 33 MP sensor). And even if I were a Sony shooter already, there are better stills-oriented tools in their lineup. The joystick being on top of the camera, for instance, which is fine for video, is an ergonomic shortcoming for stills. But I think that if you are primarily a filmmaker and shooting stills for you is mainly for pleasure, scouting, or as a thumbnail to add to your video, the FX2 could be an awesome complementary tool. For anyone looking to stretch across both disciplines, The Well-Rounded Photographer: 8 Instructors Teach 8 Genres of Photography covers a lot of that ground.

Practical Limitations

There are definitely limitations. Specifically, for a 33 MP sensor, I was a little surprised to discover that it only produced a 4K video file internally, oversampled from a 7K readout. Also, as someone coming from Nikon, RED, and Canon, it does constantly confuse me why Sony, a leader in the field, still doesn’t have internal raw video in their cameras. You can get 16-bit raw out of the FX2, but only over HDMI to an external recorder. Even more vexing to me was the exclusion of false color or even waveforms. The FX2 did have the histogram, but I haven’t used a histogram for exposure in years, so that was a genuine adjustment I needed to make. I was also somewhat disappointed not to see the multi-angle tilting LCD that other Sony cameras have. That’s a clear point of jealousy for me as a non-Sony shooter. The LCDs on many of their cameras can both fully articulate to be front facing and tilt straight back for people like me who prefer the LCD to be in line with the lens. The FX2 just has a standard flippy screen, so you don’t have the same straight-back tilt option available. I’m sure this was a price point consideration, but that was a feature I was personally looking forward to.

Also, since I’ve identified both the EVF and the sound via the XLR-H1 handle as my main likes with the camera, there is one thing worth noting. When using the EVF with the included eyecup and the handle at the same time, I did bump into a logistics traffic jam. When tilting the EVF with the eyecup 90 degrees up, it barely slid past the handle itself. In fact, it rubbed against the handle, and the eyecup kind of got folded over. Functionally, what that meant is that, when the top handle was attached, I could only tilt that EVF up about 45 degrees instead of the full 90. To be clear, you can get the EVF fully vertical, but because it’s in such close contact with the handle, it makes pressing my eye to the EVF, at best, incredibly uncomfortable. So, in actual practice, I ended up choosing between having the top handle with all of that audio on but limiting the EVF to less than 45 degrees of tilt, or opting for the full tilting EVF but then needing to remove the top handle and lose the XLR inputs.

Pros

• Tilting EVF

• Four distinct audio tracks

• Intelligent hot shoe

• XLR top handle integration

• Autofocus

• Ability to use log formats for stills

• 33 MP sensor

• Image quality

• Small and lightweight

• Button layout designed for filmmakers

• Two mounting points on base to prevent twisting on tripod

• Full HDMI

Cons

• Limited exposure tools

• No internal raw video (16-bit raw is external only, via HDMI)

• No 32-bit float

• 4K vs. 6K

• Could use a few more mounting points on upper body

• No standalone battery charger included

• Not the multi-angle articulating LCD

Conclusion

Coming from outside the Sony ecosystem, all in all, I can say that the Sony FX2 is an excellent camera. Once you get past the disappointment that it isn’t an FX3 II, you will be left with an incredibly efficient filmmaking tool.

I think the word “complementary” is key in the previous section. Because I’m not already invested in the Sony ecosystem, purchasing an FX2 for me would mean a very heavy investment, because I’d need lenses and all the other accessories that sneak up on you when buying into a new system. So I don’t know that one could say that the FX2 is the single camera that should make you blow up your whole kit to switch to Sony. But if I were already in the Sony ecosystem, this camera, at $2,699 for the body or $3,099 bundled with the XLR handle, would be an easy pickup. It has a strong set of features and is the only camera of its kind with a tilting EVF and such in-depth audio in a very small package.