Sony FX5: New Sensor, Open Gate RAW, and the Catch

Sony just gave its mid-tier Cinema Line camera two capabilities that used to require a body twice the price: an open-gate sensor and internal RAW recording. It also decided several of the best parts of that upgrade won’t actually work until later this year.

What Happened

The FX5, announced by Sony and detailed by PetaPixel, replaces the original FX5’s 12-megapixel sensor with a newly developed 16.6-megapixel fully stacked full-frame Exmor RS chip, paired with Sony’s Bionz XR2 processor and a dedicated AI processing unit for autofocus and subject tracking. Two features stand out as firsts for the FX3/FX5/FX6 tier of the Cinema Line: open-gate recording and internal RAW.

Open gate lets the camera capture 5K (4992 x 3328) using the sensor’s full 3:2 height rather than cropping to a 16:9 widescreen frame, at up to 60p in XAVC-I today, with 120p arriving via a firmware 2.0 update. Internal RAW comes via X-OCN, Sony’s proprietary raw codec, recorded in-camera at 16-bit with two new compression flavors and what Sony describes as 280 trillion colors of tonal information. A Dual Gain shooting mode is rated for up to 16 stops of dynamic range, and the camera offers three selectable base ISOs (800, 4000, and 12800) rather than the single base ISO of prior FX bodies. Frame rates top out at 4.5Kp120 and 5Kp60 now, with 4Kp240 in X-OCN also promised for firmware 2.0, per Sony’s official launch announcement.

The body carries a new detachable OLED EVF (3.68M dots, 2,500 nits) that blocks Multi Interface shoe access when attached, a 3.5-inch articulating rear LCD, dual UHS-II SD and CFexpress Type A card slots, XLR audio via the hot shoe, USB-C x2, HDMI Type A, Ethernet, and tri-band WiFi with 6GHz support. At 5.2 x 3.1 x 3.4 inches and 1.62 lbs, it’s roughly the same footprint as the FX3, about 5% heavier. Pricing starts at $4,898 body-only, or $5,498 with the XLR handle kit; the optional DVF-EL1 EVF runs $698 separately. Preorders are open now, with shipping set for mid-August 2026.

Why It Matters

The significance isn’t any single spec, it’s where these specs used to live. Open-gate sensors and internal RAW have historically been reserved for Sony’s Venice and Burano cinema cameras, bodies that cost multiples of the FX5’s price and require a production budget to justify. Putting both into the FX3/FX5/FX6 tier means solo shooters and small crews now get access to workflows, full-height sensor capture for reframing and vertical delivery, plus in-camera RAW without an external recorder, that were previously a five-figure investment away.

The stacked sensor architecture is the enabler. Sony used the same class of fully stacked Exmor RS design in the a7R VI to cut rolling shutter and speed up readout on a much higher-resolution stills sensor; here it’s doing the equivalent job for full-height 5K open-gate capture without the readout penalty a non-stacked sensor would impose at that pixel count. The three-base-ISO system works the same logic: rather than one sensor compromise tuned for a single shooting scenario, the camera picks its noise floor to match the ISO the operator actually needs, low, mid, or high.

What This Means for Builders

For working videographers evaluating a Cinema Line upgrade, the practical decision hinges on the firmware split. The 5K120 open-gate mode and 4K240 X-OCN mode, arguably the two most attention-grabbing capabilities in the announcement, aren’t shipping in the box; they arrive with firmware 2.0 on an unspecified timeline. Buying at launch means paying full price for a camera that will get materially more capable after the fact, a pattern Sony has used before with the a7R VI and a1 II. Anyone whose work depends specifically on those higher frame rates should treat the mid-August ship date as the start of a wait, not the finish line. It’s also worth noting Sony kept the FX5 without a built-in ND filter, unlike the higher-tier FX6, so run-and-gun shooters will still budget for matte box or variable ND accessories.

Source: PetaPixel

Content created with AI assistance and reviewed for accuracy.