Sony FX2

I’ve been waiting for Sony to release the A7V (the amazing A7III was the camera that got me to switch from Canon to Sony), but it doesn’t look like anything is coming very soon, so in the meantime I decided to try something a little different …

In May this year Sony released the FX2, a full-frame, mirrorless camera in their “Cinema” line, mostly aimed at video creators. But even though it it a mostly video-centric camera, this post got me thinking that it could be a good fit for me for still photography. It has the same sensor as the A7IV, which is the same as in my A7Cii; I got the A7Cii over the A7IV mostly because of the newer and better auto-focus system it had, but it does have some definite downsides- it is small in my quite large hands (the “c” is for “compact”), such that I added a small extra grip, and it only has one card slot (which definitely makes me nervous when I’m being paid for what I’m shooting). The FX2, as well as having an really nice, bigger grip and dual card slots also, being almost two years newer, has a slightly updated auto-focus system (you can see a full comparison between them here). So I rented one for the holiday weekend.

It’s a odd beast, not being used to the Sony Cinema line of cameras, but there is enough that’s familiar in the menus etc. that I felt pretty much at home straight away, and it only took a few minutes of tweaking to get it set up with back-button focus etc. the way I like it, and I took it to the woods this morning with my workhorse Tamron 35-150 and the dogs to see what it could do.

And I have to say, I really like it- it feels really natural in my hand and, though the tilty viewfinder is really a gimmick for this kind of shooting (and the eyecup really doesn’t work with glasses), it was great fun and easy to adapt to. And it seemed to even take pretty good pics of Amy, who for some reason is tough to shoot on my phone camera- not sure if it’s because she’s never still when we’re out or if her shiny coat confuses the camera, but this did a nice job in general.

So, we will see how it handles church on Sunday (I already used it for the Evensong last night) and whatever else goes on this weekend. I know I’m really not using it to the best of its abilities, but who knows, maybe I’ll try shooting some video with it too …