The Camera That Removes Every Excuse You've Been Using: 3 Reasons I Pre-Ordered the Sony FX5

I have a little secret to tell you: I just put money down on a $7,000 camera.

That's not a small confession for me. I haven't spent money on cameras or camera gear in a long time — mostly because I've been directing rather than DPing, and as a director, whether you're working on commercials or films, you rent everything. Nothing is really owned by you anymore. After I bought my FX3 about four years ago, I genuinely didn't feel like I needed anything else. It did everything I asked of it.

But this camera is different. So I want to walk through why I spent the money pre-ordering the Sony FX5 — and especially why, given how people are telling stories right now, with vertical content, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, this feels like a genuinely unique moment for creatives. For reluctant storytellers like myself, this is a chance to strip away the friction and the barriers that normally stop us from telling our stories, and just have a tool or two that lets us create with full, unabashed creativity.

Here are the three reasons I'm picking up the FX5.

1. RAW Video Output

This is one of the big, nerdy talking points everyone's already discussing. But for me, having worked with both ARRI Alexa footage and RAW footage coming out of RED and Blackmagic cameras, I understand and appreciate the flexibility that a true RAW option gives you. This isn't some lofty, "nice to have" extra feature — the 16-bit X-OCN RAW on the FX5 is genuinely wild. I've seen footage shared online, and the color depth and flexibility are intriguing on their own. What's more impressive is that Sony has managed to pack that into a small, compact body without sacrificing quality.

Having that robust flexibility in post lets you dial in your white balance and your colors after the fact. And the math matters here: 16-bit color gives you literally billions of colors, compared to the millions you get with the 10-bit RAW most of us are used to. Stepping up into that range is incredible, and it's something I'm genuinely excited to lean into — especially for building new LUTs.

I want to lean further into that indie style of filmmaking, where I can shoot with a single light, or with just natural light, and still capture real, authentic mood using whatever light is actually available to me.

2. Open Gate

My second reason is the open gate option. A lot of people hear "open gate" and assume it just means shooting square, or 4:3. That's not really the point.

Generally, when you're shooting in 16:9, only part of the sensor is actually being used — the top and bottom get cropped to give you that widescreen look. If you want to capture more of the frame, you switch into open gate mode, which gives you the full readout of the sensor (for the most part). The benefit is that once I capture in open gate, I can crop it in post — which gives me a lot more flexibility for reframing and changing the composition of the finished shot after the fact.

I remember hearing about a conversation Zack Snyder had with the Russo brothers about why he shot Justice League in 4:3 — he wanted that larger-than-life aspect ratio and loved the framing options it gave him. When I think about photographing my own films, especially the new projects I'm looking into, having a tool that offers that kind of output is a real plus. It reminds me of when I had the ZCam F6, and how dramatically that changed the way I saw my own filmmaking and storytelling.

Pairing open gate with anamorphic lenses is going to take the cinematography to the next level. You still need to understand lighting and composition — that part doesn't go away — but it opens up a much wider range of lens choices beyond the typical options in the Sony ecosystem or third-party lens ecosystems.

3. Triple Base ISO

The third reason I'm picking up the FX5 is the triple base ISO. Honestly, mind-blown, crazy — I don't fully understand the engineering behind it. But in layman's terms, here's what it actually means: I can go out with nothing more than my camera and maybe a little daylight, or shoot at dusk, or work with some night lights, and depending on the situation, just adjust my ISO and still walk away with usable footage. Whether that's a night interview, a sunset, a scene from our next film, or a dimly lit room, the camera gives me flexibility without needing to be kitted out with a $10,000 lighting setup or a 20-person crew. I can experiment and still capture real moments using whatever lighting is actually available.

The FX5 packs in three ISO levels — 800, 4000, and 12,800 — giving a lot of flexibility to get a clean readout off the sensor. If you're an indie filmmaker with a couple of actors and a location for only a few hours, without a full lighting team or a big crew, you can still capture a genuinely usable image with the light you have.

It's Not About Being the "Best" Camera

I want to be honest with you: none of these features determine whether the FX5 is the best camera on the market. What they do is eradicate the excuses we make for not creating and telling the stories that are already in our minds and our hearts.

Have you been waiting for the gear excuse to run out? This might be the camera for you.

At the end of the day, it's about taking an idea and figuring out how to remove as much friction, as many barriers, from executing that idea as possible. As creatives, there's so much noise, so much discouragement, and so many things distracting us from focusing on our ideas and telling them in a unique way. My hope is that with this camera, and with our own commitment to writing great stories and staying consistent in our creativity, we can take things to the next level.

Stay creative, stay entertained, stay focused.