Building the Ultimate Sony FX3 / A7SIII / A7IV Cinema Rig in 2023 – Full Breakdown and Parts List

[Music] do [Music] hey everyone so uh my name is jared lank i'm a freelance photographer and filmmaker based in maine today i thought i would do a quick review and breakdown of my current a camera setup which is the sony fx3 i've been using this camera as my a camera for the past six seven months and built it out into something i think really fulfills the true like cinema brand that it's been established with i've had a lot of people reach out to me about this setup and kind of ask what i put into it total cost you know functionality if it's worth it over the fx 6 you know lots of questions surrounding the actual usability of something like this so i thought you know today it's a snow day it's kind of coming down outside i'm at the studio so i figured why not just kind of take it as a day to kind of tear this thing down start talking about you know cost of each of the components uh the functionality of them and why i chose them over you know other options or what have you so yeah kind of a breakdown of the video really quick i think what i'll do is tear it down and go piece by piece build it back up into what you see in front of you right now and then i will lay out the price of each component that i've added to it i have a list on my phone of most of the prices of the things on here except for a few small cables and things like that i'll also list all the items in this video in the description so that way people can reference this video or the description of it to kind of build out their own fx3 or use it as kind of like a reference library for components they might want to check out in the future i'm thinking about making it into a medium post or a blog post that kind of outlines everything in process and decisions kind of like the script plus in written form so that people can continually reference it the reason i want to do that is because while i was building this i really did bootstrap this and pay for each component when i could um that was one of the main reasons i went with fx6 was just actual price compared to something like the fx6 or fx9 and the ability to slowly build it into the camera i want over time and buy smaller pieces and kind of put it all together i know that other people out there will probably be doing the same thing and if you like customizing things it's nice to have someone else's reference just to know their experiences with it if you're thinking about buying something or if you're thinking about you know uh starting your own journey on building out a camera like this or something equivalent like the a74 a7s three so yeah without further ado i think i'm gonna tear this puppy down talk you guys through each piece that i've kind of added to it over the last six months and yeah we'll um see how it goes so see you in a minute okay so here it is this is the just the body and lens of the sony fx3 so it's pretty small as you can see overall this thing is absolutely minuscule i have it paired with the sony 35 1.4 gm lens right now so the price of the just the body with the top handle for the fx3 is 3898 this is the stock um you know xlr input handle that comes with that i don't mind this top handle there's some things you can do to make it even more effective and like useful a lot of people have a lot of issues with this they don't think it's long enough they don't think it's sturdy enough i kind of agree with a lot of that but overall having xlr inputs and just a kind of fully native integrated type of top handle for this setup is really nice so i will throw this on i don't have the price for the lens readily available i think it's around fourteen hundred dollars i will put it on the screen so you guys can see it so around four thousand dollars three thousand eight hundred ninety eight dollars for this body with this xlr top handle you know a little bit more than the sony a7 s3 but i think one thing that a lot of people overlook is the actual form factor you know whether or not it's worth more money is one thing that people can argue about but overall this is just made to be built out okay so speaking of the top handle the first thing that i would do to this before adding a cage or anything like that would be to go out and purchase the small rig xlr handle extension this is 44 blue condor also sells one but they're back ordered everywhere so you know if i were you i would just kind of order the small rig one it's really great it's built really well uh it actually has these built-in kind of finger notches so as you're holding it it kind of it it won't slide as bad i've had it work out really well and kind of run and gun situations so it also comes with this nato rail extension that goes right on top of the standard xlr handle and again just reinforces it and adds options for needle rail accessories on top that's actually how i mount my monitor to this camera i use a nato rail quick release monitor mount so you know for 44 dollars you're really increasing the usability of this kind of standard xlr handle that isn't you know the best out of the box and then the second thing i would add to this top handle is the ecm xm1 microphone that typically comes with this xlr interface if you were to buy it like for the a7s or the a7 3 or something like that it is let me just check the price okay so the sony ecm xm1 microphone is 139.85 refurbished online i couldn't find like a direct to consumer source for this like at the nh or through sony directly so you had to get refurbished on uh ebay i think but it came brand new in the box i don't think it was actually refurbished i think it was just kind of like you know dead stock or something but yeah i've had no complaints about this microphone it's a shorter form factor than most you know shotguns i've used in the past you know the audio quality is surprisingly good for a sub 200 a shotgun mic so i would highly recommend getting this to just kind of complete this top handle it's a great run and gun setup and then it kind of extends a little bit more to the back now with the nato rail attachment for a monitor and you have direct xlr input so you can fully utilize these manual analog inputs for the xlr inputs so really great so now that we've kind of built this camera out by modifying the top handle a little bit i think the next meaningful thing that you could do to upgrade this camera is to purchase a cage and base plate system so i purchased the tilta basic full cage kit for the sony fx3 it was 211.65 which is in you know to me an absolute bargain because you're getting a cage that's modular so you can take off just the handle side or just the you know base plate side it comes with a quick release plate for this cage and then the tilta 15 millimeter rod base plate with the quick release system so that everything integrates so you can add rails and what have you to this so i'll just throw this on the camera real quick first with the cage and then with the base plate so you can kind of see how it makes it significantly more robust so one reason i went with this cage over the small rig was the mount points i felt like were way better than the small rig mount points so the sony fx3 has several quarter 20 threaded ports on built into the body so when you add a cage or something like this it really is sturdy when it's fully connected and i just preferred the way tilta went about integrating the cage with that type of built-in quarter 20 system the fx3 has i also have the small rig one like i said um i just didn't like it as much i felt like the quality wasn't as good and i never needed the top rail mount that it has built in it felt like it was kind of in the way so i just ended up going with the tilta setup so this is the sony fx3 with the tilta cage only i have a couple small accessories on here i have the tilta ef adapter support so when i mount my ef glass to it it kind of has the option to support it at the mount so it doesn't put so much strain on the native emo i have a cold shoe here and i typically have the hdmi clamp here but i actually messed it up so i'm i have another one in the mail so now i'll put on the tilta quick release plate that goes on the bottom of this that comes with this kit also the tilta cage comes with this little triangle screwdriver tool that magnets right to the bottom of the cage so i just leave it on there all the time it's super handy i've used i use it like every time i build this camera out okay so this is it with a quick release plate you know nothing fancy i think it's an arca mount so you know you can slide it right into anything that has that i think they sell gimbal kits that you can put this cage into directly they kind of marketed it like that i don't i take it out of all this to put it on gimbal but i'll go over that in another video so this is it with the 15 millimeter base plate you know it mounts to this really easy with this quick release i'll just show you real quick it has a slide lock in the back so it's a fail safe in case your thread somehow comes loose just tightens down really easy with a standard you know toggle clamp so just put on there real quick so that's it not tightened as you can see it's not going to fall off even if it's loose and then you just tighten it on this side super easy to get at so this kit i think stock comes with six inch 15 millimeter rails or eight inch i ended up having a couple of ten inch uh aluminum rails from small rig which worked out perfect for my needs for my you know base plate system so i'm just gonna throw those on real quick i'll put the price on the screen just because i don't remember what i paid for them a couple years ago i think they're like 20 bucks [Music] so the next thing i put on this camera setup is the tilta dovetail plate and i actually have a manfrotto quick release plate mounted to the bottom of it so the dovetail plate is really nice it has a locking mechanism a fail safe on the end just like the quick release on the cage and it just kind of mounts right into the bottom so there's a couple rails back here and you just kind of slide it in like that you'll hear it lock now it's not going to fall off and i line it up with my 10 inch rails it's also 10 inches and then you just slide this little thing on the side and it locks in place super solid makes the camera a little more solid on a flat surface like this and the price the lightweight dovetail plate from tilta is 160 which seems a little ridiculous considering it's just a piece of metal but there's a lot of advantage just being able to move your mount points um across the camera as your center weight of gravity kind of moves around with bigger lenses or bigger batteries and you're putting it on different you know types of tripods and things like that so overall 160 dollars worth it kind of built out the bottom of this kit and makes it more sturdy okay so at this point we've kind of built it out with the rails on the bottom the tilt-a-cage uh built out the top handle and it's starting to you know look a little bit more like an actual cinema camera you know you can actually see the size of the fx3 compared to the system you're putting it on it's still really small but once it's fully built out it looks pretty substantial the next thing i'm going to go over is power supply you know one gripe a lot of people i think have with the sony fx3 is that it uses the z100 batteries or whatever from the a7 s3 the a74 and the a7 r4 they're great batteries you get a couple hours of filming out of it i leave that battery in here but i power it with a micro v mount so the micro v mount that i use with this setup is the watson pro vm 98 mi so there's a couple reasons i went with this battery compared to some of the other options out there first of all it's a 98 watt hour battery so it lasts all day and i can run my monitor and the camera off of it no problem uh it has this great little indicator on the back it's a screen that shows your voltage going through usb and usbc and overall battery voltage with a battery meter and then like a very quick look kind of 3 bar 4 bar setup the second thing it has is dtap on the side with a weather seal really nice and it has weather sealed usbc micro usb and then usb type a on the top and the reason i wanted that so bad is because i actually bus power through the usb-c port on the fx3 to the battery in the handle instead of running a dummy battery i know that people have had kind of nightmare stories with dummy batteries on sony cameras burning out their cameras and bricking them and i just don't even want to deal with that so this kind of offered a alternative solution that's safe and stays you know kind of within warranty so it actually just slides around the back on the 15 millimeter rods and i use the tilta micro v mount plate it's kind of like a cheese plate it usually has a release for the v-mount right here but i actually removed the handle so i could run my monitor on the camera on the side which is a tip from caleb from dslr video shooter uh it's a really great hack you know you put your flip out screen on the side so you can actually utilize it's not hidden behind the battery and uh yeah it's worked out really well for me i have never take this battery off of this plate so when i take it off the camera i just take the plate right off with it i will lay out the prices real quick once i get this mounted okay so the watson pro is 279 and the tilta v-mount battery play kit is 45 dollars so overall i highly recommend both of those because it builds out the back of the camera and just having one single source of power for this camera has been you know phenomenal for me like i said i can shoot all day with it and it's great okay so the next thing that i'm going to talk about on my setup is the atomos ninja 5. this is an absolute game changer for the sony fx3 any type of external monitor you can load lots on to makes this camera significantly better than using the standard flip out screen i was just talking about this standard flip out screen is a really good you know menu monitor but for looking at your exposure it doesn't really have the tools built in to see making sure you're getting your picture right every time so i use a small rig nato rail kind of quick release monitor mount on my ninja 5 on top like i was talking about earlier and then i put it right at the back so i can maximize how horizontal i can put the screen and it kind of straightens out this microphone a little bit so i just kind of run it like that with the battery eliminator that comes with the ninja 5 and then i use a dtap cable i bought from cableguys on amazon which was around 24. just gonna run this cable really quick okay so another quick little thing while i'm setting up this uh you know dtap cable with the atomos is these little spring quarter 20 wire kind of corrallers that go into like a cheese plate or anything on the monitor i just kind of put it in between the my v-mount battery plate and the body and i hook my dtap cable into it so that the cable stays between the v-mount battery and the body of the camera and you can kind of see there inside it's like a really clean setup it never gets in the way and it actually holds everything secure it's not just kind of flopping around in there so let me just check the price real quick on all of this stuff so the atomos ninja 5 is currently 549. the atomos ninja five plus recently came out and that's significantly more money and i don't really think it's worth it because this monitor works perfect as an external recorder for this camera and i never find myself needing to record 4k 120 externally i just do it internally to a tough card the only benefit that you would have i think from upgrading to the newer plus version is if you need absolutely everything to be in prores and you don't want to convert yourself after shooting i do record externally to a western digital one terabyte ssd and that's been really good for me i shoot in prores hq and then on shoots that i really need the versatility i'll use prores raw hq but for the most part i shoot i don't really shoot 120 and when i do i just record it internally and then convert it after the fact so i've had no issues with that type of setup so yeah the western digital that you can put in this like kind of carriage that the ninja 5 comes with is 89.99 so you know 600 ish almost 700 for this monitor setup but this has been invaluable to this entire rig out of everything that i've put onto this setup so far i think that the ninja 5 is one of the most critical things added to this entire kit because being able to monitor the s-log 3 coming out of the camera with luts that you plan on using in post has been huge just for nailing exposure s-log 3 can be a little tricky to expose sometimes and i really think that you know being able to see your image on a hdr really bright screen has just you know made shooting so much easier and then in post i'm using the same lut so it just like is really easy to correct and grade and makes turn around significantly faster than trying to fix botched s-log 3 footage so you know for 549 you can't go wrong you could kind of upgrade this you can add sdi and everything else through this battery port in the back so if you need that type of capability this monitor and recorder allows you to do that so highly recommend so next up blue condor coil braided hdmi i went with this one one because it's way cheaper than the atomos cable and two because it fits inside the hdmi clamp that tilt the cells for this cage so overall i've had no issues it can capture the full 4k 60 this is capable of recording with no issues whatsoever and it's just overall a sleek kind of blending in type of hdmi cable so i really enjoy it and the price was 20 i think the atomos hdmi that i have is like 74 dollars and there there's no difference functionally between the two the atomos one is just a lot thicker and harder to get into places so i didn't like it and the ends are significantly thicker so clamps don't work as well on them so yeah highly recommend the blue condor i also use this blue condor usbc braided cable i'll put the price on the screen i don't remember off the top of my head but it's an l so i just hook it into the usbc port on the fx3 and then run that to the usbc port on the micro v battery and it runs the camera all day so no issues okay so the next thing i'm going to do is kind of talk really briefly about a recent purchase i did that i think has been really good is the rode wireless go 2 lavalier setup so i bought the rode wireless go 2 and the lavalier that goes with it i have this cold shoe mount that goes on the side and what i do is i just use the the hot shoe mount on the clip and just kind of put it in there this is a place where this is a transmitter i'm actually using the go wireless to on the sony a04 right now to record this so this is a placeholder but this is where the receiver typically goes it's not in the way at all it's super sturdy really sleek and i love running it either as a backup or as my main audio and i've had no issues with it so far but it's pretty new so we'll see in like six months but so far no complaints okay so price of the go wireless to 399 and the lavalier is 80 so 480 dollars i think it's worth it if you're like me and kind of do more run and gun style filming when you're not with a big crew and you absolutely need to get audio in one take you know in like a documentary kind of behind the scenes or anything like that if you can lap someone up and have a shotgun as a backup or vice versa it's this has been absolutely critical you can get distance you know i've had no issues with it sound quality is really good and yeah there's a lot of functionality if you were to go on the computer and play with the receiver so overall no complaints doesn't interfere with anything really minimal on the camera highly recommend it as a secondary audio source with this setup okay so just a couple things left on this uh build out um the one thing i want to talk about real quick is the uh tilta mini follow focus this is a hundred dollars so the reason i bought the minifollow focus initially was because i was using all my old canon ef class that has no autofocus on the sony system and i wanted to be able to use something with a little bit more fidelity and the focus pulling you know kind of arena so instead of going with something like the nucleus nano and you know wireless and everything like that i decided to just go with something cheap and effective and i use the tilta seamless focus gear rings on all my lenses so this just slides onto these 15 millimeter rails on the front and just kind of pivots onto the top and mounts right up to those rings i'll just throw it on real quick so you can see yeah so this is it on the camera and as you can see the gears work really well i actually don't use manual focus a ton unless there's a specific shot the focusing is a little more complex and i can just do it myself but yeah i've really enjoyed it and i use it on both ef class and i put those these gear rings on my you know sony glass too like right now on this 35. the only complaint i have about this mini follow focus are these uh stops that are kind of built into it you can't just fully remove them and then re-thread them later so the throw area on this from here and then 360 to the other side on any lens that i've used so far has a pretty limited range it doesn't go from near focus to infinity it typically goes within a smaller range inside of those two ends so you really have to know your distance to your subject beforehand which typically on a controlled set you would but again in documentary not as common that's fine and everything being able to set these but when you loosen them so they're kind of rolling around i don't know if you can hear that but they jingle so if i'm doing this and you know trying to focus and have that full extent they jingle and get picked up by the camera um so yeah when they're fully loose sometimes they'll like jingle around so either way i kind of just like set them in one spot set my focus and then uh go from there it hasn't been a huge problem but it's something that i wanted to mention just because it's not perfect i wish i could just fully remove them but they're like for some reason captive or something so i can't get them out it feels like it's going to break if i take them all the way out so just one small complaint other than that it's really great i love it on all my lenses so okay so i think we are at the last component of this build out which is you know pretty exciting so i recently upgraded from the tilta mini map box to the tilt-a-mirage mapbox and this has been an invaluable addition to this camera the number one reason this mapbox is so valuable is because it has a slot for filters but you can buy it with a tilta variable nd insert and it's geared on the top you can you can add a nucleus nano motor to it and run it off camera or through a powered handle or you can just do it by hand like this that's what i've been doing this has been huge because there's no built-in nd filters on the sony fx3 this alleviates that problem completely the color is still fine you can get it to work well in post and on the fly exposure has been just a game changer so the second thing about this setup that is better than the mini map box are these new step-up ring adapters or mounts for the map box so on the mini mapbox uh adapters you cannot mount a circular filter on the front so it would have to go between the lens and the adapter on this one you can mount this to the lens and then put a filter on the other side of the step-up ring so inside of the map box so you can put a circular variable nd in there if you need to i would just buy it with this but i actually run my 1 8 pro mist on the front side of this and if i need to take it off i can just quickly access it and remove i don't take the whole matte box mount off so that is a huge upgrade it also comes with this upgraded matte box mount for the 15 millimeter rail system i like this because it secures the matte box to the rail system really well and adds additional front-end support for the lenses the e-mount can be kind of finicky with longer lenses it kind of sketches me out sometimes because it feels like it's putting a lot of pressure on the top so this kind of alleviates that and it's really has a robust mount on the threads on the front so yeah huge plus huge upgrade from the mini okay so that is it this is my full sony fx3 handheld setup so far i'm really happy with it you know uh it's kind of at its uh final form if you will uh you know adding a map box and a power source and a monitor are like the holy trinity i think of building this thing out into being a usable cinema camera the total for this entire kit minus the lens i didn't really count that was six thousand six hundred and ninety seven dollars so just under seven thousand dollars for a fully fledged uh cinema camera this particular setup is not that heavy i can run it with one hand with this kind of strap that comes with the tilta cage no problem i've never used an easy rig with it and i don't think i'll ever need to it doesn't weigh that much i've run this setup you know on full day shoots with zero fatigue issues because it's built out a little bit more you can tuck it underneath or hold it underneath like this is really secure also having a camera built out like this you know for those out there that believe client perception is everything uh this will you know definitely impress this is uh what i would consider a maximized kind of fx3 setup you're taking this very small base camera and just building it out into something that can truly perform on set or in the field i built this particularly for documentary work kind of verite style follow along documentary work and it has performed outstandingly in that arena slog3 and the image quality out of this in general has just been over performing in every way having manual focus on the fly and amazing autofocus with native sony glass has been great the extension of the handle has made it more robust and easy to hold on that top handle no problem i would say if you're thinking about you know buying the fx3 keep in mind that you can build it out to something like this and if you're going to use it in a professional capacity i would probably recommend building it out like this at the out of the box level this camera doesn't really fulfill the cinema camera potential it has uh you know with no built-in nds kind of a small power source and no like adequate monitor i would say that you're not going to have a very good time trying to shoot this on a professional shoot for a client straight out of the box i would say build it out with things that you would put on any type of cinema camera like a map box power source and a monitor recorder a couple things i have on the horizon are doing a comparison of this camera with the sony fx6 that's something i really like to see because price point is around the same and it's more about if you want to build a modular camera or if you want to kind of out of the box have something like a fx6 that you can just kind of take it out of the box and start shooting with it if you were to remove some of my peripheral things that i've added to this and i think toe to toe they kind of hold up i also have planned a review of the a74 that i'm recording this with today in that review i'd like to compare the s log 3 footage to the s log 3 that comes out of the fx6 and kind of see how it functions as a stills camera and a b camera for this a camera setup i've built with the fx3 i also plan on doing a couple lens reviews and things like that so like and subscribe and let me know if there's anything in particular you'd like me to review or talk about on my channel um just in the process of building this whole thing out and really exploring it in 2022 so yeah i really appreciate you stopping by and watching my videos like and subscribe if you like this and i'll catch you guys on the next one bye [Music] you

Channel: Jared Lank

Views: 204,403

Keywords: Sony FX3, Cinema Camera, Gear Review, Filmmaking Gear, How To

Id: 3lTFCdF3sF0

Length: 28min 13sec (1693 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 11 2022