How to UPGRADE the Sony FX3!!

the sony fx3 is one of our favorite small form factor cameras on the market currently but there are a few things that are wrong or missing from the fx3 to make it almost perfect for video productions so we thought we'd put together a little video talking through how you can resolve these problems and what accessories you need to do so so let's get into it now these recommendations are mainly for the fx3 but lots of them will also be applicable to the a7s3 but let's start off talking about rigging there are now cage options on the market for the fx3 and the solid cage could be needed for certain configurations and for the a7s3 it's really a must-have we are expecting a small rig unit soon but we finally have the 18 cage in to have a look at right now after messing around a little bit with it and configuring a few different setups there are a few things worth mentioning our sigma 24-70 does not mount onto the camera nicely with the cage attached the barrel of the lens hits the bit of metal that overhangs at the top of the cage a fix for this would be to sand this bit of metal down our metabones cine also doesn't fit at all it seems like eight sin have designed it within sony's g master specs as it fits the 16 to 35 24 to 70 and 7200 no problem the sigma mc11 also fits fine you can mount the included top handle which is also really good to see these are all the lenses we've managed to test this cage with currently but of course there's probably going to be some more that don't work with this one and as we update it i'll put some details in the description below as and when we get around to testing more lenses with it i've seen people say why would i need a cage with the fx3 it has one built in well there's a few reasons why first off the camera only has a single thread on the bottom which means when attaching it to accessories like a tripod plate means that the camera ends up spinning on that single thread especially if you move or carry the tripod with the camera attached to it still which we are all guilty of sometimes the rest of the quarter inch threads are also not in great positions the top two here are used by the top handle which only leaves this one on top of the camera on the left you only have one and it's just above the hdmi port which limits what you can mount here if you're using a monitor and on the right you have the last quarter inch on the body at the top of the grip now these quarter inches on the camera body also don't feature any locating pins so mounting something like a monitor on a no gram will eventually result in the monitor spinning which nobody wants so if these limited quarter inch threads are going to provide you with the mounting points you need to rig your camera up it will be down to you but a cage will solve a lot of the issues we've just mentioned i really like the look of smorg's half cage for the fx3 it looks to be the most versatile solution out of the bunch another big reason to pick up a cage for these cameras is if you are using wider bigger g-master lenses as these can be difficult to mount onto tripods because the barrel of the lens will often go lower than the base of the camera this means when you're trying to mount it onto the tripod plate it will end up hitting the plate before you can mount it on having a cage which adds height to the camera fixes this as well as cages there are a range of other really little handy accessories for the fx3 that are worth looking at s'morig make their 1421 which is a quarter inch cold shoe adapter which you'll be able to mount straight onto the camera these are also so cheap i would just grab a couple and have them in your kit bag in case you ever need them to be honest they really will be fantastic to use the fx3 to mount any range of accessories onto the camera body we also really like the kippetai smart cable wraps which are bongo ties with a twist the ability to be mounted to a quarter inch thread and this means that you can mount lightweight accessories in a pinch or tie cables up really neatly the fx3 comes with a fantastic top handle that features a very similar audio module to the xlr k3m which was designed for the latest generation of alpha series cameras though this audio unit is great to have it's worth thinking about what audio solutions you are going to be using it with as if you are using a more traditional wireless lav system you may struggle mounting them somewhere nicely sennheiser's avx system is great for this as it mounts directly into the xlr port without needing to mount the pack one solution i can see being very popular with the fx3 is the rode wireless go 2. as for its price it provides a lot of bang for its buck however if you want to use it with the fx3 top handle you'll need to either plug it into the 3.5 mil input on the audio module or use a 3.5 millimeter to xlr adapter such as the rode vxlr to adapt it because the wireless go 2 is so small and light mounting it will be relatively easy the best solution i can think would be to mount it to a cold shoe using the clip on the back of the receiver you can use the small rig 1241 that we mentioned earlier on the side of the body to do this as there isn't really anywhere else left to mount it if you're planning on using your fx3 of other larger cameras you may want to sync your cameras using some kind of time code solution one really nice solution for the fx3 is tentacles ecosystem they are for both the sinky and tracky the sync key is great for syncing across different camera systems and the traki is an awesome 32-bit float audio recorder that you can sync with the sinkie units this is a really nice compact solution and mounting the sinky on camera or the tracky on talent will be pretty easy because they are incredibly light and feature internal batteries you can easily mount it on top of the xlr unit using some kind of sturdy velcro or if you want a more robust solution tentacle make a bracket which mounts directly onto a quarter twenty thread i can see this being the best solution for most people wanting to mount this on camera but tentacle also makes two different quick release kits a v-mount quick release version and cold shoe mount version one difference between the fx3's audio module and the k3m is that the k3m comes with a sony ecm xm1 short shotgun microphone to use with your camera however the fx3 does not so if you are wanting to run a shotgun microphone with it you'll need to pick one up the ecm xm1 isn't readily available so our go-to recommendation is the rode videomic ntg or the deity v-mic d3 pro both of these mics come with a standard 3.5 millimeter cable so you'll need to grab a rode vxlr adapter to plug it into one of the xlr ports you'll also need to grab a sony microphone spacer if you're going to pick up a shotgun microphone that isn't from sony without this shotgun mics will wobble around in the shock mount links to everything are down in the description below one of the features we really wanted to see in the fx3 was the addition of the same internal nd system as the fx6 and fx9 but unfortunately we didn't so a good nd system is an absolute must there are only a few e-mount nd systems on the market but their autofocus performance leaves a lot to be desired so until sony or maybe even sigma plug this hole in the market i'll go to your recommendation is the revo ring this simple accessory is essentially a variable step-up ring that you can mount any filter to and then quickly switch it between your different lenses this is available with either an nd filter built in or without so you can use your own filters the latter being what i recommend as it's much more flexible and allows you to use any filter you'd like we've used the built-in nd filter version a bunch on several shoots and i've been impressed with the quality of the nd and the adapter system itself the back lcd is definitely handy and the ability to use it for touch control and focus is really useful though it does lack brightness in bright lighting conditions one of the downsides of the fx3 in my opinion is the limited exposure tools unlike the rest of the cinema line the fx3 does not have a waveform and also doesn't have false color which given its cinema classification is a bit frustrating one way around this is to use an external monitor which does feature these tools such as the atomos ninja 5. this can mount really nicely with the correct accessory such as using the smaller half cage you mentioned earlier with a monitor mount smrig also make a hdmi protector which will be a great purchase if you run a monitor on your rig a lot the fx3 shares so much of the a7s3 one thing it doesn't is its evf an evf can be really handy in certain lighting conditions so if you do want one for the fx3 there aren't any really small options on the market currently i would love to see sony release some kind of compact evf that can be mounted off the camera body like what is now possible with the blackmagic 6k pro and their evf and tilta's new extension and mounting kit for it this is one area of the market that really does lack competition currently but there are a few options such as the portkeys ally which is probably the best balance of cost and performance on the market if you want a more kind of traditional evf solution you're then looking at the thousand pound plus price point with the need to then power it and mount it very differently let us know if you have any questions about these evfs in the comments below the mp fz100 batteries that the fx3 uses are pretty great and do last a decent amount of runtime however they do limit what they can break out to and this means that power accessories such as anton bauer's titan base kit or a more complex rig with a v-lock plate could be a really nice option for powering your entire system adding a larger battery source not only means you can power the camera and accessories all from one battery but it also adds weight and this is important as adding weight to a nice solid rig will make your handheld footage look so much smoother we haven't mentioned lenses but we recently did a video looking at several general purpose e-mount zoom options from sigma and sony and compared them to an adapted canon zoom to see the differences when it comes to performance and autofocus you can check that video out here if you're looking at using more cinema orientated lenses you really need to make sure that you lock your lens down as much as possible as the e-mount used on the fx3 will have some play in the mount which can result in image shift when focusing or zooming which really doesn't look very good the fx3 is an awesome camera and the improvements we've spoken about in this video could make using the camera even better for you on your next production though if you are looking at picking up an fx3 i would really suggest getting in contact with us so we can properly recommend all the kit you may need for it let us know how you've rigged up your fx3 down in the comments below and to stay up to date with our upcoming content make sure to hit subscribe button and notification bell and thank you so much for watching you

Channel: CVP

Views: 48,594

Keywords: sony fx3, sony cinema camera, sony fx3 review, sony fx3 specs, sony fx3 sample footage, sony fx3 4k 120, sony fx3 cinema, sony fx3 video specs, sony fx3 video, sony fx3 cinematic, sony fx3 camera, fx3, Sony FX3, FX3, FX3 Specs, Sony PXW-FX3, fx3 rig, fx3 cage, fx3 ND, fx3 audio, fx3 lav, fx3 cinema rig, sony a7s iii rig, cinema rig, video rig, fx3 video rig, a7siii rig, sony fx3 rig, sony fx3 rigging, Timecode, Rode Wireless GO II, Rode, 8sinn FX3 cage, Smallrig FX3

Id: htI1ynk5K_A

Length: 10min 22sec (622 seconds)

Published: Fri May 21 2021