Sony has slotted a new heavyweight into its Cinema Line, and the FX5 arrives with enough firepower to make anyone eyeing the older FX3 hesitate at the checkout. On paper it looks like an evolution of that 2021 favourite, but Sony isn’t treating it as a mere refresh — the FX3 stays on sale, while the FX5 stakes out higher ground at a steeper price.
At the heart of the camera sits a new 16.6MP full-stacked Exmor RS image sensor, paired with the imaging smarts you’d expect from a modern cinema body. Sony quotes 15+ stops of dynamic range, which is the kind of latitude that lets colourists rescue blown highlights and dig detail out of the shadows without the picture falling apart.
Two features really set the tone here. The first is three base ISO settings plus a Dual Gain shooting mode, giving shooters more clean options across wildly different lighting scenarios. The second is the arrival of Open Gate shooting — recording the full sensor area so you can reframe for vertical, square or widescreen deliverables in post from a single take. That flexibility alone will win over creators juggling social clips and cinematic edits from the same shoot.
For the pixel purists, the FX5 also brings in-camera X-OCN RAW recording, keeping the highest-quality data path inside the body rather than forcing an external recorder into the setup.
Resolution and frame rates are where the camera flexes hardest:
- 5K at up to 60 fps
- 4K at up to 120 fps
- FHD at up to 240 fps
That spread covers everything from crisp master footage to buttery slow motion, all from a body small enough to live on a gimbal or squeeze into tight spots that a full cinema rig simply can’t reach.
Sony announced the FX5 on July 22, 2026, and pre-orders opened the same day. Cameras are due to ship in mid-August 2026.
Pricing lands as follows. In the US, the ILME-FX5 with XLR Handle Unit costs US$5,499.99, while the body-only ILME-FX5B is US$4,899.99. UK and European buyers will pay £5,200 / €6,000 for the FX5 kit and £4,700 / €5,400 for the FX5B body.
It’s a meaningful step up from the FX3, but the FX5 makes the case with genuine upgrades rather than incremental polish — a stacked sensor, wider dynamic range, Open Gate flexibility and internal RAW all in a package that keeps the run-and-gun ethos intact.
