It's the same old story: Sony announces another new camera that looks highly capable as a model in its own right, but it's hard to appreciate that amidst the fury of those pointing out that it doesn't have Alpha A7S III written on it.
Yet those looking through the spec sheet of the new Sony FX9 may be encouraged by some of what Sony has included here, given that many features would be just as home inside a forthcoming A7S III model.
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The sensor is the most obvious one, being a 19MP Exmor R, back-illuminated full-frame chip. That's quite a step up from the Super 35mm sensor inside the previous FS7 model; its resolution alone makes it a logical candidate for inclusion on an A7S III.
The sensor is capable of recording 6K video, although, much like the sensors inside the company's A9 and A7R IV models among others, this is then downsampled to 4K footage before it's output.
It sports a dual base ISO of 800 and 4000 together with a Super 35mm option and Hybrid Log Gamma mode, while a wide dynamic range in excess of 15EV stops is also being promised.
Sony's Fast Hybrid AF system is also on board, thanks to phase-detect pixels on the sensor that work with the more standard contrast-detect AF system. This has been a longstanding feature of the Alpha line, although here the system stretches across an impressive 96% of the frame horizontally and 94% vertically. By comparison, the most recent A7R IV has a system that's spread across 99.7% of the height of the sensor and 74% of its width.
Sony also claims the FX9 is the world's first full-frame camera to sport an electronic variable ND filter, which would certainly also be a welcome feature inside a future Alpha model.
All of this would make a lot of sense inside a new Alpha A7S III, a model that has been rumored for some time now. Still, with no confirmation from the company just yet, we'll just have to wait and see whether it delivers on our hopes.
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