Sony FX9 VS Canon C500 Mark II - My quick honest comparison after a weekend of work
A few weekends ago I had to shoot on a Sony FX9 for a few days. So I thought I could write a short blog post to compare the FX9 to the Canon C500 Mark II, which I of course own. This review will be honest and I will try not to be biased. It is not a detailed comparison, as I would need to get hold of both cameras at the same time. Maybe one day, if I have time, I shall do just that!
Hands On:
When the first Sony and Canon budget cinema cameras came out (Sony FS7 and Canon C300), both cameras were very different indeed. The Sony being really well designed for hand held, run and gun, whereas the Canon was an akward body shape and quite honestly, annoying. I personally think that this was the reason why Sony ruled the market instantly. Which was a huge shame! The Canon C300 was such a fabulous camera, it had a beautiful colour profile straight out the box whereas the FS7…. well it just didn’t look right without a proper grade…. So many times, have I heard over the years, people complimenting the Canon C300 compared to the Sony, but yet everyone still used the Sony. Unfortunately Canon didn’t learn from their mistakes, and the C300 Mark II camera out, still with the awkward and horrible body, and in my opinion, giving the chance for Sony to increase their popularity further.
But things changed in 2020. Canon brought out the Canon C500 Mark II and the Canon C300 Mark III. Their bodies square, and slimline and modular with the option to buying the expansion pack. A fantastic move for Canon.
So hands on wise…. The Sony FX9 is a well held camera, it’s easy to hold and feel. It has a load of buttons, although I do feel, a bit too many, or at least a few useless ones that I would never use. It has the A/B/Preset White balance flick switch which really is a huge advantage over the Canon. And also has the variable ND which is a great feature.
The Canon has a good selection of silent buttons, and very customisable. The weight and feel is so much better and with the right rigs you can get a dreamy, great feeling setup.
The FX9’s monitor is terrible whereas Canon’s is really well made and has great visual quality. Although the FX9 has the advantage of a clip on viewfinder, it feels cheap and nasty and ready to break or fall off at anytime. I’m always paranoid when shooting with the FX9 as I’m worried the image looks bad due to its monitor, so I always feel I have to check the footage after to help my paranoia!
Menus:
Oh my! The Sony Menu has not changed. It’s awful. It really is. It is so awkward to get around and so confusing. It’s almost like they don’t want people to use it! Even if you are an experienced camera operator, you can’t just pick it up and know how to use it.
This is where Canon, are so much better hands down. Their menu is simple, you understand it straight away. It’s easy to navigate and get around and all categorised intelligently. You have so much more choice in the way of customisable buttons with it too. The Canon’s Waveform is so advanced compared to Sony’s. And Canon also has False Colours, an amazing feature that really helps with accurately exposing your work.
Log and Luts:
Using Log and the monitor Luts with Sony is so complicated. The different log profiles are so different to each other and if you use dual iso with the cine log you can only set it to low or high base iso and can’t change the iso from those two options (you have to use Exposure Index instead) and using this mode doesn’t allow to send a lut out via SDI, only to your monitor. But others log settings, you can. It’s so fiddly, and every option has a different configuration and you really have to understand it to use it and really isn’t counter intuitive. Even after watching Sony’s Youtube “FX9 Guide Version 2” more than 3 times, I still can’t get my head around it without some confusion. Even though I’ve used the camera a few times now, I still can’t even remember it that well hence why I’m being a bit vague about it now as I need the camera in front of me to remember. And forgive me if I have it wrong too. It also seemed that the other DOP’s and cam ops on the shoot, who owned the cameras, didn’t really fully understand it either!
The Canon Logs and Luts and ISO’s are easy to use. Turn it on. Turn it off. That’s it. And the ISO’s are full adjustable from 100 right up to a wopping 102400. It may not have dual ISO but I’ve pushed the Canon to 12800 ISO before and that’s when it really starts getting noticeable with ISO noise. As long as you expose correctly using the higher ISO’s you will get a great looking image, however if you underexpose using a high ISO, then increase the exposure in post, this can be disastrous! I haven’t properly compared 4000 ISO between both cameras but I can confirm Canon’s ISO at 3200 still produces a good, very usable, clean image. The Log options with Canon cameras can give a dynamic range of up to a whopping 16+ stops, only one stop less than the new Arri Super35 camera. And amazingly, my preferred way to grade a Canon image in Canon Log 2 is to actually use an ARRI Lut with a tiny bit of saturation and contrast, hence why so many people use the Canon as a b-cam option to an Arri camera!
Conclusion:
It’s of course hard to be biased, as I own Canon. For me what is important in a camera, is the ease of use, and the speed I can operate at. And I do feel that with Canon, it has the advantage. Ok the variable ND is a great feature with the Sony: I do wish that Canon had this but it isn’t a deal breaker for me as I can use a variable ND Matte Box filter if needed or I can tweak my exposure using the side grip when handheld.
I have always felt when comparing the quality of image and colours, Canon have always ruled by far. And it still does. And just to prove my case, I was sent a document for a shoot I was going to be working on, which had previous screengrabs of previously shot content, and straight away I felt that a Canon camera had been used. I queried it, and by no suprise I was correct. Canon colours have a charm and look that the Sony FX9 just isn’t as good.
