The affordable cinema camera we forgot about

Chapters
0:00 Old cameras are the best
0:22 Sony, George Lucas, and the prosumer market
0:54 Unboxing
1:14 Physical design
1:35 Ergonomics
2:01 Reliability
2:16 Sony XQD cards
2:31 Battery life
2:39 IO
2:54 The Xtreme Guerilla Workhorses
3:24 Image quality
3:40 Resolutions, frame rates, and codecs
4:14 Dynamic range
4:26 Readout speed
4:36 Latitude
6:16 Colors
9:30 Wrap up

#sonyfs7 #davinciresolve

[invisibleadversary]

You know the current market is saturated with too many good cameras when I'm drinking my morning coffee while watching a 10 minute video about a 10 year old camera and loving every second of it.

[TheRyanMackfall]

This camera changed my life... It was the most consistent unit I used from 2015 throught to 2022. I won't sell it, it's just in a box retired. Watching this though makes me wanna take it out of the box. In terms of daylight shooting I think it's still solid. My love is eternal for it haha

[MyDroneDiaries]

As a drone pilot I have no dilema what drone to choose for my work, but when choosing cinema grade camera it is time when almost all cameras in last 10 years are very usable and this video is great example of this. Btw great channel, your content is awesome!

[CraigMarshall_HDvideoK]

another big plus for the FS7 ii is the revised swing arm. Not only is it 'tool-less' with thumb screws but a little known fact is that this arm is designed so that the zoom rocker hand grip can be mounted up against the camera body in exactly the same position as we have seen on the FS5 and FX6.

[ForGrimTilTV]

DUDE! I so wholly agree with your take - and thank you for showing all the mirrorless gangsters that there's a reason why this camera was a standard for 7 years together with the mk2. I shoot on fx9 and fx6's now and on multicam assignments the fs7 gets mixed in and no one says anything about the color, after the grade ofc.

[geezfpv]

Great video. I picked up an FS7m2 (2017) for a series I'm working on which included the E4/PZ 18-110 G lens and Shape top and bottom... I love the camera- definitely still relevant and a very reliable workhorse! And it works very well alongside my FX3.

[dukebozikowski]

This and the c300 ii are awesome used buys for do-it-all doc style cameras!

[shreeshanantharaj]

im a simple man. i see a new jake hayden video, i click on it, no questions asked. 11/10 enjoyed the video

[lachlanharmer]

I work in a corporate media team with a few FX6 cameras but for my personal (low stakes) work the FS7 is just as nice plus I can use all the same E-mount lenses.

In fact I like the weight of the FS7 more than the FX6.

[VietinghoffAlex]

I used an FS700 for years and occasionally shot on an FS7 too during that time, as well as an FS5. I found (and some others on DVXUser in the Sony FS700 subforums) that the FS700, despite being older and having the same sensor, actually had a nicer image out of it when outputting FSRAW to an external recorder like the Odyssey 7Q or Atomos Shogun.

Sony gave the FS700 a slightly different gamma curve for SLOG2, so it comes off a bit more filmic than shooting SLOG2 with an FS5 or FS7 despite sharing the same sensor. You can also do higher frame rates on the FS700 and the FS5 in-camera than the FS7's 180fps, BUT the big tradeoff with the FS700 is the wonky ergonomics and that internally it can only do 8-bit 4:2:0. So you really needed an external recorder to get the most out of it.

[owenjenkinsofficial]

I'd love to see how the FX30 fairs against the FS7 also seeing how they could work together on set during shoots.

[videopromike]

Hey Jake! The FS7 can do 4K 60fps and was $8, 000+ at the time of release (2014) in the US.

[troyreid]

Great review of a solid workhorse, I’ve been using this camera in massive wildlife film productions for a decade. I still own mine which is 8 years old and It still produces amazing results. It’s always been slightly noisy but there are ways to help expose correctly and avoid some noise.

[FredBloggsTheThird]

Keep the great work up reviewing old cameras Jake, it's really appreciated
;)

[CraigMarshall_HDvideoK]

Great camera. Moving up from my FS5, I just bought two FS7 IIs, each with XDCA backs for less than $1500 each and they make the FS5 seem like a consumer camera. I have my FS5's 18-110mm servo zoom on one and the other runs with a matched set of very fast 7Artisans Cinema primes. IMO, the Mk II is the FS7 to get, mainly because of the 'floating' built in electronic ND and the PL style locking E-Mount which allows the fitting of big, heavy zooms or telephoto lenses without rods or rails.

[JUSTINRYANPRODUCTION]

I picked up a BM Ursa g1 4.6k for $950 in excellent shape. You really can get some great used gear these days.
Great video!

[donmcvey]

I shot on the FS7 for years, before picking up an FX6/ FS7 was great but after shooting hundreds of hours of doc, it wasn't a nice camera to grade. There were certain situations where the image just fell down, like strong backlight, where skin would turn to a kinda flat blob, or people with very red skin, or under mixed lighting etc. All of these things are handled way better by the FX line. But... it was a great little workhorse!

[timeltdme]

not that I need FS7, but happy that finally there are some real world use case camera videos, many thanks!

[BigBlobProductions]

On Sony Color Science, it's a very interesting story. When the dropped the F35 and F3 the color science for those cameras were arguably some of the best I've ever seen from a digital camera. But when don't moved from S-Log1 to S-Log2 they seem to have decided that bluish/magenta was the future, that color gamut only ever worked for the F65/55 when it was ported to all their other cameras it sucked. It's too bad they didn't put the OG color science into their lower end cameras while they were putting S-Log2 into the newer ones.

Anyways, they fixed it with Venice and all their newer cameras

[relaxwithme]

I have always liked working with s35 better than full frame. So many benefits and I almost never need "that full frame look" some others rave about.