For most of 2013 Sony has been keen on pushing the PMW-F5 with some very attractive kit options which has left many wondering if the $10k price difference for the PMW-F55 with the global shutter, 4k XAVC internal shooting capability, and extended color gamut are really worth it. (The F55 also offers a few other bells and whistles over the F5 not listed here.)

“Global shutter” in simple terms exposes the entire imager simultaneously rather than scanning each pixel row one by one very fast. A global shutter avoids typical CMOS sensor artifacts like smear, skew, wobble, or partial exposure. It is also much the same in how a frame of 35mm film is exposed (in whole) and so it becomes a lot more representative of the film judder motion you would get shooting on actual film.

Below is some test footage I shot with a 500mm lens on the F55 earlier this year. You can definitely feel there is something different about the motion quality in the footage.

Here in another test sequence I shot and edited the camera was set to a much higher shutter speed to yield more of a “strobing” look.

*EDIT* I’ve already been asked since this posting, “what else does the F55 offer over the f5”. For one it includes 4k real-time SDI outputs for broadcast or other live applications. The F55 when recording 4k XAVC can also record HD MPEG proxy files at the same time to the SAME card. This means after shooting 4k XAVC there is no need to go through hours or days of transcoding your footage into proxies for editing. There may be more differences and I will update this as I find them.

For a full list of differences between the Sony F5, F55, FS7 and FS5 take a look at my other link http://www.hingsberg.com/2015/11/fs5-fs7-f5-f55-paper-differences/