2020 might have been a dreadful year for just about everyone, but it’s been nothing short of an incredible year for new cameras.

2020 has seen so many desirable cameras released that to camera nerds like me, it’s somewhat of a silver lining for an otherwise torrid 12 months (I presume December isn’t going to turn things around.) One of the newest to the already bulky roster of newbies is another video-centric body, and again from Sony: the Sony FX6. 

The FX6 is a full frame cinema camera with an impressive spec sheet. Its 4K sensor is only 10.2 megapixels, but like the a7S III, that’s not as it sounds. It shoots UHD 4K at 120 frames per second, 1080p at 240 frames per second, and has 15+ stops of dynamic range on S-Log 3. It has dual CFexpress card slots and 10-Bit 4:2:2 XAVC-I/16-Bit raw output. For all intents and purposes, it has everything you’d want from a cinema camera with two surprises. The first and foremost, the compact body weighs under 2 pounds. To put that in perspective, the heavier duty FX9 is around 2.5x the weight. The second is perhaps less surprising but warmly welcomed: price. Cinema cameras often cost a premium, with the FX9 coming in at just shy of $11,000. The FX6 nearly halves that with a price tag of $5,998 which should enable far more people to graduate to a dedicated cinema camera.

The question is, should you buy it instead of the a7S III? Well, I’ll leave that to Gerald Undone.