Sony FS5 VS in Sony FS7 in 2024

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Many people in the video production industry make enough money to purchase any camera they want, the rest of us, need to purchase the old cameras that those people get rid of.
Both the FS5 and the FS7 have dropped in price tremendously over the last few years, and those lower price points are starting to make both cameras look pretty attractive to those of us who need to be more budget conscious. So if you're wondering which one of these two cameras you should buy, I own both and I have a very strong opinion of which of them is better, so I figured I'd do a comparison video to help you decide which one to purchase.
Now I've owned a Sony FS5 for a few years and I've been extremely happy with it, but when I saw that FS7s in excellent condition and low hours could be purchased from reputable retailers for $1500, I decided to buy two of them.
Prices for both cameras tend to be similar, as the FS7 has dropped in value more than the FS5, and both cameras feature a mark 1 and mark 2 version, where the mark 2 version will cost you a few hundred dollars more. I've used both versions for the FS5 and the FS7 and in my opinion the FS7 mark 2 is not worth the additional money as you only get a few more features and a lens locking system which requires 2 people to change out a lens, but the FS5 mark 2 utilizes a different color science and gives you a slightly nicer image, plus several other features, and is worth the extra money.
So for our FS5/FS7 comparison, lets start by looking at the specs of the two cameras. Since they both use the same image sensor, there's no significant difference in the specs. The FS7 Records at a wider resolution of 4096 x 2160, which has an aspect ratio of 17:9. This sounds like a cool feature, but if your final product needs to be in the 16:9 aspect ratio, which it most likely will, the higher resolution 17:9 ratio is going to look the exact same, except with black bars at the top and bottom of the screen, and you'll most likely just end up recording in the 16:9 3840 x 2160 resolution which is the same as the FS5. Both cameras can shoot with the S-log2 & S-log3 colour profiles, which means they have decent post-production colour grading flexibility. But only the FS5 Mark II offers Hybrid Log-Gamma for an Instant HDR workflow. The cameras use different versions of the XACV codec to compress the pixel information from the sensor for storage The FS5 uses XAVC-L and the FS7 uses XAVC-I. The FS7 codec is supposed to give you a better image, but after closely scrutinizing the footage difference between all the different versions of the FS5 and FS7, the footage from the FS7 Mark 1 and 2 is only slightly better than the footage from the FS5 mark 2, and I would doubt if more than 1 percent of all people would notice a difference in the image quality. But I'll show you for yourself.
Here we are shooting with both the FS5 Mark 2 and the FS7 mark 1 in picture profile 1, uncorrected. This is the FS5 and this is the FS7. Now the footage is color corrected, I'll let you decide if one of these images looks better than the other.
When I first started shooting with the FS7 I was surprised to learn that it's not simply a larger and more professional FS5. While some of the buttons and switches are in the same places, menus are completely different, and the camera provides an overall better user experience when mounted on a tripod.
Some of the things I really like about the FS7 is that it has a big record button at the top, which is much easier to access when you're operating the camera from the rear or side, and there's a nice big record tally light at the front that makes it more than obvious if you are recording or not. Another feature of the FS7 that makes usability a little easier is the thumbnail menu that takes you right to the last image you recorded, whereas with the FS5, you manually have to scroll down to whichever file you want to view, which is usually the on you just recorded.
The last feature I like about the FS7 more than the FS5 is the combination of the red light, button and door mechanism to access the media cards. Both the FS5 and FS7 require a second or two to process the footage to the media cards after you stop recording, and with the FS5 is much easier to access the media cards, and there's been a couple times I've pulled the cards out before the camera finished saving the files, and I had to re record those takes. But the FS7 gives you a little red light to let you know that the files are still processing, and pushing the button and opening the bigger door takes a second longer, so with all of this in place, it stops you from pulling out the media cards too soon.