The Sony FX5 writes 16-bit X-OCN RAW to the card. The FX3 writes 10-bit XAVC to the card and sends RAW out of the HDMI port to a recorder that wraps it in somebody else’s container. That one line is the $600 gap. Every other difference between the two bodies, the open gate frame, the third base ISO, the new battery, follows from the FX5 being the first FX camera built around RAW instead of around XAVC.
An FX5 card holds files the FX3 cannot produce, and at launch some of them opened in one application. An FX3 card holds files every NLE has cut for five years. Which fact matters more depends on what the job delivers. “FX3” here means the FX3A, Sony’s 2025 revision; Amazon’s FX3 listing is the FX3A body now, and the files are identical to the 2021 original.
Last updated: October 2026. Some links below are affiliate links. Buy through them and it helps keep the site running, at no extra cost to you. Prices were read on the live listings on October 12, 2026. On that date the FX5 was a pre-order at Best Buy and Adorama; Adorama listed availability from October 15.
TLDR
Buy the Sony FX5 at $4,899.99 if the job needs RAW on the card, a 9:16 and a 16:9 cut from one take, or a B-cam that conforms next to VENICE or Burano X-OCN. Its smallest RAW flavor runs about 104 GB per hour, under the 108 GB per hour of XAVC S-I, so RAW stops being a storage decision. Buy the FX3 at $4,298 if the job delivers XAVC, which is most jobs. Same 15+ stops, same 12,800 top base ISO, a handle in the box, and the $600 saved covers a lens or a season of Type A cards. The FX5’s two compressed X-OCN flavors opened only in Sony’s RAW Viewer at launch; until the grading seat reads them, the FX3’s files are the safer ones to receive.
RAW on the card against RAW over HDMI
The Sony FX5 records X-OCN internally in three flavors: LT at 389 Mbps in 4K 24p, and two new compressed variants, C1 at roughly 289 Mbps and C2 at roughly 232 Mbps. All three are 16-bit scene-linear RAW from the family VENICE 2 and Burano shoot, so white balance and exposure index become grade decisions and an FX5 B-cam conforms X-OCN to X-OCN. The FX5 also records XAVC S-I for the jobs that do not need RAW.
The FX3 records XAVC S, S-I and HS, all 10-bit 4:2:2, with S-I at 240, 300 and 600 Mbps for 24, 30 and 60p. RAW is a 16-bit 4264 x 2408 stream over HDMI to an Atomos Ninja as ProRes RAW, or since firmware v7.00 to a Blackmagic Video Assist as Blackmagic RAW. Both containers open natively in Resolve and Premiere today, which is more than the FX5’s C1 and C2 could say at launch. The costs are a recorder on the rig, a second set of media, and a container chosen by the recorder. A production that owns the recorder loses little; one that would buy it to get RAW is partway to the FX5 before the camera is paid for.
Storage per hour and the Type A requirement
X-OCN LT from the Sony FX5 runs about 175 GB per hour at 4K 24p. C2 lands around 104 GB per hour. XAVC S-I 4K 24p from the FX3 is 108 GB per hour, so the smallest 16-bit RAW flavor on the FX5 is slightly smaller than the 10-bit All-Intra codec most editors cut today, and the largest is about 1.6 times it. Those rates scale up with resolution and frame rate.
The media is where the FX5 costs more than its rate sheet shows. X-OCN requires VPG400-certified CFexpress Type A cards; the two slots accept SD, but SD will not sustain RAW. A 160GB card holds about 55 minutes of LT or roughly 90 minutes of C2, so a documentary day is several cards. The Lexar Gold 160GB is the VPG400 card to buy now that Sony has suspended its own card production; the CFexpress vs SD guide covers the Type A premium and the readers that keep the offload moving.
The FX3 takes the same two CFexpress Type A or SD UHS-II slots, and only S-I at 60p (600 Mbps, 270 GB per hour) pushes it onto Type A. Everything at 30p and below records to SD, so a 4K24 S-I day fits the cards a shooter already owns.
Open gate and the 9:16 cut
The Sony FX5 reads its full 3:2 sensor at 4992 x 3328. One take yields a real 16:9 cut and a real 9:16 crop with pixels to spare, which ends the shoot-it-twice-or-crop-it-soft problem for an interview going to YouTube and Reels. The limits: open gate tops out at 30p, and until firmware v2.0, penciled for August 2027, it records only in X-OCN. The 16:9 and 17:9 modes run 5K up to 60p, 4K up to 120p and 1080 at 240.
For an editor, open gate is a reframe budget. A vertical cut pulled from a 3:2 frame keeps its full height; a vertical cut pulled from a 16:9 FX3 frame keeps about a third of the width, 1215 of 3840 pixels, which still covers a 1080 x 1920 delivery but leaves little room to reframe. Every open gate clip is a RAW clip until the 2027 firmware lands, so a multi-aspect job on the FX5 is also a RAW job, cards and NLE support included.
The FX3 reads 16:9 only, from a 4.2K readout up to 60p and with about a 1.1x crop at 100 and 120p. A job that delivers horizontal only never misses the taller frame. Open gate pays off on the job that ships two aspect ratios from one setup; on the job that ships one, it is storage spent on pixels the master never shows.
Three base ISOs against two
The Sony FX5 has base ISOs at 800, 4,000 and 12,800. The FX3 has 800 and 12,800. Sony rates both at 15+ stops in S-Log3, and both share the 12,800 top base that made the FX3 the low-light pick in its class. The new number is the middle one: 4,000 covers the dim interior and the dusk exterior where an FX3 shooter chooses between a gained-up 800 and a 12,800 that is more sensitivity than the scene needs.
In the grade the third base is fewer noise reduction passes on mid-light footage, and the 16-bit RAW underneath it means exposure index is a slider rather than a baked decision. That latitude lives in the X-OCN files; shoot the FX5 in XAVC S-I and the grade has the same 10-bit headroom the FX3 gives.
The FX3 matches the FX5 at both ends of the range. A lit set at 800 and a night exterior at 12,800 grade the same from either body; FX3 vs FX30 covers why that 12,800 base separates the FX3 from the body below it. The FX3 gives up the middle base and the RAW latitude, and keeps everything a lit or a dark job needs.
Resolve, Premiere and the proxy pass
At launch the FX5’s C1 and C2 files opened in Sony’s RAW Viewer beta and nowhere else; Resolve, Premiere and Avid did not read them. Resolve and Premiere already read X-OCN LT from VENICE and Burano, so LT is the flavor to request until the grading seat reads the compressed ones; Sony promised NLE support to follow. The rule for any .0 release applies: run a card through the real pipeline before a schedule depends on it. Our FX5 workflow post tracks the support picture and what to ask the shooter for in the meantime.
The FX3 has no support question. XAVC S-I cuts natively in Premiere and Resolve on any machine from the last five years. XAVC HS wants hardware HEVC decode (Apple silicon, recent Nvidia and Intel parts have it) or a proxy pass, and the FX3 writes proxies beside the main clip so that pass is free. Our FX5 post does not cover in-camera proxies for X-OCN, so plan on generating them for a RAW job. For an XAVC job, the FX3’s card drops onto any timeline the day it comes back.
Body, battery and the handle
The Sony FX5 moves to the NP-SA100 battery, 1.3 times the capacity of the NP-FZ100, which means an FX3 kit’s spares do not carry over. It has a fan for long takes and 5-axis in-body stabilization. Built-in ND and SDI out are both absent; Sony keeps those on the FX6. The XLR handle is optional and records four channels of 32-bit float audio at up to 96kHz, which turns a clipped location track from a reshoot conversation into a gain adjustment.
The FX3 ships with the XLR-H1 handle in the box: two XLR/TRS inputs with phantom power, a 3.5mm input and four channels written into the clip, so a lav and a boom arrive in sync on the same file. Its NP-FZ100 runs about 95 minutes of 4K recording, the body weighs about 715 g, and it embeds gyro data for Catalyst. The FX3A revision changed the rear screen, the charger in the box and nothing about the files. For a kit that already owns FZ100 batteries and a shelf of SD cards, the FX3 is the body that plugs into what is there.
Spec table
| Spec | Sony FX5 | Sony FX3 (FX3A) |
|---|---|---|
| Sensor | 16.6MP full-frame stacked | 12.1MP full-frame BSI |
| Base ISOs | 800 / 4,000 / 12,800 | 800 / 12,800 |
| Dynamic range (Sony) | 15+ stops | 15+ stops |
| Internal RAW | X-OCN LT / C1 / C2, 16-bit | None |
| RAW over HDMI | Not covered in our FX5 post | 16-bit, 4264 x 2408 |
| Internal XAVC | XAVC S-I | XAVC S / S-I / HS, 10-bit 4:2:2 |
| 4K 24p storage | 175 GB/hr LT, ~104 GB/hr C2 | 108 GB/hr S-I |
| Open gate | 4992 x 3328, up to 30p, X-OCN only until fw 2.0 | No |
| Top frame rates | 5K60, 4K120, 1080p240 | 4K120 (~1.1x crop) |
| Rolling shutter, 4K24 | Not covered in our FX5 post | ~8.8 ms |
| Media | 2x CFexpress A / SD; RAW needs VPG400 Type A | 2x CFexpress A / SD UHS-II |
| Battery | NP-SA100 (1.3x FZ100) | NP-FZ100, ~95 min 4K |
| XLR handle | Optional, 4ch 32-bit float | XLR-H1 included, 4ch |
| Weight (body) | Not covered in our FX5 post | ~715 g |
| Price | $4,899.99 | $4,298 |
Who pays the gap
Three kinds of work pay it. A production that delivers RAW, or whose colorist has started asking for it, gets 16-bit X-OCN at XAVC storage rates and skips the recorder. A B-cam on a VENICE or Burano job gets a conform that matches X-OCN to X-OCN. A channel that ships 16:9 and 9:16 from the same interview gets both from one take at full height. For those three the Sony FX5 is the body, with the condition that the grading seat reads the flavor the shooter picks before the first paying card comes back.
Everyone else keeps the money. Doc and social work that ships as XAVC gets nothing new for $600, because the FX3’s S-I files and the FX5’s S-I files are the same files, graded from the same 800 and 12,800 bases. The FX3 at $4,298 comes with the handle, runs on the batteries and SD cards already in the bag, and its codecs open everywhere. Spend the difference on the lens the job is missing and two Type A cards for the 60p days, and revisit the FX5 the day a client asks for a RAW deliverable or a vertical cut that holds up.
Where this fits in your setup
The FX5’s codec and firmware timeline are in our FX5 post-workflow guide, which is the page to check when the C1 and C2 support picture changes. The body below the FX3 is covered in Sony FX3 vs FX30, where the same XAVC pipeline meets a Super 35 sensor at half the price. The best cameras under $5,000 covers what else this budget buys outside the Cinema Line, and the run-and-gun documentary kit builds a full rig around the FX3 and names where the FX5 fits in it. The cards that make X-OCN possible, and what they cost per gigabyte against Type B and SD, are in CFexpress vs SD cards and readers.
