The winner of the Filmmaker competition wins, amongst other career-change prize elements, an FX9 Cinema Line Camera. Its superb quality and robustness make it a coveted piece of kit for many filmmakers worldwide. We take a look at Sony Filmmaker Ambassador's Mathieu Le Lay review, where he tested the FX9 V3 during one of his wildlife documentary shoots.
Naturally, Mathieu wanted to put it to work in the application he excels at – wildlife documentaries. So, he set off for the mountains in search of a bearded vulture – capturing this fast-moving raptor in flight would be a real test for FX9’s real-time tracking feature. Another key feature with the V3 firmware is S16 crop mode. “It allows me to zoom in a bit more while keeping very good image quality,” Mathieu explains. “It will allow me to look for details, scenes and animal behaviours.'
Mathieu’s preferred approach is to capture animals in their natural environment, to see how they’ve evolved specific skills to survive. Of all the species he encounters in the mountains, raptors are the ones that fascinate him most. Bearded vultures are natural gliders, moving quickly and elegantly – so any encounter is always a little magical.
Watch Mathieu’s film above to see this fabulous creature in action.
This review was first published on the Sony Filmmaking blog. Le Lay follows-up his first review with a more in-depth piece which can be read here.