I recently had some hands-on time with the new Sony F5 4K camera at one of the equipment dealers here in L.A. Where to begin? The word 'perfection' comes to mind. The picture this camera produces is perfect in every way. Exquisitely fine detail, 14 stops of latitude, dead-on color, no aliasing, gamma curves to produce any look you desire - the picture is a standard by which to measure all others. I can't express how beautiful it looks.

Low light performance is important to me, so one of the things I did was take the ISO up to it's maximum - 16,000. The people with me couldn't believe what they saw. There was almost no noise! The picture looked essentially the same as it did at the lowest ISO, (which is 2000). This is phenomenal performance. I did notice a slight reduction in latitude at ISO 16000, but since you're starting with 14 stops, this is not a big deal. This camera is going to be killer in the night.

Next I tested the rolling shutter by whip panning the camera back and forth as fast as I could. I and the people had a hard time seeing any skew. There probably was a little, but it wasn't much. This is not your father's rolling shutter. Many people may write off the F5 in favor the more expensive F55 because the F55 has a global shutter. But, I wouldn't be so hasty. The F5 definitely deserves to be tested.

The OLED viewfinder is very nice, but $5000 is a bit steep for it. If I was buying the camera, this is one thing I would probably omit. You can easily attach any good LCD panel through one of the SDI ports or the HDMI port.

Another thing that impressed me was how easy it was to operate the camera. The menu structure is very similar to other Sony cameras. If you have experience with the EX1/3, FS100/700, F3, you'll be up and running in minutes.

All in all, the Sony F5 is a great camera.