There was a little bit of a flame war a month or two ago when reports of image quality issues arose around the Sony FS5, a camera which I gave 2015 gear of the year nod. Bottom line, though, is this: there were indeed problems, and Sony appears to have fixed them via a firmware upgrade. Quickly.

Sony FS5  [B&H|Amazon] — Sony FS5 [B&H|Amazon]

I've written a number of times now about the application of software development techniques like Agile and minimum viable product to the imaging business (here, here, here, here, and here -- there are others). As a former software and product development guy myself, I'm fascinated by and understand the tension between getting a product dead right and getting it to market in the right time.

Blackmagic, Leica and -- perhaps more than anyone else -- Sony are living that tension monthly.

The good news in the case of Sony's FS5 is that Sony acknowledged there were image quality problems (which I first saw called out by EOSHD) and have now addressed them in their 1.1 firmware upgrade.

Are they complete fixes? That's what's most interesting to me, and I don't know the answer yet. Apparently some of these IQ issue were traceable to the codec itself, and if Sony has actually improved the codec, that has downstream implications for cameras like the a7X II twins and the a6XXX series.

Time will tell.