For pro photographers, Sony have just announced their most advanced full-frame camera yet. The new A9 by Sony will be a formidable opponent to the Canons and Nikons of this world. With the help of Clifton Cameras, specialists in all things cameras, we delve into the new world of this camera.
What you need to know:
- World’s first full-frame stacked CMOS sensor (24.2MP)
- Blackout-Free Continuous Shooting at up to 20fps for 241 RAW/JPEG images
- Silent, Vibration-free shooting at speeds up to 1/32,000 sec
- 693-point focal plane phase detection AF points with 60 AF/AE tracking calculations per second
- Ethernet port for file transfer
- Dual SD card slots and extended battery life
- 5-axis in-body image stabilisation with a 5.0 step shutter speed advantage
It’s clear that Sony has delivered an immense camera when it comes to the A9. The clear headline here is speed. The ability for pros and sports photographers to never lose their line of sight while tracking a subject via blackout-free 20fps continous shooting is very impressive.
Let’s face it, how many cameras do you know with 693 phase-detect AF points? Maxi has them all. They cover 93 percent of the frame… that’s an absolutely ludicrous number of AF points. Sony have also added a focus joystick on the back of the camera to help pinpoint your subject.
The new full-frame stacked sensor can allow you to data process twice as fast on this new camera, compared to older models. As well as this, we are also given Sony’s sharpest ever viewfinder with this model.
The A9 is a capable video camera, which offers 4K (3840x2160p) video recording across the full width of the full-frame image sensor. When shooting in this format, the camera uses full pixel readout without pixel binning to collect 6K of information, oversampling it to produce high quality 4K footage with exceptional detail and depth. Recording is also available in the popular Super 35mm size.
What’s also new is that Sony has taken on board customer feedback, as they have now doubled the camera’s battery life (2.2x). They have also added a second media card slot.
Manufacturers who take customer feedback on board are ones that we can all appreciate. We can’t wait to get our hands on the A9 so we can give it a proper once-over, but if the A7 Mark II is anything to go by it is sure to be a triumph.