Sony a9 full frame mirrorless camera

see also:

• Sony NEX E-mount camera system
• Sony NEX FX full frame mirrorless cameras
• Sony FE E-mount full frame lenses
• tips on how to use the Sony a7 series cameras
• Sony a9ii full frame mirrorless camera
• http://www.sony.com/electronics/interchangeable-lens-cameras/ilce-9
• Autofocus lens adapters for Sony NEX E-mount cameras

• announced April 2017 to ship in May 2017
• feature set is very similar to the Olympus OM-D E-M1 mark II but with a full frame sensor and extended ISO capability
• see Sony announcement here

Vastly improved Eye AF in continuous AF even at 20fps and almost anywhere on the screen - class leading performance!

• 24.2MP Full-Frame Stacked Exmor RS back-illuminated CMOS Sensor
• brand new, upgraded BIONZ X processing engine
• front end LSI
• ISO range of 100 – 51200, expandable to 50 – 204800
• uncompressed 14-bit RAW
• 1200-zone evaluative metering
  • spot meter can be linked to spot focus area
  • highlight metering mode
• improved AutoISO:
  • shutter speed above which the ISO changes when the camera is set to P or A shooting modes
  • can specify a low ISO Auto limit for minimizing motion blur when shooting a moving subject as wel
• Blackout-Free (if shutter speed higher than 1/125th sec) Quad VGA 3.7m-Dot OLED EVF
  • optical design that includes a double-sided aspherical element, helping it to achieve 0.78x magnification
  • utilizes a ZEISS® T* Coating to greatly reduce reflections, and has a fluorine coating on the outer lens that repels dirt
  • 60 or 120fps frame rate
  • luminance is 2x higher than the XGA OLED Tru-Finder from the α7R II
• silent electronic shutter to 1/32,000th sec in S or M mode (1/16,000th sec in other modes) with minimal rolling shutter distortion
• mechanical shutter to 1/8,000th sec rated at 500,000 shots and fastest burst is 5fps (this thus limits flash photography to 5fps)
• flash sync 1/250th sec
• 3.0″ 1.44m-Dot Tilting Touchscreen LCD
  • touch focusing on the rear LCD screen for easily selecting of and shifting focus towards a desired focus point or subject
  • EVF/Monitor Switching is now DISABLED when the LCD Monitor is tilted upwards
• Internal UHD 4K (3840x2160p)/30p Video Recording
  • uses full pixel readout without pixel binning to collect 6K of information, oversampling it to produce high quality 4K footage
• full HD 1080 120p at up to 100mbps with AF Tracking
• 10fps or 20 fps electronic shutter shooting with AF/AE Tracking for up to 241 RAW/ 362 JPEG images
• Fast Hybrid 4D AF system with 693-Point PDAF System with 60 AF/AE tracking calculations per second, for lenses f/11 and brighter
  • 25% faster performance when compared with α7R II
  • perhaps the best AF-C amongst mirrorless cameras
  • vastly improved Eye AF in continuous AF even at 20fps and almost anywhere on the screen - class leading performance!
  • expand flexible spot mode, designed for moving subjects, which can automatically shift focus to one of eight adjacent autofocus points when tracking a subject
  • when using APS-C size lens, image size is 10mp and can use 221 PDAF points and 25 CDAF points
• 5EV 5-Axis SteadyShot INSIDE Stabilization
  • half press of the shutter button, the effect of the image stabilization can be monitored in the viewfinder or on the LCD screen
• Mag. Alloy Body, PC-Sync port, Dual SD Card Slots (one for UHS-II media), Ethernet port for file transfer
• multi-selector joystick on the back of the camera
• separate drive mode and focus mode dials
• new “AF ON” button that can be pressed to activate autofocus directly when shooting still images or movies
• new “AF Area Registration”, which allows frequently used focus area to be memorized and recalled via custom button assignments
• new ability to assign specific settings (exposure, shutter speed, drive mode, etc) to a custom button to be instantly recalled when needed
• camera can memorize and automatically recall the last focus point used in a vertical or horizontal orientation as well
• “My Menu” feature is available, allowing up to 30 menu items to be registered in a custom menu for instant recall when needed
• all-new Sony battery (model NP-FZ100) giving double the battery life of a7R II - rated at 480 shots EVF or 650 shots LCD
• 673 g / approx. 1 lb 7.7 oz incl. battery, SD card
• 126.9mm x 95.6mm x 63.0mm/5 x 3 7/8 x 2 1/2 inches
• $US4500
• optional:
  • VG-C3EM Vertical Grip;
  • NPA-MQZ1K Multi-Battery Adaptor Kit;
  • GP-X1EM Grip Extension;
  • BC-QZ1 Battery Charger

• continuous shooting mode results in only 12bit files with reduced dynamic range but still in a large 14 bit file
  • dynamic range at base ISO 100 is not as good as the Sony a7R II full frame mirrorless camera, and it is not iso-invariant, meaning that when shooting in low light you do need to bump up the ISO rather than shoot at ISO then increase shadows in post ¹⁾
• to realise the 20fps AF-C capability you will need to shoot with dedicated lenses designed and optimised for the Sony
  • Canon EF lenses won't cut it, and even Sony Alpha lenses will only achieve 10fps
• the longest focal length Sony E mount lens capable of 20fps AF-C is the new Sony 100-400mm f/4.6-5.6 and when coupled with the 1.4x converter you get 560mm f/8 so no real advantage over the Olympus OM-D E-M1 II with 300mm f/4 which gets you to 600mm f/4 at 2EV better ISO and with 6.5EV IS at 18fps with AF-C, although you do get to zoom but then it is likely the zoom plus TC will result in less sharp images than the Olympus 300mm prime which is amazingly sharp.
• if you want to shoot flash, you must use mechanical shutter and thus restricted to only 5fps burst - half what you can achieve with the Olympus OM-D E-M1 II with flash and still have AF-C, but if you don't need AF-C, the Olympus will shoot mechanical shutter at 15fps
• the electronic shutter speed of 1/32,000th second is only available in S or M exposure modes
• IS unlikely to be as effective as in the Olympus OM-D E-M1 II
• no 60fps burst mode as with the Olympus OM-D E-M1 II
• no Pro-Capture mode as with the Olympus OM-D E-M1 II
• apparently touch AF does not trigger shutter automatically as can be configured on the Olympus OM-D E-M1 II
• Eye AF cannot be configured to select closest eye as on the Olympus OM-D E-M1 II
• Eye AF cannot be configured to target the subject you want when there are multiple faces
• no in-camera user configurable focus limiter range to ensure out of range areas are ignored as on the Olympus OM-D E-M1 II
• no long exposure timed modes as on the Olympus OM-D E-M1 II such as Live Composite
• weathersealing unlikely to be as good as the Olympus OM-D E-M1 II - you may want to add some protection in a downpour, and don't pour water on it to clean it!
• you will struggle to get this into a jacket pocket
• no support for XQD cards such as on the Nikon D500 and D5
• video issues:
  • at 4K 30p the image area is cropped (no crop at 4K 24/25p, nor at 1080HD 120p)
  • no S-Log
  • no Picture Profiles as per a7 series

• my blog post of its announcement
• my blog post - a7III vs a7II vs a7RIII vs a9
• http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/sony-a9/sony-a9A.HTM
• http://briansmith.com/sony-a9-camera-fe-100-400mm-gm-lens-review/
• https://petapixel.com/2017/04/19/sony-unveils-blazing-fast-a9-24mp-sports-camera-shoots-20fps/
• https://petapixel.com/2017/04/21/size-comparison-sony-a9-vs-a7r-ii-canon-5d-mark-iv-1dx-mark-ii/
• http://www.eoshd.com/2017/04/sony-a9-pro-camera-4k-6k-sensor-readout-full-analysis/
• https://www.dpreview.com/articles/4934566891/sony-a9-shooting-experiece
• http://www.eoshd.com/2017/07/sony-a9-a-brief-fling/
  • “Along with the option to use the main shutter button to start and stop clips in video mode, the screen backlight does not dim when you record 4K, like it does on all the existing Sony bodies. You can see your recording outdoors and there’s no gamma shift.”
  • “Finally we also have a proper favourites menu like a Canon DSLR”
• https://petapixel.com/2017/07/24/review-sony-a9-camera-wedding-photographers-dreams/
  • much better than a Nikon D4s sports dSLR and has significant advantages over a Nikon D5 pro dSLR but ergonomics is still an issue and when shooting flash you are forced to use its horrible noisy mechanical shutter
  • “What a camera. So, so good. This is everything a wedding photographer has been dreaming of. I can’t go back and shoot with an SLR now. Silent shooting, the best focus system, eye-AF, 32000th/s, in-camera stabilization, fantastic EVF, 20fps if needed, smaller and a lighter than a D4s (similar to D750), two SD slots. ”
• https://mirrorlesscomparison.com/in-depth/sony-a9-vs-olympus-omd-em1-ii/ - a treatise on the evolution of the electronic shutter and reduced live view blackouts
• Aaron Baggenstos Youtube review on Sony a9 for wildlife in Alaska compared to his Nikon D5
  • much less viewfinder blackout in burst mode than the D5, lighter kit, WYSIWYG EVF
  • BUT still no fast 500mm or 600mm lens for birding, and only one UHS-II card slot and issues with reduced functionality whilst buffer is writing to the card, and some concerns regarding weathersealing