We are in NYC for the launch of the new Sony A9 (Alpha 9) full-frame mirrorless camera, which is based on Sony’s latest A9 CMOS image sensor. A Sony G Master FE 100-400mn (f4.5-5.6) was launched at the same time and is present on most media photo material.
The new 24.2 Megapixel sensor can handle data 20X faster than the last generation sensor according to Sony, and the extra performance enables continuous shooting at 20FPS with up to 241 RAW5/ 362 JPEG6 images in this burst mode. It’s possible to save 14-bit precision RAW files.
The sensor also has a powerful auto-focus (AF) tracking system with 693 AF points and 60 tracking operations per second. Like the Alpha 6500, this camera’s focus can be activated via the touch-screen. Photographers were excited about the overall performance of the camera and how it uses its mirrorless architecture to go past traditional DSLR cameras restrictions. For low-light situations, the ISO range goes from 100–51,200 and can be extended to 204,800.
The Sony Alpha 9 (model ILCE-9) has a 5-axis (in-body) image stabilization system that is equivalent to 5 shutter steps, which is huge. For action shots in good lighting, the shutter speed can reach 1/32000 seconds, which is critical for sharp photos even in fast action scenes.
Sony has also integrated a silent shutter, which is extremely useful when shooting wild life. Cristina Mittermeier, a well-known wild life photographer was on stage to share her experience capturing photos using the new Sony A9 camera.
The Sony A9 viewfinder is impressive: it is a Quad-VGA OLED Tru-Finder viewfinder with 3.6M pixels. This kind of resolution on such a small surface leads to an incredible level of details that blows out of the water the last-generation electronic viewfinder. In many ways, this is the the emperor of mirrorless full-frame cameras.
"THE EMPEROR OF MIRRORLESS FULL-FRAME CAMERAS"Of course, the new Sony Alpha 9 supports 4K recording (3840 x 2160p) , but it comes with a good surprise: the camera actually records the video in 6K, then down-samples it to 4K for maximum quality. The sensor and overall system performance is what enables this kind of processing to happen. If going to a higher resolution isn’t your main goal, the camera can also record Full HD at 120 FPS in very high quality settings.
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