Nikon is about to unleash its latest high resolution full-frame DSLR, the D850. As well as boasting a monstrous 47.5 megapixel count, the prosumer camera is also a quick snapper, features 153-point AF, can handle 4K video, and promises long battery life.
The D850 is Nikon's first DSLR to pack an FX-format, back-side illuminated CMOS sensor (35.9 x 23.9 mm) for improved dynamic range and better low light performance. Its Expeed 5 image engine powers fast image processing, high shooting speeds, low light photography, full-frame 4K video prowess at 24/30 frames per second (fps) and long battery life (up to 1,840 shots per charge in fact, or 70 minutes of video). And it does without an optical low pass filter to help capture the finer detail in image compositions.
The standard ISO range runs from 64 to 25,600, which expands down to 32 and up to 102,400, it uses the 153-point, Multi-Cam 20K autofocus system from last year's D5, including 99 cross type sensors, and manages a rather swift 7 fps continuous shooting at full resolution, though that can be increased to 9 fps by attaching an optional battery grip.
Photographers benefit from Nikon's highest magnification optical viewfinder – at 0.75x – or for hands-on settings tweaking, live view mode and so on there's a 3.2-inch tilting touchscreen panel at the rear, with an impressive 2,359k dot resolution. Wedding photographers will doubtless appreciate the camera's silent shooting capabilities, with up to 6 fps continuous silent snapping at full resolution on offer, and Nikon has made three sizes of RAW format image capture available, which users can batch process in-camera to save post-production time.
For videographers, the camera allows for the creation of UHD time-lapse videos, or the assembly of 8K time lapse videos using post-production software, and uncompressed broadcast quality 4:2:2 8-bit 4K footage can be recorded to an external device over HDMI, while also simultaneously recording to media card. The D850 has its own stereo microphone, with audio attenuator for level regulation, but features an external mic port, too.
The camera has a weather-sealed magnesium alloy body designed to survive testing field work challenges, sporting buttons that can be illuminated for after dark sessions, and features built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth for wireless images transfer, remote operation and capture/preview on mobile devices. It rocks two memory card slots – one for XQD and the other for SD media, and is compatible with Nikon's radio-controlled Advanced Wireless Lighting SB-5000 flash.
The Nikon D850 will be released next month for a suggested body-only price of US$3,299.95. The video below offers a tour of the new camera.
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Last year, we reviewed the Moza Air stabilizing gimbal from Chinese company Gudsen, one of several new lightweight, low-cost gimbal op...
Last year, we reviewed the Moza Air stabilizing gimbal from Chinese company Gudsen, one of several new lightweight, low-cost gimbal options that are popping up to give low-budget filmmakers a steadicam-like experience.
Now, Gudsen has released a new, smaller gimbal aimed solely at mirrorless camera users. Where the Moza Air can handle full-sized DSLR cameras up to 2.5 kg (5.5 lb), the new Moza AirCross is smaller and lighter, and can stabilize up to 1.8 kg (4 lb).
Feature-wise it does what the Air does, including handgrip thumbstick control, multi-mode stabilization, and wireless control, either through a remote unit or through a smartphone. It'll also come in a natty Pelican-style case.
Like the Air, it can handle programmed motion timelapse shots, as well as a series of accessories that include a double-handed grip (which doubles as an accessory rack), a tripod ground stand and a remote control that operates certain features on the camera as well as the gimbal – particularly the ability to start/stop recording and change focus on many camera models without touching the camera itself. There's also the "mimic motion" function, which lets you set up the gimbal on a tripod, and control it kinesthetically by pointing the thumb controller around and having the gimbal follow its movement.
New features
The AirCross also has a few tricks up its sleeve that the Air doesn't. The first is the ability to power the camera straight out of the gimbal battery, using an optional dummy battery for Sony or Panasonic cameras. If you're really burning through batteries, and you can handle the extra weight, you can also clamp a large external battery to the handgrips and keep the whole system topped up.
And, thank the good lord above, it's also got a quick-release plate, meaning that you can theoretically get your camera on and off the gimbal quickly without having to re-balance it every time. That alone could be a huge feature. The system as shipped fits "any quick release plate from 50.5 to 55 mm," including the Manfrotto 501PL and Arca plates, meaning that you should be able to switch the camera back and forth very quickly between tripod and gimbal on the job if your tripod has a compatible head on it.
As part of the effort to reduce time mucking around with balance settings, the AirCross also lets you save up to six different camera profiles, meaning you can set the gimbal up for each lens/camera combination, calibrate it using a new "auto-tuning" feature on your smartphone, and save it such that you should be able to switch back and forth between lenses quickly and easily.
That's a big deal, in our view. A gimbal that's smaller, lighter and quicker to set up, while retaining the features that made the Moza Air such a good thing? Yes please.
It's also US$180 cheaper, the AirCross coming in at $419 (pre-order) against the Air's $599. We'd recommend budgeting extra, though, for a $159 thumb controller and mount, the $99 dual handle, and a $40 dummy battery to suit your camera if you want to take advantage of the external power option.
We'll be getting our hands on one soon to see if it delivers on its promises, but it certainly looks like a great piece of kit for mirrorless shooters.
DJI has announced its latest consumer drone, the Mavic Air. Like its predecessor (the Mavic Pro) the Air has a compact design, folding propeller arms, and a 4K/30fps-shooting camera – although it has some new features, too.
The Mavic Air weighs 430 grams, and has a footprint that's "nearly the size of a modern smartphone" when its arms are folded into its sides. The joysticks detach from its remote control unit, for added portability.
Along with 4K regular-motion video, its camera can also capture 1080p/120fps slow-motion footage, along with 12-megapixel HDR stills. That camera has a 1/2.3-inch CMOS sensor and the equivalent of a 24-mm F2.8 lens, and is mounted on a recessed 3-axis mechanical gimbal that is itself suspended from dampers to minimize vibrations.
Footage is stored on 8 GB of onboard internal memory, although there's also a slot for a removable microSD card, to provide additional capacity.
Still images can be stitched together into a variety of types of panoramic shots, plus there are some interesting new methods of shooting video. The latter includes Boomerang mode, in which the drone automatically flies in an oval around the subject, tracking them with its camera the whole time.
There's also a SmartCapture mode, in which the drone and its camera can be controlled with hand gestures up to a range of 20 ft (6 m). The Air's maximum range using the radio remote control is 2.5 miles (4 km), from which video is streamed at 1080p.
Users can reportedly expect more precise hovering and better flight performance, thanks to the new FlightAutonomy 2.0 system. This processes data gathered from seven onboard cameras and infrared sensors to construct a 3D map of the drone's environment, alerting it to obstacles up to 20 m (66 ft) away.
Flight time is a claimed 21 minutes.
The Mavic Air is available now for preorder in color choices of black, white or red, priced at US$799. Shipping should begin on Jan. 28th.
You can see footage shot with the drone, in the following video.
The Canon EOS 5D MkIII is a favorite of professional and aspirational semi-professional photographers, but it's getting a bit long in the tooth. At launch in 2012, it was the highest resolution camera the company made, but things have moved on significantly in the past four years. The 5D MkIV brings it up to speed.
First on the list of upgrades is the new 30.4 megapixel full-frame CMOS sensor. Not only is it higher resolution than the outgoing 22.3 megapixel MkIII, it's combined with a new DIGIC 6+ Image Processor. Maximum standard ISO has been bumped up from 25600 to 32000, with the expanded range remaining ISO 50 to 102,400.
The new image processor will new let the camera shoot at 7 fps, and it's capable of shooting 4096 x 2160 4K video at 30p or 24p, plus HD video at up to 120p. You can also grab 8.8-Megapixel still frames in-camera while shooting in 4K.
Also new to devoted videographers is Dual Pixel CMOS AF, for smoother and more accurate focus while shooting with the mirror flipped up. When you're not running in live view, the MkIV uses a 61-point system with 41 cross points. Canon says all 61 points work with a wider range of lenses and extenders, and are effective right down to f/8.
Canon has also thrown in a new set of connectivity features. Wi-FI and NFC are both standard, as is GPS, making it easier to track, share and print images without a USB cable.
The 5D MkIV will be available from the start of September, with body-only prices kicking off at US$3,499. It will be launched alongside two new EF lenses, including a 16-35mm f/2.8L III USM and an EF 24-105mm f/4L IS II USM. The lenses will cost $2,199 and $1,099 respectively.
Canon 5D MkIV key specs:
30.4 Megapixel full-frame CMOS sensor with ISO range 100–32,000, expandable up to 50–102,400
4K Motion JPEG video (DCI cinema-type 4096 x 2160) at 30p or 24p; in-camera still frame grab of 4K 8.8-Megapixel images, Full HD up to 60p, and HD up to 120p
Dual Pixel CMOS AF for responsive and smooth AF during video or Live View shooting
Full touch-screen interface on LCD monitor, including selection of AF area
Up to 7.0 fps continuous shooting speed with high performance DIGIC 6+ Image Processor
61 AF points with expanded vertical coverage with 41 cross-points, and AF possible at all 61 AF points with many lens + extender combinations effective to f/8
150,000-pixel RGB+IR metering sensor
Dual Pixel RAW, in-camera Digital Lens Optimizer during JPEG shooting and Diffraction Correction technologies
Built-in Wi-Fi and NFC connectivity
Built-in GPS3 for geotagging
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Panasonic's Lumix GH5 is a very thorough and exciting upgrade from the wildly popular GH4 micro 4/3rds camera. A prosumer-grade v...
Panasonic's Lumix GH5 is a very thorough and exciting upgrade from the wildly popular GH4 micro 4/3rds camera. A prosumer-grade video rig in disguise as a stills shooter, it takes some of the most stunning and detailed video footage we've ever worked with, and packs in a dizzying array of features.
The GH5 is a jarring reminder of how little Canon has done to support the video capabilities of its EOS series cameras, which were among the first consumer-grade machines to shoot truly compelling video footage. They still don't shoot 4K, or handle audio competently, or give you any of the kind of features that might eat into the market share of Canon's dedicated video machines.
Panasonic, on the other hand, has bent over backwards to make the GH5 the best filmmaking tool it can be. Not only does this thing shoot truly, powerfully gorgeous 4K/60fps video, it can also take 4K footage at a cinematic 24fps using a richer, 4:2:2 10-bit color space that responds well to grading in post production. The list of frame rate, resolution and bitrate options available is genuinely intimidating.
Run and gun documentary style shooting is vastly easier thanks to dual image stabilization – in both the lens and the body. Our test rig came with the Leica-built 12-60 f/2.8-4.0 DG Vario-Elmart lens, and we got plenty of solid, usable footage hand-held thanks to the excellent built-in stabilizers, including shots where we were walking as we shot. By far the best such system we've ever seen and a credit to Panasonic's engineers.
The upgraded in-built microphone is a pleasant surprise too, with a wind noise reduction algorithm applied to take the low-frequency woof of wind blast out. That, coupled with the image stabilization and face-detect autofocus, makes the GH5 a pretty stunning hand-held video selfie rig for vlogging, even if you don't upgrade the mic with a boom or lavalier alternative.
Autofocus is hit and miss. When it works it's very impressive (it's best when shooting wide). But the ridiculously high image resolution makes it easy to spot when it starts hunting for focus, and we did find ourselves losing a lot of shots as it grabbed focus on backgrounds instead of subjects. We suspect spending significant time getting to know the autofocus menus and modes better would make a big difference.
On the other hand, manual focusing is handled very well, with bright blue focus peaking very easy to use while shooting, and a focus assist zoom window popping up on both the beautiful, articulating back touchscreen and the outstanding electronic viewfinder as you work the focus ring.
If you're working with shots you can set up a bit better, there's the ability to automatically transition between pre-set focus points, which works beautifully. There's also in-camera variable frame rate control that lets you shoot timelapses down to 2 fps, or 1080p slow motion at an awesome 180 fps, which equates to slowing things down by 7.5 times. It looks amazing, we found it an inspiring tool.
One odd thing we discovered was that the focus ring doesn't seem to operate in a linear fashion; it seems to speed up the further you turn it. Weird, but not a huge problem. We did find it confusing that both the zoom and focus rings turned backwards compared to most of our gear, but that's surely not the sort of thing that takes much adjusting to.
As a stills camera, we were impressed with the quality of images from the GH5. It doesn't handle low light or deliver dynamic range as well as the full frame cameras – particularly from Sony/Nikon. But images are tack-sharp and beautifully clear, and this Leica lens is as technically impressive as you'd expect.
Full size RAW images can be shot at a fairly quick 12 frames per second. But if you don't mind dropping the output size, you can switch that up for 6K-resolution images at a stunning 60 frames per second – effectively shooting a video, then picking out the perfect frame for a still.
This kind of business also allows you to take beautifully done in-camera post focus shots, where the camera chooses all possible focus points, shoots them all at high speed, and then intelligently stitches these shots together to give you an impossibly wide depth of field in your final image. It works brilliantly with simpler shots, but the auto-stitching can fall to bits with more complex images.
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The Sony Alpha 9 is the company's first camera aimed at professional wedding, action and sports photographers. It's a 24MP, ful...
The Sony Alpha 9 is the company's first camera aimed at professional wedding, action and sports photographers. It's a 24MP, full-frame mirrorless camera that can shoot at 20 frames per second with full autofocus. And, just as importantly, with very low viewfinder lag and absolutely no blackout during continuous shooting.
That's right, a mirrorless camera targeted at wedding, action and sports photographers - a strike at the DSLR's area of greatest strength. It's true that Olympus has pushed in this direction with its E-M1 Mark II, but Sony is promising both super-fast readout and full-frame image quality, backed up with an expansion of its Pro Support scheme that will be needed to break into the pro market. This is ambitious stuff.
Of particular note for wedding and event photographers are the a9's speed and silent shooting, both of which are certain to have a positive impact on capturing just the right moment without any interruption from the clacking of a conventional shutter.
All this capability stems from a stacked CMOS image sensor, which includes processing circuitry nearer the pixels and features built-in memory to deliver all this data to the off-board processors at a rate they can cope with. It's this structure that enables the camera to shoot at 20 frames per second and do so with an electronic shutter that's fast enough to minimize the rolling shutter effect. The fast readout also allows 60 AF/AE calculations per second, promising better subject tracking and prediction.
Key specifications
24MP full-frame Stacked CMOS
20 fps continuous shooting with full AF (electronic shutter, 12-bit files)
Continuous shooting buffer of up to 241 compressed Raw files (362 JPEG)
10 fps continuous shooting with AF with adapted lenses
5-stop (estimated) 5-axis image stabilization
3.7M-dot OLED viewfinder (1280 x 960 pixels) with up to 120 fps update
1.44M-dot rear touchscreen LCD
Oversampled UHD 4K/24p video from full sensor width (1.24x crop for 30p)
The stacked CMOS design not only allows the super-fast readout that powers so much of the camera's attention-grabbing spec, it also means it has all the benefits of BSI design. This means that the light-sensitive section of each pixel is closer to the surface of the sensor which, in turn, means the sensor is better at collecting light near the corners, where the incident angle will be high. It also generally means improved low light performance, and sharper pixel-level imagery.
Sony's crammed the a9 with seriously speedy technology and is aiming it at true sports professionals. Out-of-camera JPEG cropped to taste. Sony 24-70mm F2.8 GM | ISO 2500 | 1/800 sec | F2.8 Photo by Carey Rose
Beyond the technical wonders of the new sensor, there are a large number of significant changes to the a9 relative to Sony's a7-series that have all been made with demanding professionals in mind; these include updates to menus, controls, image quality, and more. Will all of this be enough to tempt professionals to switch? Let's dig in and find out.
Review History
23 Apr 2017
Introduction, Shooting Experience, Image Quality Impressions, Autofocus Impressions published
30 May 2017
Studio Scene and Raw Dynamic Range published
14 June 2017
Full review published
Body and controls
If you were to wander into a camera store and take a passing glance at the Sony cabinet, you'd be forgiven for mistaking the a9 for just another a7-series camera. The entire range of Sony full-frame mirrorless cameras clearly shares a lot of design DNA, but the a9 makes some meaningful changes that a lot of people (including us) have been requesting for a while now. The most obvious change is a general increase in the amount of direct controls; there are now dials for both drive and autofocus modes, there is an AF joystick (which is very nice to use) and dedicated AF-ON and AEL buttons. The rear jog dial has been beefed up some, the movie button has been relocated and the controls universally offer better feedback, and are more 'clicky' and less 'rubbery' than a7-series cameras.
From left: Sony a9, Sony a7R II
While those are all welcome changes, we still wish the mode dial locks were 'toggles' rather than the 'press-and-turn' type, and the AF mode dial's unlocking mechanism is a little fiddly and should, again, be a toggle. Also, we think the AF-ON and AEL buttons could use more travel when pressed: they're so small and offer so little feedback that you often can't find them or know that you've pressed them with your eye to the finder (especially in cold situations or with even light gloves).
Around the side, we get dual card slots, one of which supports the faster UHS-II format. Sony's also shoehorned a bigger 'Z' series battery into the a9, with more than double the capacity of the 'W' models. This larger capacity, coupled with a claimed 40% reduction in power consumption compared with the a7R II, results in a CIPA rated 650 shots per charge. In real-world shooting, though, we were able to shoot 2000+ images over the course of a day with some charge to spare.
The new 'Z' series battery for the Sony a9 comes with 2.2 times the capacity of the older 'W' models that power the a7-series cameras.
On the opposite side of the new dual card slots, we can see the full array of the a9's ports. Unsurprisingly for a serious sports camera, there's an Ethernet jack for instant FTP uploading during an event, and somewhat surprisingly given the a9's sensor is 'only' 24MP, there's a flash sync port that usually resides on more studio-oriented cameras. There are standard headphone, microphone and mini-HDMI jacks, and though you can still charge over USB, the a9 only offers USB 2.0 for image and data transfer, unlike the Nikon D5 and Canon EOS-1D X II.
The grip has been revised but not dramatically, so you'll want to be sure to pick up a battery grip or Sony's small (and pricey) grip extender for better comfort with larger lenses. The screen is new, with a move to 1.44M dots or 800 x 600 resolution. That puts it well behind the retina-esque 2.4M-dot screen of the Nikon D5, meaning images don't look as crisp on the back of the camera as with the D5. The LCD is also touch-enabled, though it's essentially identical in terms of functionality (and quirkiness) to the unit on the a6500, which we just weren't impressed with. It's also disabled by default - probably not a coincidence.
Sony is claiming some degree of dust and moisture resistance on the a9, but obviously warns the camera isn't really 'waterproof.' And while we can't torture-test our cameras to really find the extent of the sealing, one glance at the port, battery and card slot doors shows a lack of rubber gaskets, whereas they're in abundance on Nikon's D5 and Canon's EOS-1D X II. Although it doesn't look any different on the outside, the new viewfinder on the a9 is a marked improvement over previous Sony cameras. It offers greater resolution (3.7 million dots as opposed to 2.4 million) and a higher framerate of 120 fps (this drops to 60 fps during continuous shooting, but with 20 fps bursts and no blackout, it's still darn impressive). The EVF offers extensive contrast since it's OLED.
Menus, customization and operation
The Sony a9 is generally more 'snappy' to use than any a7-series camera. Everything is a tad more responsive, boot-up time is claimed to be 30% faster, and you can enter playback while the camera is writing to the card (the a7R II just gives you an unnecessarily cryptic error message when you try to do this). There's still some hints of lag when you change shooting settings, especially compared to the instantaneous feedback DSLRs offer, but the a9 is nonetheless improved over other Sony cameras in this respect.
Seeing this on the Sony a9 made us do a happy dance.
The menus have gotten a particularly effective refresh, with better titling, organization, colored tabs and (finally) a customizable 'My Menu' that you can populate with items of your choosing. When you go to assign your customizable buttons, you'll be greeted with better organized options there, too. The Memory Recall modes (1, 2 and 3 on the mode dial) are now eminently more usable because Sony has increased the number of settings each mode can hold (see the full list here). We found it particularly useful to have one setup for shooting stills, one for 4K video and another for slow-motion 1080p video. That said, we're still waiting for true 'custom modes' that remember all camera settings, including button customizations. The a9 inherits the same instant overrides top-end DSLRs provide: with 'Registered Custom Hold' assigned to various custom buttons, you can press just one button to instantly override camera settings like shoot mode (P/A/S/M), exposure parameters, metering modes, or AF modes and functionality. This could save your shot by, for example, instantly activating the correct AF mode.
Shooting Experience
By Carey Rose, originally published April 23, 2017
Sony's looking to storm the sports photography market with its new a9 mirrorless camera.
When I started shooting sports for college publications, I was stuck working with 3 fps. Then I graduated to a new camera offering 5 fps, and gravitated towards weddings and events. Now that I've been with DPReview for a year and a half, I've gotten used to 12, 14, 18 and 24 frames per second for shooting just about everything.
To be blunt, past a certain threshold, burst shooting speeds don't net me appreciably more keepers in my usual style of photography. But that won't be the case with everyone, and honestly, it doesn't hinder my enthusiasm with regards to the new Sony a9, even though that's one of its headline features. Even setting burst speeds aside, this camera is among the best I've ever used. Here's why.
Background
During my time at DPReview, Sony's always left me feeling a littleconflicted.
On one hand, the technology and features crammed into the company's cameras are always impressive; during my interview for this job, our own Rishi Sanyal showed me Eye AF on an a7R II, and I accidentally blurted out an expletive as my jaw dropped – it was something I'd never seen before. On the other hand, I've consistently found the usability of Sony's cameras to be a primary concern for me. The interface and general operation were laggy enough to be irksome, I got lost in the menus all the time (movie options should never be nonsensically shuffled among stills options), and there were times that I felt I was fighting the camera to get it to just do what I wanted.
Sony's RX100 V is an incredibly capable pocket camera, but the series hasn't seen any ergonomic or UI improvements in two generations. Photo by Samuel Spencer
The list of qualms I have with the a7-series in particular is full of items that, on their own, are quite insignificant; but as the list grows, they all combine to make for cameras that I almost never choose for personal work or play. But the sheer volume of improvements and refinements in the a9 are having me singing a different tune.
So, what exactly has changed with the a9?
Despite similarities to the a7-series at first glance, a lot.
The buttons and dials all come with better haptic feedback1. The AF joystick replaces an eternity of clicks when moving the AF point. When you flip the screen out, the eye sensor is disabled, which resulted in fewer missed shots when working at odd angles. Boot-up time is shorter. Battery life is way better. The interface is more responsive. I don't get lost in the menus at all anymore. All of these changes add up to a camera that is more transparent, in the sense that it just 'gets out of the way' more than any previous Sony camera I've used, and lets me get on with taking pictures.
The controls, the feel and the operation of the new a9 have all been improved relative to Sony's a7-series of full frame mirrorless cameras.
Even if you don't use the full 20 fps (electronic shutter) burst speed, shooting anything you could want without any intrusive shutter noise (important for delicate moments during, say a wedding reception) without any blackout whatsoever is a revelation. Sure, the RX100 V and Olympus E-M1 II both also offer fully electronic shutters and silent operation, but neither has a full-frame image sensor, neither can show you a live view during bursts (only slideshows of images being taken), and the a9 suppresses rolling shutter so ably that it's one more thing that I almost never have to worry about.
I had a big hand in the reviews of Nikon's D5 and Canon's EOS-1D X Mark II, and while the optical viewfinder blackout on both of those cameras is incredibly short, I have to stress that the Sony a9 goes one step further in that it shows no blackout whatsoever. None. This camera makes it easier than ever to simply follow the action, and catch exactly the moment you want.
An additional plus - this camera has taken the crown for the best mirrorless autofocus system I've ever used - though it still needs a little bit of work to take the crown of best autofocus system I've used, period. At launch, we were given the opportunity to photograph hockey, figure skating and a full-on track meet, and the a9 rarely let me down, but during some extended time with our review unit, I found a few quirks. You can check them out later on in the review.
What's the catch?
Okay, there's a few catches here.
First of all, do you need 20 fps? I don't. There are, of course, those that will. But that feature, that incredibly fast readout speed of that new 24MP sensor, is something you're paying for if you shell out $4,500 for this new camera, even if you're only interested in the other (not insignificant) improvements outlined above.
I shot over 2,800 images during our shooting experience with Sony in New York at the launch of the camera. That caused me worries about card space (even with a 128GB card), cost me hard drive space, and cost me time during downloading and editing. I'm no pro sports shooter, so take this with a grain of salt, but I'm having a hard time convincing myself that I got an appreciably greater number of keepers because of the a9's burst rate than I would have with a slower-shooting camera. Heck, I even switched to 10 fps halfway through to save card space, and I still came away with images I was pleased with. And it's worth noting that the absence of any blackout whatsoever is still incredibly awesome, even at 10 fps.
This image is from the first occasion where I really soaked a camera in the name of a shoot; photographing the King County Search and Rescue team during a training exercise as part of my job for Puget Sound Energy. That D800 and 24-70mm F2.8 are still in good working order, though the rubber zoom ring on the lens had started to come a little loose. ISO 1600 | F4 | 1/100 sec Photo copyright Puget Sound Energy, image via Flickr
Also, Sony's made claims that the a9 is weather resistant, but after handling the camera and flipping out the port doors, battery door and memory card doors, I just don't have the same faith that it would survive a downpour that a D5, 1D X II or E-M1 II could shrug off. That said, this isn't necessarily a common requirement, but it's something to keep in mind. Were I to take a personal a9 into a rainstorm, I'd gaff tape the heck out of it.
And lastly, where are the XQD card slots? Yes, the a9 has an amazing buffer that I never once hit, but that buffer takes a good amount of time to clear depending on your settings - check out our Performance page for the details. Incorporating XQD cards would also have meant my download times would be appreciably reduced at the end of the day too, plus they're simply more durable for demanding situations. After having used them extensively on Nikon's D500 and D5, I'm sold: for sports cameras, faster media is the way to go.
The wrap
Looking forward - does the a9 have what it takes to steal the hearts of sports shooters around the globe? Only time will tell. Okay, time, durability and quality of professional service and support.
Professional sports and action photographers have demanding jobs, and it goes without saying that learning a new camera system is not usually something they're looking to add to their workload. But the a9 might just be worth it.
Sony says it's rolling out more robust professional support, with one-day turnaround for loaner units when a camera needs repair, and walk-in service centers in New York and Los Angeles (with more coming soon), and better support throughout Canada. That's promising, for sure, but in a chicken-and-egg dilemma, do you want to be among the first to adopt the Sony system and test the validity of those claims for yourself, or wait to see what other professionals who switch have to say?
For a professional wedding and event photographer who isn't spending hours in inclement weather, I'd say the Sony a9 is worth a look if you're used to Dx-series cameras from Nikon, and 1D-series models from Canon. With the a9, you'll save a ton of weight, have a higher frame rate (again, only relevant if you need it), and likely have an easier time following the action than with even the best DSLRs.
But it must be said, the cost of switching systems isn't something to be sneezed at – it's something we've already covered, and will continue to be a barrier to adoption of Sony's new action flagship. 1The extra haptic feedback allows you to dial in your settings confidently, without always having to confirm that you did indeed press that button, or turn that dial 3 clicks to adjust the shutter speed exactly one stop. The AF-ON and AEL buttons on the back, unfortunately, still need more 'clickiness' and need to be more prominent to easily find with your thumb.
Image quality impressions
Out-of-camera JPEG, cropped to taste. Sony FE 70-200mm F2.8 GM | ISO 2500 | 1/1000 sec | F2.8 Photo by Carey Rose
When we got back from Sony's press event in New York, we didn't yet have Raw support for the a9. In the meantime, though, we had literally thousands of out-of-camera JPEGs that we can use to make some preliminary image quality assessments - for the full picture, hop over to our studio scene analysis.
No real surprises; the files from the Sony a9 look to be, on the whole, very good, as is the autofocus performance, even when shooting at the full 20 fps burst speed. Note though that continuous e-shutter shooting (anything above 5 fps) does drop the camera into 12-bit mode. Further details regarding how this will impact your images are on our Raw Dynamic Range page.
Real-world, high ISO shooting
Sony's claimed to have done some tweaking to their noise reduction algorithm, to better retain detail at higher ISO values while still keeping noise in check. That's a good thing, as the a9 is likely to be shot quite often at very high shutter speeds, and therefore, higher ISO values.
Slightly processed out-of-camera JPEG. Sony FE 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 GM OSS | ISO 12800 | 1/1000 sec | F5.6 Photo by Rishi Sanyal
The above image is a good example of how effective the a9's noise reduction is. Because of the relatively slow maximum aperture of Sony's new FE 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 G Master lens, and because this runner was moving very quickly and we had been sticking to 1/1000 sec shutter speed to attempt to freeze motion, the ISO quickly crept into five-digit territory. Despite this, noise is well controlled overall, the colors are vibrant and the amount of detail present is impressive.
Click-through to the full image to see the camera leaving plenty of detail in the runner's forehead skin, her jersey (both in the saturated blue and red regions) and even the low contrast blonde hair on her arms. It's a reaffirmation of what we've been saying for some time: Sony's detail retention in high ISO JPEGs is second to none (quantitative tests using ISO standards verify this). We just wish out-of-camera colors were more pleasing (we had to add a good deal of magenta to this image to avoid greenish skin tones).
The great mid-to-high ISO performance is also a Godsend if you forget to change your shutter speed while taking advantage of a portrait session between events. Oops.
Out-of-camera JPEG at way too high of a shutter speed given the subject. Sony FE 70-200mm F2.8 GM | ISO 1250 | 1/1000 sec | F2.8 Photo by Carey Rose
Metering is also generally reliable. For shooting hockey and ice skating, we dialed in +0.7 to +1 stop of exposure compensation, set the camera's shutter speed and aperture manually and kept the ISO on auto. For shooting track and field later on in the day, we were usually able to leave exposure compensation alone. The auto white balance was occasionally troublesome at the ice rink, giving the scene a bit more of a greenish cast than we would have liked, but quickly dialing in a custom white balance would have solved that easily.
For those often using spot-metering: you can specify whether or not spot metering is linked to the AF point, or to the central region only. In fact, there are many new metering modes, including a highlight weighted one (a la Nikon) that tends to preserve highlights, along with up to 1/6 EV customizations per metering mode. We only wish Sony provided histograms based off of the Raw file, not the JPEG, but alas - we're beginning to think this is a pipe dream to expect from any manufacturer (save for Phase One).
Let's not forget sharpening: it's great. Sony's sharpening preserves small details and even emphasizes them, without overshoot (halos) typical of large radius over-sharpening from certain competitors. So all-in-all: the JPEGs are very good (just don't expect Fujifilm color), which is great news for press photographers and action shooters on a deadline.
The white balance in this image isn't terrible, but I'm looking forward to Raw support so I can do some more tweaking. Out-of-camera JPEG. Sony FE 70-200mm F2.8 GM | ISO 1250 | 1/1000 sec | F2.8 Photo by Carey Rose
Now that we've seen how the a9 does with some real world subjects, we'll be taking it into the studio and putting it in front of our standard studio test scene.
Image Quality
Our latest test scene simulates both daylight and low light shooting. Pressing the 'lighting' buttons at the top of the widget switches between the two. The daylight scene is manually white balanced to give neutral grays, but the camera is left in its Auto setting for the low-light tests. Raw files are manually corrected. We offer three different viewing sizes: 'Full', 'Print', and 'Comp', with the latter two offering 'normalized' comparisons by using matched viewing sizes. The 'Comp' option chooses the largest-available resolution common to the cameras being compared.
Although at first glance the a9 appears slightly softer than the Nikon D5, part of this may be due to its slightly higher resolution and the D5's known-to-be-weak AA filter (not to mention: the different lenses). Detail levels are quite similar to the Canon EOS-1D X II, with similar levels of color aliasing. The smallest lines of text in particular look very similar among the three. The currency shows similar output between the a9 and D5, and the playing cards show similar levels of color aliasing - suggesting parity in detail capture. When light levels drop, the Sony shows very similar noise performance to the class-leading D5 and pulls very slightly ahead of the 1D X II. At the very highest ISO values, the Nikon pulls ahead of the Sony, but these settings are all generally so noisy, it's a difference you're only likely to appreciate side-by-side.
Compared with the Sony a7R II, you can see that the a7R II is slightly sharper as well as being much more detailed than the a9. The a9's magnified live view doesn't help achieve perfect focus (its lower resolution output makes it harder to achieve focus), and no number of attempts yielded results as good as the a7R II at the pixel level. Part of this may be due to the different lenses, but the results suggest the a9 has an anti-aliasing filter (which the a7R II lacks), which makes sense for the pro market it's targeted at. At higher ISOs, the 42MP camera shows comparable noise but still more detail when viewed at equivalent size - impressive given its high resolution.
JPEG output
When it comes to JPEGs, we can see that the a9 still has blue-shifted greens and yellows not as deep or saturated as a Nikon D5. Reds and yellows are also slightly less rich than the 1D X II, which is one of our current favorites for JPEG color rendition. Colors are generally more more muted in comparison, with the interesting exception of the bright blue patch. This is also apparent at high ISO values, where the Sony also shows additional color bleed along edges compared to the D5. There does appear to be some color evolution though: yellows look a bit better than the a7R II, particularly at high ISO, and in real-world shooting we've found more magenta and less greenish tinge to images - a good thing in our opinion.
At base ISO, clever sharpening means the text sharpens up nicely compared to the Raw, without any strange artifacts, and actually appears to show more detail than the D5 in most areas. The a9 produces a very sharp image without the downsides of oversharpening, with no visible noise or 'haloing' around edges (something the D5's large-radius sharpening produces). Sony handily beats Canon in retaining fine detail (despite starting with similar detail in the Raw file), while avoiding halos. It's safe to say Sony's sharpening is the most sophisticated we've seen.
It's safe to say Sony's sharpening is the most sophisticated we've seen.
As the ISO values climb, both the a9 and D5 leave behind some luminance grain while all chroma noise is removed (this is also similar to the a7R II's behavior, though the a9 looks cleaner). While the Canon 1D X II appears to be performing similarly in this region of few features, its noise reduction is not as intelligent or context-sensitive: obliterating low contrast detail. At ISO 12800, the a9's noise reduction removes some small details in the dead leaves pattern the D5 leaves behind, but again does a much better job than the Canon. Overall, the Sony has one of the best noise reduction engines we've seen, essentially trading punches in detail retention with the D5, which we also consider to be excellent at high ISO. Which you prefer will be a matter of taste: the a9 leaves a bit more detail behind, while the D5 yields a slightly cleaner image. Canon unfortunately leaves noise behind while sacrificing low contrast detail - a sort of worst-of-all-worlds approach.
Note on banding
Early on, Diglloyd reported banding in blue skies in black and white conversions that relied heavily on the red channel. We've looked into this and while the banding does appear in the raw red channel when it's heavily underexposed (blue skies), its pattern follows that of the masked phase-detection AF rows of the sensor - where the blue pixels are masked and then binned for readout (there are 336 total masked rows).*
We took this image (you can download the Raw yourself if you click-through) from our Sony 12-24G gallery and converted it using ACR with and without noise reduction. The red channel of the latter clearly shows a banding pattern to it and, interestingly, if you hover back and forth over the 100% 'No AF overlay' and 'AF overlay' crops below, you'll see the pattern matches that of the phase detection rows (indicated as black lines across the image). We're not sure how masked blue pixels end up yielding these bands in the redchannel (they're in the red channel of the Raw file before demosaicing), but the artifacts are certainly present. Click on the large image for full-size to see the artifacts clearly.
ACR - Zero NR
ACR - defaults
No AF overlay
AF overlay
While this may not show up in typical shooting, it can affect certain black and white conversions of deep blue skies. Phase detection rows using masked pixels can also cause stripes across your images when you're shooting wide open directly into the sun or, more generally speaking, when you have a lot of flare in your shot like this one. This is not an issue unique to the a9; we've witnessed it in almost mirrorless camera with masked PDAF pixels, such as in this Fujifilm X-T2 shot (where it shows up as weave pattern due to the X-Trans pattern) or this RX100 V shot.** * Our friends Bill Claff, Jim Kasson, and forum member Horshack are to be credited with much of these findings, and for the detection of phase-detection rows. **Bill Claff detected all phase-detection rows on the RX100 V sensor and generated an overlay that lined up perfectly with the stripes in this shot, implicating the masked pixels.
Exposure Latitude
In this test we look to see how tolerant of pushing exposure the a9's Raw files are. We've done this by exposing our scene with increasingly lower exposures, then pushed them back to the correct brightness using Adobe Camera Raw. Examining what happens in the shadows allows you to assess the exposure latitude (essentially the dynamic range) of the Raw files.
Because the changes in this test noise are primarily caused by shot noise and this is mainly determined by the amount of light the camera has had access to, the results are only directly comparable between cameras of the same sensor size. However, this will also be the case in real-world shooting if you're limited by what shutter speed you can keep steady, so this test gives you an idea of the amount of processing latitude different formats give.
Compared to its peers, the a9 fares better than the Nikon D5, but falls slightly behind the Canon 1D X II and more so compared to the a7R II. There's an odd, almost horizontal pattern to the noise in the deepest shadows, while in other, brighter areas of our scenethis is less evident. In fact, in these areas, the a9 and 1D X II appear neck-to-neck, which Bill Claff corroborates in quantitative studies.
At smaller +1EV pushes, there's barely a difference between the cameras, but by +2EV you begin to notice a tiny bit of noise creeping into all cameras save for the a7R II. Progressively higher pushes of 4EV, 5EV, and 6EV really start to separate the cameras from one another, with the a7R II well ahead of the pack, with the D5 performing the worst.
The a9 still provides quite usable images at up to +3EV pushes, but +4EV or higher pushes from base ISO reveal a sort of patterned noise in shadows that may prove unacceptable to demanding users. Notably, this is an issue for all the high-end sports cameras presented here, likely due to constraints placed on sensors read out at high speeds. Our tests indicate the 1D X II fares the best amongst the current high-end sports cameras due its lack of patterned noise in the shadows. The (non-sports) a7R II, optimized for image quality, provides usable images even after a +6EV push at base ISO (at equivalent viewing size).
ISO Invariance
A camera with a very low noise floor is able to capture a large amount of dynamic range, since it adds very little noise to the detail captured in the shadow regions of the image. This has an interesting implication: it minimizes the need to amplify the sensor's signal in order to keep it above that noise floor (which is what ISO amplification conventionally does). This provides an alternate way of working in situations that would traditionally demand higher ISO settings.
Here we've done something that may seem counter-intuitive: we've used the same aperture and shutter speed at different ISO settings to see how much difference there is between shooting at a particular ISO setting (and using hardware amplification) vs. digitally correcting the brightness, later. This has the advantage that all the shots should exhibit the same shot noise and any differences must have been contributed by the camera's circuitry.
It's immediately obvious the a9 is not ISO-invariant (what is 'ISO-invariance'?). This means the camera is adding a fair amount of read noise that results in noisy shadows, limiting dynamic range at base ISO. That's why, for the same focal plane exposure, performing analog amplification by increasing ISO in-camera gets you a cleaner image than performing that amplification (or brightening) in post-processing.
It's not the typical performance we've come to expect from Sony cameras, but it's similar to most sports oriented cameras (save for the a99 II). Compared to its peers the 1D X II fares a bit better, the D5 somewhat worse. Meanwhile, the a7R II pulls well ahead of the pack. The a9's advantage over the D5 drops away at a push less than ISO 400 + 4EV, and with as little as ISO 800 +3EV all the speed demons are performing similarly. Shooting natively at ISO 6400, all cameras even out in performance.
Ultimately, like its sporting peers, the a9 sensor is optimized for speed and the high readout speeds of its sensor leads to higher read noise levels. This limits low ISO dynamic range by adding noise to the lowest signals the sensor captures.
Effect of Drive mode
There is little to no difference in base ISO dynamic range in different drive modes. So the good news is that the drop to 12-bit in continuous drive comes at no cost. The not-so-good news? 14-bit Raws aren't any better than the 12-bit ones, they're just bigger. Click here to load the above as an interactive widget.
As we published earlier, it's interesting to note that there's no visual change in shadow noise levels as you switch drive modes: single mechanical to continuous electronic all look the same. This is particularly interesting because all Single drive modes, including fully electronic, support full 14-bit Raw. The Continuous drive modes, however, switch the image pipeline into a 12-bit* mode which, by definition, means files with no more than ~12 stops of dynamic range.
This indicates that even the 14-bit Raws have at most ~12 EV of dynamic range at the pixel level, placing base ISO dynamic range nearly a full stop behind the a7R II at similar (normalized) viewing size. Indeed, this is what Bill Claff found when we sent him a9 files for analysis, with little to no difference in dynamic range across drive modes.
Notably, the a7R II's 14-bit Raws have significantly less noise compared to its 12-bit Raws. Given the striking similarity between 14-bit and 12-bit Raws from the a9, we wonder if the analog-to-digital converter (ADC) is always being run in 12-bit mode regardless of drive mode. If the ADC truly is being driven in 14-bit mode, there are enough other sources of read noise to make sampling at anything above 12 bits unnecessary, according to our (and Bill's) results.
'Dual Gain' helps improve high ISO dynamic range
In our ISO-invariance widget above, you may have noticed that noise dramatically increases as you go from ISO 800 to ISO 400 (how's that for sounding completely back-to-front?). Below you'll see this more clearly as we 'zoom in' to this ISO range: shadow noise dramatically clears up as you go from an ISO 500 image (with 3.7 EV push) to an ISO 640 image (with 3.3 EV push):
Things clean up at ISO 640 (as with the a7R II) because of the sensor's 'dual gain' architecture, where the camera increases the conversion gain (effectively in-pixel amplification) during readout, helping overcome the camera's relatively high (for a Sony design) read noise.
Above ISO 640, the camera is fairly ISO-invariant, since it's overcome most of its downstream read noise, but there's still some benefit to increasing ISO to keep noise levels low if your scene demands it. Below ISO 640, the lower conversion gain means that you'll start to see more (read) noise if you push shadows as opposed to having them pushed in-camera by increasing ISO gain.
Take home
The good news is that those worried about the camera dropping to 12-bit readout in continuous shooting needn't worry: there's no decrease in quality, since a 12 bit file can contain all its dynamic range.** The not-so-good news is that this is because the a9 doesn't appear to have more around 12 EV pixel-level dynamic range to begin with, putting its normalized base ISO dynamic range at least a stop behind that of the a7R II.
A more relevant comparison might be to the a9's direct peers: it performs neck-and-neck with the Canon 1D X II (and perhaps a bit better at ISOs above 640 thanks to its dual-gain design), and a full stop better than the Nikon D5 at base ISO. Note though that extremely pushed shadows from the a9 exhibit a visually-distracting horizontal pattern in dark tones that the other cameras compared here don't.
By high ISO, general image quality catches up across all cameras, as downstream read noise becomes less important and the a9's dual gain architecture gives its performance a boost.
Ultimately, the a9's lower ISO dynamic range limits the exposure latitude of its Raws, so you'll have some limited ability to expose high contrast scenes for the highlights, then tonemap*** (raise) shadows in post. For most sports photographers this won't matter much, but those shooting high contrast scenes may require workarounds other cameras - such as the a7R II - don't. Footnotes: * We confirmed that continuous modes were 12-bit, while single shot modes were 14-bit, by comparing histograms of respective Raw files. The 14-bit single drive files have 14-bits of data compared to the 12-bit files (the histogram shows Raw values 1, 2, and 3 are vacant while the 14-bit files do have pixels with these values). ** Interestingly, this means there's little advantage to those large (47MB) uncompressed 14-bit Raw files, save for the lack of compression artifacts. In a perfect world, Sony would have offered a 12-bit Raw mode with an effectively lossless compression curve (without that second stage of localized compression that leads to edge artifacts) for smaller file sizes with no visual loss in quality. *** There's a very specific reason I like to use the word 'tonemap' instead of 'raise the shadows'. We're forced to raise shadows of high contrast Raw files exposed for the highlights today because of the limited brightness of most current displays. Future displays capable of far higher brightnesses (perhaps even ten-fold) will need less shadow pushing, or tone-mapping, to make visible what you currently see as 'shadows' in such traditionally underexposed Raw files. For example, shadows you currently push +4 EV will likely be visible without any pushing at all on a 4,000 nit-capable display.
Performance
Performance is what the Sony a9 is really all about. Compared to an a7R II, Sony's claiming the a9 sensor readout is 6 times faster than an a7R II with its backside illuminated architecture, and 20 times faster than the a7 II which uses a more conventional front-side illuminated sensor.
When shooting 4K video, Sony says the a9 uses 40% less power consumption than the a7R II, even though it is oversampling from a 6K readout of the sensor. Startup times are 30% faster, and the camera feels generally snappier to use than previous Sony full-frame models.
One aspect of the a9 that may leave users scratching their heads concerns the use of SD cards, with only one UHS-II compatible slot. Sure, XQD cards are physically larger, but they're incredibly fast - you'll never have to wait for a Nikon D5 or D500 to finish writing when you're done shooting. Thankfully, you can enter playback while images are being written and see how many are left to go, but you can't enter the menus to change any settings there.
In terms of burst shooting, one of the headline features of the a9 is that it shoots at 20fps with full autofocus and autoexposure - unless you're shooting uncompressed Raw, which results in the camera dropping to 12fps. So you'll have to put up with Sony's localized compression that can lead to artifacts if you want 20 fps (we'd like to see a lossless compressed Raw mode that still allows the camera to hit 20 fps). Now let's say, somehow, you hit the huge buffer on the a9. Here's how long you'll need to wait before you can go into the menus and change things; take particular note of the effect processing the JPEGs can have.
Quality
Number of images captured
Buffer clear time
Uncompressed Raw (12fps)
132
0:32
Uncompressed Raw + JPEG (12fps)
124
0:39
Compressed Raw
245
0:38
Compressed Raw + JPEG
236
0:55
JPEG - Xtra Fine
368
2:05
JPEG - Fine
365
1:05
If you are a photographer that utilizes speedlights for burst shooting at events, for example, be aware that the Sony a9 is not capable of syncing up with an external flash for its electronic shutter; this limits you to 5fps with the mechanical shutter. Sony's flash ecosystem also precludes the possibility of using a red/IR assist beam on an external flash to aid with autofocus, a shortcoming not present on Canon and Nikon systems (the a9 can activate annoying LED assist lamps on some flashes though). We'd like to see Sony engineer a solution for fast AF in low light using perhaps a blue (since the masked phase-detect pixels are blue), non-distracting grid pattern projected by a flash or radio trigger - this is often important for event shoots.
Lastly, you happen to turn the camera off while it's writing to the card, the camera will power down, though the card write light will stay illuminated until it's done - and if you power it back on, the camera will boot up and function as normal. Some other fast-shooting cameras, such as the Leica SL, don't let you do this, requiring you to wait until the camera has finished writing and then reboot if you hit the power switch before a burst is done recording.
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