![\"Sony](\"http:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/a9_front.jpg\")
<\/a>Construction and Handling<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The Sony A9 is based largely on the excellent body design of the A7 II series of cameras, with a magnesium alloy body that is sealed against dust and moisture. They’ve made several key changes, with a more robust and slightly larger body, with a notably deeper hand grip. The camera also has better weather sealing, with improved door latches and better gasketing around openings. The result is a camera that feels extremely well constructed. There is no flex anywhere in the camera body and it feels extremely solid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The redesigned grip will be a welcome change for a lot of shooters, though I still feel the grip on the A7 II and A7R II is quite nice. The A9’s grip is deeper and more secure, and feels excellent in the hand. In addition to providing better overall handling, the larger grip also makes room for the new NP-FZ100 battery, which more than doubles the capacity of the venerable NP-FW50 battery used in the A7 bodies. These small changes add up to a better experience, and it’s something that may make its way into future A7 bodies for the Mark III series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sony has moved a few of the controls on the A9, and it makes for a slightly improved ergonomic experience. The biggest improvement is the addition of the focus joystick, which falls naturally under your thumb. The front and rear command dials also are a bit larger and easier to access than they are on the A7 II series of cameras, and feel more natural to operate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The A9’s control scheme is very similar to that of the A7 II and A7R II that came before it, and so should largely be familiar for shooters of those cameras. There are some key differences, however, with the addition of several new dedicated controls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The top right of the camera is largely identical to the A7 II series, with the shutter button, mode dial, front and rear command dials and two programmable function buttons. Looking at the rear of the camera, the first major new control is readily apparent: the focus joystick. This is a multidirectional control that allows you to quickly and easily move the focus point without having to press multiple buttons. It’s fast, intuitive and an excellent addition to the camera. Just like with the focus stick on the more recent Fujifilm cameras, the focus joystick on the A9 is a joy to use, and really helps speed up operation during shooting. The joystick can also be pressed to center the focus point or perform other, programmable actions. The joystick sits in the former location of the two-way switch on the A7 II series, but I’d much rather have this control than that one, especially with the other dedicated controls and programmable buttons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The rear dial and four-way controller still sits in its regular spot, allowing for quick access to display settings and ISO. The movie record button has moved from the side of the rear grip to a new location. The top shelf on the rear, where the C3 button sits on the A7 series cameras is now home to two buttons for back button AF control and autoexposure lock, while the C3 button has moved to the left side of the camera, next to the menu button. I’m a big fan of the control layout on the A9, and the new button locations and focus stick make for a powerful interface….but it doesn’t stop there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another major addition to the control interface sits on the top left of the camera. In a space that was formerly blank now sits a dedicated drive dial, with a focus mode dial placed directly below it. These are lockable controls, so you don’t need to worry about accidental settings changes, but provide quick and easy access to drive mode and focus mode and can be changed even when the camera is off. I love this direct controls like this that have been present on Fuji cameras for a while, so it’s nice to see additional dials added to the Sony lineup. I hope the drive dial and rear stick make it to the A7 III cameras, as they definitely improve the control scheme on the A9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The menu system on the A9 has been given a bit of an overhaul when compared to previous E-mount cameras, with some new organization. This system debuted on the a6500 and those improvements have now made it to the full frame lineup. Things are a bit better organized here, but honestly, it’s similar in setup and I didn’t notice a particularly big difference in day-to-day operation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The best thing about the new menu system is the ‘My Menu’ section, which allows you to select commonly changed settings and collect them into a single tab for faster access. I use this quite a bit on my Fuji X-T20, and it’s nice to have the feature in the Sony lineup as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The A9 features essentially the same insanely large viewfinder that first debuted on the A7R II, but Sony has upped the resolution in the A9 for a clearer image. The panel is a 3.7 million dot finder with a huge 0.78x magnification, which provides an expansive view of the screen. The viewfinder has very quick refresh and is right up there with the very best EVFs on the market. In my time with the camera, however, the EVF was a joy to use, providing a crisp, clear and large image with which to compose my shot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the biggest advancements with the A9, in conjunction with its high-speed electronic shutter, is that when using electronic shutter, there is no blackout of the viewfinder during exposure. This is the case even when shooting at the top burst rate of 20 frames per second. This makes following action incredibly easy. You get the through the lens look of DSLR and Mirrorless cameras, with the constant view of a rangefinder. It’s a wonderful innovation and improves immersion when shooting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The A9 also gains a new rear screen, with a 1.4 million dot 3″ tilting screen that is also touch sensitive. Focus points can be changed using the touch panel, or you can scroll through photos like you can on any smartphone. I do like having a touchscreen, though with the focus joystick, it’s not quite as essential as it once was. The screen is crisp and clear with fairly good viewing angles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The A9 is the first E mount camera to feature dual SD card slots, with the first slot allowing for ultra-fast speeds with SDXC II. The dual slots allow you to choose how they’ll be used: as overflow when the first card fills, with each card storing the same data for redundancy, or with one card storing RAW files while the other stores JPEG files. Whenever I use a camera with dual card slots, I choose this third option. The door for the card slots is considerably more robust than the door that is on the A7 II series of cameras, with a latching mechanism that maintains good weather sealing and prevents accidental opening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The highlight of the A9 is, without a doubt, the new autofocus system. The new AF system features a whopping 693 focus points that cover 93 percent of the frame. The phase detect AF can do full subject tracking, even at the top burst rate of 20 frames per second. If that sounds impressive, that’s because it is. Tracking at high burst rates is a challenge for any camera, and the fact that it does so at 20 frames per second is remarkable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Autofocus is fast and exceedingly accurate. It also can utilize face detection in conjunction with the phase detection, such that it can track faces and eyes anywhere in the frame, even with high-speed changes. Using face detect AF while my kids were running directly at me with the 70-200mm f\/2.8 GM yielded around 90% accuracy dead on the eyes at 20 frames per second. This is simply remarkable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While other mirrorless cameras have good continuous autofocus nowadays, such as the Sony A7R II, a6000 and a6500, the Fuji X-T2, T20 and Pro 2, and the latest Olympus and Panasonic bodies, the A9 is on different level, in my opinion, and really raises the bar for mirroless autofocus capabilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the biggest changes to the sensor architecture of the A9 is the new stacked sensor design, which allows for significantly faster readout. This enables a much faster electronic shutter than the majority of digital sensors, and can reliably stop motion for all but the fastest action. I used the A9 to shoot golf , which definitely stresses such a system due to the speed of the clubhead during the swing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I found that, with the exception of some slight effect of rolling shutter when a club was at the very bottom of the downswing, that the A9 was able to crisply capture golf swings. Due to the silent shutter, it also allowed for shooting at any time during a golfer’s swing, instead of only being able to shoot after contact with the ball when using a mechanical shutter. I go into greater depth in this article I wrote this summer<\/a>, if you want to see more detailed discussion. In short, I found the electronic shutter to be an excellent feature on this camera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As I mentioned earlier, the A9 is capable of shooting at a blazing 20 frames per second, with full resolution and with RAW capture. The camera also has an enormous buffer, allowing for the capture of well over 200 shots in RAW format before slowing down, allowing for a full 10 second burst at full resolution. On the down side, the huge buffer means a tremendous amount of data to clear, so clearing times to the card can take a while. However, given how big the buffer is, provided you shoot in the normal 1-2 second burst range, you’d almost never run up against the buffer limit. Shooting JPEG increases the buffer to well over 300 frames. Needless to say, it’s a camera that is ready for shooting action at any time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the things that is definitely worth mentioning on the A9 is the new larger battery and overall battery life. As a whole, I found the battery life on the A9 to be excellent. It still probably won’t last as long as many DSLRs, but I had no issues shooting for an entire day on a charge, even when rattling off frame after frame. Even shooting golf at high-speed, rattling off around 1,400 frames in a day, dropped the battery only around 35%. More measured shooting won’t yield quite such efficiency, but it’s easily enough for a full event shoot, even one of many hours long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Normally, I dedicate an entire page to image quality, but I’m not going to on this for two main reasons. First, the camera is frankly quite similar in image quality to the A7 II, and second, I did not get a chance to test the camera in the normal wide variety of lighting conditions that I regularly do in my camera reviews.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So let’s discuss that first point. The A9 has a new stacked sensor, with the same 24 Megapixel resolution as the A7 II. As you’d imagine, resolving power and detail are extremely similar to the A7 II. However, it also performs very similarly to the A7 II with regards to color response and dynamic range. This is generally fine, as the A7 II already has a very good sensor, but it’s also interesting that Sony hasn’t really broken any new ground in this department with the A9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One are where the A9 does improve on the A7 II is in high ISO shooting, but the differences are fairly subtle. The A9 is around a half stop cleaner at higher sensitivities than the A7 II, yielding very clean shots to ISO 800, shots with low to medium noise from ISO 1600 through 3200, and still reasonably usable shots at ISO 6400 and 12,800. While 25,600 and higher can be used in emergency situations for smaller prints or online use with proper noise reduction, I’d generally avoid those sensitivities unless absolutely necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The A9 is a unique camera in the mirrorless space. While it’s certainly a full featured, well constructed camera that can be very useful for a wide variety of shooting, there are more affordable options that do most everything the A9 does. However, for sports or event shooting, the A9 is the best there is in the mirrorless world, and the first mirrorless camera I’ve tested that truly has world-class autofocus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The camera has blazing fast and extremely accurate autofocus, is super responsive and has a crazy fast 20 frame per second burst rate that is also completely silent. It allows for shots that really weren’t possible before now with its combination of speed and silence. The $4,500 is very steep, but professionals who need exceptional AF and great responsiveness should be well pleased with the A9. For those with more deliberate photography needs, the A7R II or A7 II would be more appropriate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Click on an image to enlarge.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I’m finally getting around to writing my review of the Sony A9. This is going to be a little different from my normal reviews, and is not going to be quite as in-depth as I typically like, as I didn’t get to shoot with it quite as extensively as I often get to with cameras. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7226,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/a9_front.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p28RGq-1Sw","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7224"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12614,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7224\/revisions\/12614"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>Operation and Controls<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/a><\/a>Continue: Viewfinder, Autofocus and Performance<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Viewfinder and Rear Screen and Card Slots<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>Autofocus<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>Electronic Shutter and Performance<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>Battery Life<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Image Quality<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>Continue: Conclusion and Image Samples<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
So we’ve reached the end. Again, I apologize for the huge delay in getting this review out, and for the general lack of updates on the site as a whole. It’s been a crazy last year, with limited time to shoot and write, and while I hope things are able to pick up soon, i can’t promise anything. So, on to the conclusion:<\/p>\n\n\n\nConclusion<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Image Samples<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>