The new Sony A9 - What are your thoughts

jonneymendoza said:
yup i know. but using kit you enjoy sometimes gives you the motivation to capture some magical stuff.

Would you feel more motivated using your smartphone to or your mirrorless camera?

For me i like mirorrless/dslr as the feeling you get holding a camera, the shutter, the ergonomics, the lenses and general excitement gives me great pleasure .

Dont forget, photography is also a mind game. Its not all about light and your eye. You need a good mindset to take good pictures.

A good mindset could come to these things below:

1. Using gear you enjoy handling and working with
2. Being in a new place or capturing a subject or new style of shooting.
3. Having a good mindset prior to shooting(haing a positive mind in life etc)
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I agree that I feel more motivated to shoot when I have a camera that I want to pick up and use. I've shot portraits, weddings, sports and events with a whole range of kit from 40D, 5D mk1, Sony A6000, Nikon D750 and they have all delivered the results that the client wanted and paid me for which, to me, is key. There are still numerous photographers earning their keep with older 5D's and the equivalent Nikons so that's why I can't help but laugh when there are complaints that it's the fault of a 5D4 or A7Rii for the photographer not delivering the results (on the whole) ;0)

Personally, I find more enjoyment in building cameras at the moment which is why I said I'm not the target market for the A9 but I agree that having the 'right' camera for you makes all the difference.
 
George said:
I think this is, on paper, a very interesting development and I suspect in a few years mirrorless bodies will become the norm however as a lifelong Canon user I'd have to be very convinced of the benefits to consider a move, not least of all as others have said, is the lack of long lenses, although the 100-400 does answer that need to a certain extent.

For me the biggest advantage is the almost silent operation, I've just spent a month in the Mara with a colleague shooting with a D5, and his bodies at 12 fps and mine at 14 fps do make a heck of a noise, we had to stay well clear of the video shooters!!

However the AF performance is absolutely the key as far as I'm concerned and we won't know about that till real life stories come out.

For me, I've wanted improvements from every body I've had until the 1Dx mk2, if there are OOF shots it's down to me not the body and so unless I'd get the same performance from another body of any make, I wouldn't change, and I reckon that'll be the main test if they (Sony) hope to get in to the sports and wildlife market.

I await real world tests with interest!!

George.
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+1 ^ to what he says. 'On paper' it is a quite enticing bit of kit........................but the real world usages will inform us all :)
 
jonneymendoza said:
Many people probably said that when the original 1d came out?
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probably did, but 12fps (or whatever the 1d) shoots at is still overkill for most scenarios. I've had 10 and 12fps cameras and even for sports and wildlife am more than happy with 6-7fps.

People also say that about mp. Remember the d800? Loads moaned about file sizes etc
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And they still do. It's one of the reasons that I opted for the D750 over the D810. In an ideal world they'd give the option to have 14 bit RAW at different resolution options on these cameras so that you could shoot at full res if you absolutely needed the highest detail or wanted to crop heavily, but then shoot at 16 or 24mp for everyday shots.


Also. You do know it's optional to shoot at that speed. You can shoot at medium or low fps or single shot.
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No s*** Sherlock ;) :p

jonneymendoza said:
No it won't. You still need to compose your shot. Get the right light. Angle etc etc. The camera doesn't do that for you
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I didn't say it did, I said it was 'one' more part of the art going ;) However, I can see a day when you can generally wave a camera in the right direction and then focus, frame etc etc in post :rolleyes:
 
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As metioned
snerkler said:
And they still do. It's one of the reasons that I opted for the D750 over the D810. In an ideal world they'd give the option to have 14 bit RAW at different resolution options on these cameras so that you could shoot at full res if you absolutely needed the highest detail or wanted to crop heavily, but then shoot at 16 or 24mp for everyday shots.
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This is one big area where I would love to be able to have a down-sampling ability within a camera body.
For example on my Fuji XT-2 the body always shoots at the max sensor resolution of 24mp but if you select the RAW output to 12mp the camera would automatically resize/down sample to a 12mp.
This would give you a better IQ file with less noise visibly present.
 
Fuguru said:
As metioned


This is one big area where I would love to be able to have a down-sampling ability within a camera body.
For example on my Fuji XT-2 the body always shoots at the max sensor resolution of 24mp but if you select the RAW output to 12mp the camera would automatically resize/down sample to a 12mp.
This would give you a better IQ file with less noise visibly present.
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You can already do that on the a9
 
stevelmx5 said:
So are you not actually going to try it yourself first? That's a lot of confidence in one guy talking about how good the camera is for him.

Good luck to you.
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i would love to try it out myself.

The thing is no camera is perfect, including the canon or nikon sports cameras ...
 
Fuguru said:
If you pre-order with a lens combination from Park Camera's you can save yourself another £199 ;)
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yea doing it now. wish me luck. i can always change my mind like i did with the 1dxmk2 lol.

edit: pre ordered. no payment needed as you can pay when you go and collect it. plus i can delay going there until real world reviews appear or if i ever change my mind
 
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I was really interested in this upon reading some of the news and especially the specs. But I then found something which put a dampener on it as I mostly shoot motorsport and am quite often shooting at narrower than f11 apertures when panning.

Taken from DPR:

Electronic shutter mode. At apertures smaller than F11 (F-numbers higher than F11), focus will not track the subject and focus points will be fixed on the first frame. Display updating will be slower at slow shutter speeds.
 
jonneymendoza said:
yea doing it now. wish me luck. i can always change my mind like i did with the 1dxmk2 lol
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You will be fine, I know I am a Fuji Guru now but the Sony system is really good.... for me its just too expensive considering my primary job is in IT and not Photography :)
 
Toggerman said:
I was really interested in this upon reading some of the news and especially the specs. But I then found something which put a dampener on it as I mostly shoot motorsport and am quite often shooting at narrower than f11 apertures when panning.

Taken from DPR:

Electronic shutter mode. At apertures smaller than F11 (F-numbers higher than F11), focus will not track the subject and focus points will be fixed on the first frame. Display updating will be slower at slow shutter speeds.
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not even 1dx does AF beyond f8? or am i missing something?

Anyways i shoot Motosports too and never shot at f11! i need the speed!!!!!!!!
 
Fuguru said:
You will be fine, I know I am a Fuji Guru now but the Sony system is really good.... for me its just too expensive considering my primary job is in IT and not Photography :)
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my primary job is IT but that job pays for my traveling and taking pics ;)
 
Eloise said:
I'm a Nikon shooter yes ... but in the past I've owned Canon and Minolta digital. When buying back into digital cameras I tried the whole range. I don't like EVFs ... I don't get why everyone is so excited about them ... I prefer the view finder of my D3200 to the view finder of a Sony A7. I just have found more negatives from mirrorless cameras I have tried and find DSLRs a more complete, rounded option. I should add that I have zero interest in video so perhaps that is part of it too.
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EVF's are great. They allow you to see detail in the dark which would simply be invisible with an optical system, they allow you to see the exact framing, they show the exposure you're going to get and they allow a greatly magnified view making shooting distant objects seem like macro shooting.

I would hate to go back to an OVF now and I just don't get the romance of not seeing the exact framing, not seeing the exposure, struggling to see if things are in focus, looking at specks of dust and debris and watching bugs crawl around in them.
 
If I could afford this bad boy, I'd have preordered already. The only thing keeping me on Nikon at the moment is the glass I already have and the lack of funds.

It makes me laugh at the people trying to poo poo Sony. Usually Canon fan boys. If this had a Canon badge on it, they'd be out waving flags and shouting from the rooftops.
 
Toggerman said:
I was really interested in this upon reading some of the news and especially the specs. But I then found something which put a dampener on it as I mostly shoot motorsport and am quite often shooting at narrower than f11 apertures when panning.

Taken from DPR:

Electronic shutter mode. At apertures smaller than F11 (F-numbers higher than F11), focus will not track the subject and focus points will be fixed on the first frame. Display updating will be slower at slow shutter speeds.
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Assuming that this mean a fast lens stopped down to f11 that's not great as I like to slow shutter pan which means I can often be at f11 and higher

jonneymendoza said:
not even 1dx does AF beyond f8? or am i missing something?

Anyways i shoot Motosports too and never shot at f11! i need the speed!!!!!!!!
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I believe the f8 you're referring to is the lens widest aperture such as using an f5.6 lens with 1.4TC, not any lens just stopped down to f11 as I assume toggerman needs. If you've ever done any slow shutter panning (such as 1/50 and slower) you would know that it's not unusual to shoot at f11, and easy to need f22 on a sunny day.
 
snerkler said:
Assuming that this mean a fast lens stopped down to f11 that's not great as I like to slow shutter pan which means I can often be at f11 and higher


I believe the f8 you're referring to is the lens widest aperture such as using an f5.6 lens with 1.4TC, not any lens just stopped down to f11 as I assume toggerman needs. If you've ever done any slow shutter panning (such as 1/50 and slower) you would know that it's not unusual to shoot at f11, and easy to need f22 on a sunny day.
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yes you are right i have done some panning shots at similar conditions.

There are work arounds, at that huge DOF, you can manually focus or pre focus and just pan and shoot? AF becomes critical for shallow DOF and/or targets moving towards or away from you .

When panning you tend to pan from left to right or up and down(you cant pan going near to far on a subject)

in simple terms you pan along the X and Y axis. Not Z axes.
 
woof woof said:
EVF's are great. They allow you to see detail in the dark which would simply be invisible with an optical system, they allow you to see the exact framing, they show the exposure you're going to get and they allow a greatly magnified view making shooting distant objects seem like macro shooting.

I would hate to go back to an OVF now and I just don't get the romance of not seeing the exact framing, not seeing the exposure, struggling to see if things are in focus, looking at specks of dust and debris and watching bugs crawl around in them.
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100% disagree ... I see too much smearing on all the EVFs I've tried - the newest (until now) Sonys and the Fuji (to a lesser extent). I want to see through the lens ... not look at a mini-TV screen. And I rarely "chimp" and am very happy with my images.

Of course its what you're used to ... but all the trials I've had haven't convinced me I would get used to any of the current Sony EVFs.

I'm not discounting them for the future ... and perhaps the Sony A9 would be enough to convince me. But my *preference* is for a OVF - even on something like a D3200 - over and EVF.
 
snerkler said:
Assuming that this mean a fast lens stopped down to f11 that's not great as I like to slow shutter pan which means I can often be at f11 and higher
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I take it to mean a fast lens stopped down but am interested to see what transpires once it's out in the wild.

jonneymendoza said:
When panning you tend to pan from left to right or up and down(you cant pan going near to far on a subject)

in simple terms you pan along the X and Y axis. Not Z axes.
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I often pan in 3 dimensions, when a car is coming out of a corner and gets closer as it approaches. I also switch between cars a lot and can't imagine having no AF if that really is the case.
 
snerkler said:
I believe the f8 you're referring to is the lens widest aperture such as using an f5.6 lens with 1.4TC, not any lens just stopped down to f11 as I assume toggerman needs. If you've ever done any slow shutter panning (such as 1/50 and slower) you would know that it's not unusual to shoot at f11, and easy to need f22 on a sunny day.
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Presumably in such a situation though you wouldn't be wanting the focus to change as you panned though? Or do you mean taking several panned shots in succession?
 
Eloise said:
100% disagree ... I see too much smearing on all the EVFs I've tried - the newest (until now) Sonys and the Fuji (to a lesser extent). I want to see through the lens ... not look at a mini-TV screen. And I rarely "chimp" and am very happy with my images.

Of course its what you're used to ... but all the trials I've had haven't convinced me I would get used to any of the current Sony EVFs.

I'm not discounting them for the future ... and perhaps the Sony A9 would be enough to convince me. But my *preference* is for a OVF - even on something like a D3200 - over and EVF.
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I've no idea what you're talking about. Smearing? What smearing? The better ones are really good, there's no smearing only crisp sharp detail. I grew up with film and I'd take my A7 over any "FF" SLR/DSLR, compact or RF I've had and if you're using a modern DSLR APSC camera you may not be using the best OVF that's ever been made :D I didn't mention chimping but as you did I'll say that my experience is that an in view histogram and focus aids help a lot and my first time happy with the shot rate as never ever been higher.

I'm not interested in convincing you or anyone, I'm 100% disinterested but when I read comments like yours I do wonder what you're using and what's going wrong. All I'm doing is stating my views and experiences and the only way I'd go back to using OVF's would be with a gun to my head. Maybe despite being a pedantic obsessive who looks for the tiniest problem in anything and everything I'm still a little more open to new tech than some because I worked with tech all my working life.
 
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woof woof said:
I've no idea what you're talking about. Smearing? What smearing? The better ones are really good, there's no smearing only crisp sharp detail.
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You know ... the smearing* that I see because the refresh rate isn't high enough (I'm assuming thats the reason). You don't see it fine. But you are telling me that what I see isn't real!
I'm not interested in convincing you or anyone, I'm 100% disinterested but when I read comments like yours I do wonder what you're using and what's going wrong.
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Whats going wrong is that my eyes don't see in the same way yours don't. Thats fine. But yes you are (it appears) trying to convince me because when I say I see smearing of the image in the viewfinder with a EVF you are telling me I'm wrong! Sorry if that sounded angry ... but it was a little ... you start a sentence "I'm not interested in convincing me" but then say I'm wrong!
All I'm doing is stating my views and experiences and the only way I'd go back to using OVF's would be with a gun to my head. Maybe despite being a pedantic obsessive who looks for the tiniest problem in anything and everything I'm still a little more open to new tech than some because I worked with tech all my working life.
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I've also worked with tech all my life ... as I commented before: in the past I would have loved the spec of the new Sony and leapt all over it ... but my opinion is now that all the specs in the world are no good if someone doesn't like a camera. Its a tool and a tool is used differently by different people. I don't look for the tiniest problem ... but it stares me in the face every time I use a camera with EVF (with the caveat that I have not use any Leica which are supposed to have better EVFs and the technology is improving all the time).

I've no idea if its related, but I also get a headache watching 3D movies.

* smearing might not be the right term ... its just the best term I have and means I don't enjoy using an EVF!
 
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woof woof said:
Maybe despite being a pedantic obsessive who looks for the tiniest problem in anything and everything I'm still a little more open to new tech than some because I worked with tech all my working life.
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It's probably because you are a pedantic obsessive who has worked with tech all their life that you don't appreciate the value of just looking through glass at a scene without pointless histograms and other crap getting in the way of it when making a photograph.

EVF's are much better than they were, but they it's still like looking at a tiny TVs rather than the real world.

:D
 
Eloise said:
You know ... the smearing that I see because the refresh rate isn't high enough. You don't see it fine. But you are telling me that what I see isn't real!

Whats going wrong is that my eyes don't see in the same way yours don't. Thats fine. But yes you are (it appears) trying to convince me because when I say I see smearing of the image in the viewfinder with a EVF you are telling me I'm wrong! Sorry if that sounded angry ... but it was a little ... you start a sentence "I'm not interested in convincing me" but then say I'm wrong!

I've also worked with tech all my life ... as I commented before: in the past I would have loved the spec of the new Sony and leapt all over it ... but my opinion is now that all the specs in the world are no good if someone doesn't like a camera. Its a tool and a tool is used differently by different people. I don't look for the tiniest problem ... but it stares me in the face every time I use a camera with EVF (with the caveat that I have not use any Leica which are supposed to have better EVFs and the technology is improving all the time).

I've no idea if its related, but I also get a headache watching 3D movies.
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When I first tried the A72 the EVF flicker was very noticable and annoying, I assumed the camera was faulty and returned it. I then had a chance to try a friends A7 and the EVF had the same issue. I bought an A7R2 and it was the same. I decided to put up with it as I liked the camera otherwise and now I don't notice it unless I think about it. But initially the flicker was very distracting. Oddly enough none of my friends (2 with the A7R2, one with A72) notice the flicker although I could see it in their cameras.
I never had that issue with any Olympus or Panasonic m43 cameras.
I think some folk are more susceptible to it than others.
 
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Toggerman said:
I take it to mean a fast lens stopped down but am interested to see what transpires once it's out in the wild.



I often pan in 3 dimensions, when a car is coming out of a corner and gets closer as it approaches. I also switch between cars a lot and can't imagine having no AF if that really is the case.
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Umn how can you pan along the Z axis? That's effectively having a car coming at you or away from you? You zoom in or out for that pan effect? You certainly can't move your camera along the z axis following a car. Your camera needs to be attached to the car
 
jonneymendoza said:
yes you are right i have done some panning shots at similar conditions.

There are work arounds, at that huge DOF, you can manually focus or pre focus and just pan and shoot? AF becomes critical for shallow DOF and/or targets moving towards or away from you .

When panning you tend to pan from left to right or up and down(you cant pan going near to far on a subject)

in simple terms you pan along the X and Y axis. Not Z axes.
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Thanks for lessons on panning jonney ;) :p
 
jonneymendoza said:
Umn how can you pan along the Z axis? That's effectively having a car coming at you or away from you? You zoom in or out for that pan effect? You certainly can't move your camera along the z axis following a car. Your camera needs to be attached to the car
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I think he means in a situation where the track is coming at an angle, so not only are you panning left to right (or right to left) the subject is also getting closer to the camera.
 
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