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Sony A9 Review: Features and Design
The Sony A9 is a petite powerhouse – while Canon and Nikon's flagship cameras are towering behemoths (namely the EOS-1D X Mark II and D5), the A9 is merely taller than most consumer cameras – at just 63mm deep, it's actually smaller than some.
It's got quite a reassuring heft, though. Weighing in at 588g with the battery installed, again not much for a professional camera but enough to give the Sony A9 a substantial feel. It's weather-sealed and dust-proof, and we'd have little hesitation about soldiering on in bad weather.
It's also highly practical. Mode dials, drive mode, autofocus mode, and exposure compensation all have dedicated physical controls, along with two command dials for adjustment, one under your index finger and one on the rear for your thumb. It might look busy, but all those dials make the Sony A9 an absolute dream to use.
You can adjust exposure rapidly regardless of the mode you're in (it's directly simulated in the viewfinder making life simpler) and because the primary functions are represented by physical dials, it truly cleans up the rear of the camera, without overly cluttering with controls. There's a control dial, a thumbstick, and a few customizable controls, and that's it.
That leaves plenty of room for the screen; in this case, a premium effort, a 3-inch, 1.4-megapixel affair that can be tilted up and down to suit your shooting angle. The screen doesn't swivel, but that's a minor issue here, as it is. Bright and sharp, it aids image review and navigating Sony's intuitive menu system. It's a touch screen to boot.
However, the Sony A9 might be best used with premium lenses, meaning the most comfortable way to shoot is via the electronic viewfinder. The EVF is another prime example of its kind – a 1.3cm, 3.7-megapixel display, with all the detail and purpose, indistinguishable in practical terms from an optical viewfinder – but with the added benefit of directly simulated exposure.
All adding up to a camera that's an absolute joy to use. It's easy to find the features you want, particularly the most common settings you'll access while shooting. It's balanced, light, and rugged – so what lies beneath the tough exterior?
In summary: technology. Lots and lots of advanced technology. The sensor might not be the absolute last word in resolution – it became commonplace last year to see cameras boasting 50-megapixel resolution, but Sony A9's 24.2 is hardly lacking and will allow for large-scale reproductions even without the sheer resolution bulk of some of its competitive rivals. The sensor itself is the first full-frame stacked CMOS sensor, where pixels are linked with image processing and DRAM layers, allowing the sensor to read data extremely quickly.
That, combined with the relatively low pixel count, enables the Sony A9 to pull off some very impressive tricks, very quickly. Chief among them is its maximum continuous raw frame rate, at 20 frames per second mostly with mechanical shutter, and remarkably, faster than the 14 frames per second of Canon EOS-1D X Mark II (16 frames per second in electronic shutter mode) 6 frames per second. If you're shooting sports, there's no camera operating faster on the market.
But that stacked sensor doesn't just aid in rapid raw data processing. With autofocus and exposure being done on the sensor, the Sony A9 can continuously calculate both up to 60 times per second, even while the camera is shooting. It's no surprise to find cameras with impressive burst modes, only to discover that the fastest frame rates are only available with AF and AE locked after the first shot. Not so with the Sony A9: if your subject moves or reflects light differently mid-burst, the A9 can keep up.
In use, it's extremely impressive – with eye detection enabled, the A9 sticks to a subject near flawlessly and has no trouble tracking fast-moving subjects. It's no wonder to see the A9 cropping up in all kinds of professional scenarios – it makes handling challenging situations significantly easier. Another benefit of the A9's electronic shutter is no blackout between frames, making subjects behind slightly easier to track. Furthermore, the A9 provides phase-detection AF points across virtually the entire frame – all 693 of them. Photographers accustomed to blaming their kit for out-of-focus shots will need to start considering new excuses.
Elsewhere, the professional features abound. Wireless internet is par for the course, but uploading to FTP servers, on-camera, isn't. A wired Gigabit Ethernet port is also nestled alongside, allowing you to upload via lightning-fast wired connection, assuming your location permits. Elsewhere, the Sony A9 is the only premium mirrorless camera offering dual memory card slots – one exclusively for SD, the other capable of housing either SD cards or Memory Stick Duo. Many pros consider a single card slot a non-starter, so the presence of backup camera will be highly appealing.
Battery life is a slightly sticky wicket. The A9 will churn out around 480 frames on a single charge if you're using the EVF demanding more or just under 200 if you're ramping up the frames using the lower-power but trickier-to-handle rear LCD. Though we've experienced slightly better performance than this, at the very least you'll want a spare battery – if not two – if you intend to use the Sony A9 for a shoot demanding. Sony's VG-C3EM battery grip, accommodating two batteries at once, is available at £279 and might well be a must-buy for some pros.
Sony A9 Review: Image Quality
Sony A9's technical prowess is futile if it can't capture beautiful images, but, as you might expect, Sony's snapper extraordinaire doesn't fall short here either. We tested it with Sony's FE 16-35mm F2.8 GM wide-angle lens and were highly impressed by the overall sharpness, colors, and contrast it delivered.
Our ISO testing results are downright baffling. With images downscaled, our test shots couldn't be distinguished between the lowest ISO of Sony A9 and – unbelievably – ISO 12,800. Even when our tests were blown up to the fullest, between ISO 100 and ISO 3200, there was no discernible difference.
In practical terms, that means photographers have five stops of flexibility, allowing them to shoot a vast range of shutter speeds or apertures in less than ideal lighting conditions. Our test images remained widely acceptable up to ISO 25,600 and – arguably usable at ISO 102,400.
The kinds of images you can produce make it a versatile beast. The Sony E-mount has been bolstered in recent years and with lenses like the FE 200-600mm f/5.6-6.4 G OSS, FE 400mm f/2.8 OSS, FE 600mm f/4 impressive GM OSS and various other high-end glass, from macro to superzoom, the A9 is compatible with a plethora of gargantuan lenses. Sigma's Art line is also available with E-mount hanging, further enhancing the appeal of Sony A9 to professional photographers.
Sony A9 Review: Video Quality
Sony A9 is a good video camera, rather than an astounding one. It records in 4K, of course, at 24, 25, and 30 frames per second and Full HD at speeds up to 100 frames per second (120 frames per second in NTSC). Video quality – as suggested by our results when testing A9 in stills mode – is excellent, and features like audio input provide filmmakers with a degree of flexibility. However, unlike some other high-end mirrorless cameras, there's no LOG mode for capturing flat footage for grading in the future, somewhat limiting the allure of A9's video capabilities.
Conclusion
With the Sony A9, its autofocus is lightning-fast, its continuous shooting mode is rapid, and although the camera seems somewhat understated in physical controls. Its image capture quality is superb, compatible with professional-grade lenses.
It's not perfect, of course. It's very, very pricey and battery life remains a challenge even for the best-designed mirrorless cameras. But for a camera that packs so much punch while delivering razor-sharp images after razor-sharp images, even in low light conditions and with dynamic subjects, it's hard to think of many better options.
