Sony's New A1 Camera, Is It The One For You?
Photo Credit. Sony
Some of the hottest news in cameras recently was the launch of the very impressive flagship prosumer camera from Sony, the A1. As a Sony shooter myself, seeing these specs would tend to show this camera as a phenomenal tool, but is it right now you? Today, I’ll break down what some of these impressive specs actually mean, which should help you determine if this camera, with a heft $6499.99 price tag, is right for you.
Let’s start with the sensor. It’s a 35mm full frame Exmor RS CMOS sensor providing 50.1 megapixels of resolution. That will guarantee some extremely crisp and high definition photos for sure. This is a huge plus for portrait, landscape and wildlife photographers, but this comes with a drawback. More resolution will mean larger file sizes when pulling those photos into your workflow. Space will fill up faster, computers will chug a bit harder, etc. It’s just something you should be mindful of. I shoot with 200gb memory cards, and cards of that size should do well with this camera. By the way this has two slots so you can record on them simultaneously like I do with the A7Riii.
ISO sensitivity is fairly standard in the Sony line. Expanded ISO ranges from 50 - 102400. I absolutely love having those two extra stops going to ISO 50. For long exposure landscapes like I shoot, it is amazingly helpful and keeps me from needing to utilize ND filters for most waterfall shots.
The battery life may be something labeled as a drawback. One thing I love about my A7Riii is the absolute amazing battery life. I can shoot through an entire wedding, waterfall photography workshop or bald eagle shoot at Conowingo Dam on one battery. The new A1 is specing at a battery life of 430 shots, which sounds extremely low. So if you buy this guy then you probably want to grab some extra batteries as you will more than likely be swapping during your excursions.
Now let’s touch on the speed of this. Most people do not care much about the speed of the camera unless you are doing a lot of sports or wildlife photography. Most cameras stick in the 12-15 range unless their are geared for that type of photography, which usually allows them to crossover to do some sports or wildlife with not much drawback. If you do shoot a lot of sports and wildlife, then this beast throws down 30 frames per second with the AF/AE focus tracking and 50 MP file size. That literally works out to the fact that you could shoot 155 RAW files before the buffer is completely full on the camera. Throw in a high speed memory card and viola, wildlife and sport shooter heaven.
Photo Credit: Sony
Of course, this is a mirrorless camera, which I love. Sony has been doing amazing things with mirrorless for many years now. I always like the smaller form factor and lighter weight as I travel and hike as much as I do. The A1 continuous that smaller size.
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I mentioned focus a moment ago, so let’s segway into that discussion now. The Sony lineup has always impressed me with their auto focus system, and it looks like the A1 isn’t going to disappear there either. The A1 as a Wide AF coverage of 759 point phase-detection and 425-point contrast detection AF points. It also has the real-time Eye AF for humans and animals. If you don’t know what this is well I can tell you it is amazing. With this turned on the camera looks for eyes, which we want sharp shooting portraits or wildlife. Once it finds an eye it will lock on and as long as you are in continuous focus wherever that subject goes it maintains AF on the eye. It works fantastically and would be a must in this camera. But Sony has taken it a step farther. Knowing that wildlife shooters will love this camera Sony has built in a new Real-Time Eye AF Bird Mode, which ensures tracking is maintained in flight, even if a sitting bird takes flight. Now that is impressive.
Now let’s turned briefly to video. I do utilize my A7Riii for some video, and I love it’s video capabilities in 4K. The new A1 does all of that and now allows for 8K video at 30p, while doing 4K at 120p. Honestly, I don’t know how many people would use the 8K, I probably would not, simply because there won’t be screens really able to showcase the quality. But the 120p at 4K will be nice.
There are many more specs for this new camera that you should take a look it. The release date for the new A1 is slated for March 3, 2021. You can find it at most of the usual places. What will I do? I’ll rent it to try, but I don’t believe this is a camera that I need. Tell me in the comments what you think? Will you get one?
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