The Sony A9 mark II is a full frame mirrorless camera body built for speed. With 24.2 megapixels, capable of shooting at 10 frames per second the A9 mark II will keep your subject sharp with 693 phase detection AF points built into the imaging sensor.
The original model Sony A9 was released in 2017, clearly positioned to disrupt to the domination of the sport photography industry by Nikon and Canon and their flagship bodies, the D5 and EOS 1DX mark II respectively. The mirrorless technology of the A9 delivered key advantages over DSLR bodies. The absence of a mirror allowed the A9 to be faster (up to 20fps), quieter (silent with the electronic shutter) and more accurate as the AF system was not disrupted by mirror movement and instead used phase detection pixel AF technology built into the imaging sensor. At Fixation we are very excited to see what new features and specifications the mark II version of the A9 will bring, pushing the technology available to professional photographers to new heights.
Built for professional photographers who require reliability, fast network speed and quick access to controls Supports SSL or TLS encrypted file transfer (FTPS) 1000BASE-T Ethernet terminal, enabling gigabit communication Blackout-free continuous shooting up to 20fps 24.2 –Megapixel Full-Frame CMOS Imaging Sensor Upgraded weather sealing for dust and moisture resistance 4k video recording Dual card slots, both UHS-II compatible for uninterrupted capture Compatible with the NP-FZ100 battery perfect for longer shoots 693 phase detection AF points built into the imaging sensor
Sony has just announced two new models in its ever growing E-mount lens lineup. The FE 600mm f/4.0 GM OSS and FE 200-600mm f/ 5.6-6.3 are both super-telephoto optics built to withstand the rigours of professional use. This announcement furthers Sony’s growth into the sport & press photography market.
The FE 600mm f4 GM OSS is the longest prime lens from Sony to date. It’s announcement follows the FE 400mm f2.8 GM OSS which was released June 2018 and has been incredibly well received. These two focal lengths are classics in sport and wildlife photography, delivering fantastic detail from distant subjects, even in difficult lighting conditions.
Our own Donal Ogilvie had the chance to try both lenses briefly last week. On the 600mm lens, he says: “Super light for a lens of this class, put it next to an older SLR mount 600mm f4 and the difference is amazing. Not front heavy at all, weight is well distributed, one could shoot this hand held quite easily. Autofocus is superfast, even with teleconverters, built to keep up with the A9’s 20fps (and allegedly beyond!) Likely to be very limited supply.”
Fast, precise and quiet auto-focus driven by two XD linear motors
11-blade circular aperture mechanism
Balanced Magnesium alloy construction makes panning easier
Lightest lens in it’s class at approximately 3040g
Compatible with Sony’s 1.4x and 2.0x E-mount tele-converters
Hard controls built into lens for immediate control in the field
The FE 200-600mm f5.6-6.3 G OSS is the furthest reaching zoom in the G lens series from Sony. The lens is designed with a fixed barrel length so all the zoom movements occur within the lens. The elimination of elements that extend and retract whilst zooming offers enhanced sealing against dust and moisture, making the lens a real workhorse for photographers needing one lens as a solution to shooting at multivarious distances.
Donal on the 200-600mm: “Handling was excellent as the internal zoom and focus construction means it doesn’t alter in size in actual use. Autofocus was snappy and precise, even with tele-converters attached. Image quality looked superb, across the entire frame. Solid construction, not super light but, for a lens of this magnification range, I thought it balanced well on the camera. This will be a very popular lens with all kinds of photographers professional and enthusiast alike.”
Again the sales team are on the case with an order book and are ready to field your enquiries. Contact sales@fixationuk.com for more info or call us on 020 7582 3294
Wildlife pro Chris Schmid tells us why his Alpha mirrorless cameras have changed the way he shoots the natural world.
The advantage of EVF
“One of the benefits of an electronic viewfinder,” says Chris, “is that the exposure you see in the EVF is what you’re going to get in the picture.” Chris always shoots in manual exposure mode, so the EVF has an added benefit – in tricky lighting, it means not only does he have total control, but also there is no need to shoot additional frames because of guesswork.
With old-fashioned optical viewfinders on DSLRs, there’s often guesswork involved which can put some photographers off working in manual mode, but with an EVF nothing is left to chance. “So when I’m shooting a subject that’s backlit, or in shadow,” says Chris, “I don’t need to shoot extra frames to get it right – I can concentrate on capturing the moment.”
Silent Shooting
“Sony’s Silent Shooting mode is perfect for me,” Chris tells us, “because even a small shutter noise can cause an animal to react”. Total silence means a more truthful image – it’s more natural and that’s when you know that you’re capturing the animal’s real behaviour.
“Last year I was photographing gorillas, and with the silent shutter it was an amazing experience. I could enjoy that moment without any noise from the camera, just hearing the birds, the wind, and with no intrusion on feeling. It was just perfect – a pure joy really.”
Image quality
“To shoot the way I do, you need a big dynamic range,” Chris explains “because I often like to capture the animal’s environment, rather than a straight portrait. When I compare the shots from my α9 and α7R III to cameras from even five years ago, it’s amazing. All the details in the highlights of skies or the shadows of the bush are much easier to retain.”
Something else Chris relies on from his Alphas is great noise performance at higher ISOs. He explains that, “because I’m shooting early or late in the day I often need to push the ISO, maybe to 1600 or more. It’s vital for hunting and other behavioural shots that take place at those times of day.”
Fast, reliable focus
Moving subjects or those hidden by the environment need fast and accurate Auto Focus to find and follow them, because, as Chris says, “the magic is only there for a couple of seconds and you need to react quickly to catch it.”
Most of the time, he relies on the proven Continuous AF of his α9 and α7R III, using the tracking mode to follow an animal, and only switching occasionally to Single AF when an animal is static and he can place the focus point on the eye.
Even the Focus Peaking mode comes into play on some occasions: “If I’m shooting, say, a lion in the bush, the leaves and grass in front can confuse the focus, so if that’s the case I just switch to focus peaking in manual and can see clearly what’s sharp in the EVF. There’s something for every situation.”
Sony’s Alpha stable has been going from strength to strength since the introduction of the first Alpha 7 cameras in 2013, with a generous stable of models in both the full-frame and APS-C ranges. It can be a little daunting to sort through all the models available to suss out which one is for you. Fortunately, we’ve got a comprehensive guide to every camera in the system for you right here.
Read on to see which is the Sony Alpha camera for you…
Full-frame
Sony α7 III
This is the most recent camera to join the Sony alpha family. It’s the third iteration in the a7 series that started it all, boasting a 24.2MP sensor just like the two that came before it. New to this sensor, however, is a backside-illuminated architecture that improves its ability to handle noise, making for better low-light performance and a higher extendable maximum ISO of 204,800.
The sensor’s upgraded architecture also improves its readout speed, making for all-around faster performance assisted by Sony’s Bionz X processor. This means up to 10fps shooting with autofocus, and a generous buffer of 189 JPEGs, 82 compressed Raws or 40 uncompressed Raws in a single burst. Elsewhere you’ve got sophisticated 5-axis optical image stabilisation, an autofocus system with 693 points, and sophisticated monitoring options thanks to the 2.3-million-dot EVF and tilting touch LCD screen.
The a7 series may be the most straightforward of Sony’s full-frame mirrorless range, but as the a7 III demonstrates, there’s nothing basic about it.
Key features
Sensor: 24.2MP full-frame CMOS sensor with back-illuminated design
ISO range: 100-51,200 (expandable to 50-204,800)
Burst speed: 10fps
Max video resolution: 4K 30p (HDR video available)
Sony α7 II
Though the a7 II used the same sensor as its predecessor the a7, it brought a number of ergonomic and internal improvements to the table. It was the first of Sony’s full-frame mirrorless range to feature in-body image stabilisation, the 5-axis SteadyShot system that allows for significantly slower shutter speeds to be used handheld. The body of the camera also got a redesign, with a more pronounced grip to evoke DSLR-style handling without compromising on the small and light build that makes the mirrorless range so attractive.
Key features
Sensor: 24.3MP full-frame Exmor CMOS sensor
ISO range: 100-25,600 (expandable to 50)
Burst speed: 5fps
Max video resolution: Full HD 60p
Sony α7
It all began back in 2013 with a pair of true game-changers. This was one — the original Sony a7, a full-frame camera packing the power of a DSLR into the body of a CSC. A 24.3MP full-frame sensor working with the powerful Bionz X processor to ensure fast and high-quality shooting, the Sony a7 was an amazing camera for 2013, and to be honest it holds up pretty well today. It lacks the fancy features that would arrive on subsequent cameras, such as a touchscreen and the ability to shoot 4K video, but it was and is a superb step forward for mirrorless photography.
Key features
Sensor: 24.3MP full-frame Exmor CMOS Sensor
ISO range: 100-25,600 (expandable to 50)
Burst speed: 5fps
Max video resolution: Full HD 60p
Sony α7R III
The a7R cameras are the resolution beasts of the Sony stable, boasting massive megapixel counts on their full-frame sensors. They have earned the adulation and loyalty of plenty of landscape shooters ever since the first a7R.
The third iteration of this series keeps things mega-high-quality, with a 42MP full-frame Exmor R BSI CMOS sensor powered by the Bionz X processor. For a sensor like this you want the best-in-class in terms of monitoring, which the a7R III readily supplies in the form of a 3.69-million-dot Tru-Finder OLED electronic viewfinder, and a 3-inch 1.44-million-dot tilting touchscreen LCD. It inherits a few features from Sony’s speedster, the a9 (more on which anon), such as its dual card slots, its fast silent shooting (up to 10fps with nary a whisper) and its tough mechanical shutter. Built to last, the a7R III won’t let you down.
Key features
Sensor: 42MP full-frame Exmor R BSI CMOS sensor
ISO range: 100-32,000 (expandable to 50-102,400)
Burst speed: 10fps
Max video resolution: 4K 30p
Sony α7R II
This was the camera that bumped the a7R line up from 36MP to 42MP, with a backside-illuminated sensor that promised peerless image quality in another impressively small body. The a7R II also offered improved readout speed thanks to a worked-over sensor architecture, which used copper wiring instead of aluminium. This made for improved autofocus speed, as well as generally better performance in other areas.
Key features
Sensor: 42MP full-frame Exmor R BSI CMOS sensor
ISO range: 100-25,600 (expandable to 50–102,400)
Burst speed: 5fps
Max video resolution: 4K 30p
Sony α7R
This was the other of the first Alpha 7 releases, debuting alongside the original Sony a7 in 2013. The key difference between the two was in the sensor, which on the a7R carried a resolution of 36.4MP, with no anti-aliasing filter in order to squeeze the maximum potential out of it. Other bonuses included a 2.4-million-dot EVF and an external microphone socket for video shooters, while trade-offs from the lower-resolution a7 included a less sophisticated autofocus system and slower burst shooting.
Key features
Sensor: 36.4MP full-frame Exmor CMOS sensor
ISO range: 100-25,600 (expandable to 50)
Burst speed: 4fps
Max video resolution: Full HD 60p
Sony α7S II
The pro video world fell head over heels for the first a7S camera on its release back in 2014, and the a7S II builds on that success with a raft of improvements, as well as keeping what worked about the original.
The key to the a7S range lies in their sensors, which eschew the generous megapixel counts of the likes of the a7R for a resolution of just 12MP. This allows for much-improved low-light performance, and the a7S II is able to shoot at a whopping maximum ISO level of 409,600, and offers a wide dynamic range. Whereas the original a7S needed an external recorder to record 4K video, the a7S II does it internally, recording with full pixel readout without pixel binning, at a bit rate of up to 100Mbps. Advanced movie features such as the S-Log3 colour profile and 120fps Full HD recording make for a seriously comprehensive video package.
That’s not to say that stills shooters are forgotten about — as well as the aforementioned low-light prowess, the A7S II also provides a sophisticated, intelligent autofocus system with 169 points.
Key features
Sensor: 12.2MP full-frame Exmor CMOS sensor
ISO range: 100-102,400 (expandable to ISO 50-409,600)
Burst speed: 5fps
Max video resolution: 4K 30p
Sony α7S
The original a7S, arriving a little after the a7 and the A7R. Using the same 12.2MP sensor as the camera that would follow it, the a7S wowed photographers and videographers alike with its incredible low-light capabilities, and began a small video revolution. It was the camera that caused video shooters to start jumping to Sony in earnest, and it still performs well four years down the line.
Key features
Sensor: 12.2 MP full-frame Exmor CMOS sensor
ISO range: 100-102,400 (expandable to ISO 50-409,600)
Burst speed: 5fps
Max video resolution: 4K 30p (with external recorder)
Sony α9
Speed is the name of the game when it comes to Sony’s a9, which debuted in 2017. Its ability to shoot at up to 20fps with no viewfinder blackout is complemented by a 693-point AF system, which you can read more about in our autofocus guide [link]. Elsewhere, users can make use of the a9’s two SD card slots to ensure they don’t run out of space for all the files they’re creating, while the silent electronic shutter expands the a9’s usability for wedding work.
Using the electronic viewfinder, photographers can shoot at maximum shutter speeds of 1/32,000sec, while 5-axis SteadyShot image stabilisation and a maximum expandable ISO of 204,800 ensure that the a9 has serious low-light chops. Speedy and versatile, the a9 deserves the serious consideration of any pro photographer.
The APS-C flagship of the Sony stable, the a6500 is a sophisticated camera that should certainly not be dismissed just because of its smaller sensor. It’s an action powerhouse, offering a 425-point 4D focus system and an 11fps burst rate with a generous buffer able to capture 307 full-size JPEGs or 107 Raws, which represents a considerable improvement over its predecessor the a6300, which would manage 44 JPEGs or 22 Raws.
The a6500 is also the first of Sony’s APS-C range to gain in-body image stabilisation, while new algorithms improve noise reduction. When you add on 4K video and slow-motion video at 120fps, the a6500 really does start to look like a complete package. Definitely not one to count out.
Key features
Sensor: 24.2MP APS-C Exmor CMOS sensor
ISO range: 100-25,600 (expandable to 51,200)
Burst speed: 11fps
Max video resolution: 4K 30p
Sony α6300
The a6300 preceded the a6500 by only half a year, so there’s a lot of similarity, making for a potential bargain if you’re unfussed about some of the a6500’s flashier features. You still get that lightning-fast and sophisticated autofocus system, as well as 4K video and the generous ISO sensitivity range. The a6300 is still a very good buy.
Key features
Sensor: 24.2MP APS-C Exmor CMOS sensor
ISO range: 100-25,600 (expandable to 51,200)
Burst speed: 11fps
Max video resolution: 4K 30p
Sony α6000
The Sony a6000 was sold with the tagline “quicker autofocus than a DSLR”, though really its key USP was quicker everything. Thanks to the inclusion of the Bionz X processor, the Sony a6000 not only focuses fast, it also shoots fast and starts up fast. Its hybrid AF system of contrast- and phase-detection points isn’t much on its successors, but still works at an impressive clip.
Key features
Sensor: 24.3MP APS-C Exmor CMOS sensor
ISO range: 100-25,600
Burst speed: 11fps
Max video resolution: Full HD 60p
Sony α5100
The a5100 debuted to nestle comfortably between the a5000 and a6000 in the APS-C lineup, borrowing the sensor and hybrid AF system from the latter. While it lacks a viewfinder, the tilting touchscreen is a useful addition for monitoring, and five customisable buttons on the rear allow the a5100’s controls to be tuned to taste.
Key features
Sensor: 24.3MP APS-C Exmor CMOS sensor
ISO range: 100-25,600
Burst speed: 6fps
Max video resolution: Full HD 60p
Sony α5000
The a5000 refreshed the stale CSCs of the former NEX line, setting the stage for the sleek, compact-esque look of the APS-C models that would continue through to the a6500. It also added now-standard features such as Wi-Fi connectivity.
Key features
Sensor: 20.1MP Exmor APS-C CMOS sensor
ISO range: 100-16,000
Burst speed: 3.5fps
Max video resolution: Full HD 60i
Sony α3000
The first camera to arrive bearing the Alpha branding, the a3000 sticks out from the rest of the range thanks to its SLR-esque styling, which is more visually reminiscent of A-mount cameras like the A99.
The Sony a7 III, is an update to the popular 24MP a7 II, incorporating many of the tech improvements seen on the a7R III and flagship a9.
The camera features a back illuminated 24.2MP Exmor CMOS sensor boasting a dynamic range of up to 15 stops and an increased ISO range of 100-51,200 (expandable to 50-204,800).
The AF system has been greatly improved over the previous model, now offering 693 phase-detection AF points which cover 93% of the image area, making it ideal for accurately tracking a moving subject. In addition, the 5-axis optical in-body image stabilisation allows for a five stop shutter speed advantage.
Continuous shooting speed has also been improved over the a7 II’s 5fps, and has now doubled to 10fps, with a buffer capable of shooting 89 RAW/177 JPEG images with full AF & auto exposure.
Video options
For videographers, the A7 Mark III is capable of 4K (3840 x 2160px) video recording across the entire width of its image sensor. Full pixel readout (no pixel binning) can be achieved in video mode, collecting around 2.4x the data needed for 4K movies.
The camera supports S-Log2 and S-Log3, alongside Gamma Display Assist, Proxy Recording and the Zebra pattern function. Full HD video can be recorded at 120 fps (100 Mbps).
A dual SD card slot provides various storage options including the capture of separate RAW and JPEG files, and one of the slots supports UHS-II type SD cards. Alongside Wi-Fi, the a7 III has a SuperSpeed USB Type-C terminal for faster image transfer during tethered shooting.
For more information, contact sales on 020 7582 3294 or email sales@fixationuk.com
We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept”, you consent to the use of all the cookies.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience. We log visitor IP addresses and cookie preferences for due diligence reporting.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously.
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
