Sleepless Over Sony’s a9 – What Is It Really, and Who Is It For?

[dreed]

The question of "Who Is It for?" is really good.

There's been a lot of hype around the "It is for sports photography" BUT ...
(1) the grip (and the grip extension) are built for using it in landscape fashion, not portrait.
(2) the range of native E-mount lenses does not include any of the "telephoto primes" or "super-telephoto primes" that we so often see beside the track/field.

As I've never used a body with buttons for shooting both landscape & portrait so I can't comment on how important (1) is.

But I have tried(!) to shoot sports and 300mm is not enough. To use EF/F mount plus an adapter (so that you can use a 200/2 or 400/2.8 ) means halving the frame rate to 10fps - is that acceptable?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Sony_E-mount_lenses

[dreed]

And why nobody "jumps ship" overnight - it's expensive:

https://www.dpreview.com/articles/5769746764/the-cost-of-switching-to-sony-from-canon

[Telecaster]

DPR recently published a similarly toned piece re. the Fuji GFX 50S. Both seem eager to shore up ad revenue generating sources (aka CaNikon) if nothing else. I have no particular interest in the new Sony but I am amused by the response it's generating.

-Dave-

[Jeff]

Sleepless, I fell asleep watching the video clip !

However, I note from Kevin Raber's  initial review / impression that he has already ordered an A9  so it will be interesting to see his " real world " review in due course

[Paulo Bizarro]

Yes, changing systems is not cheap, what's new?

Yes, the ILCE system lacks some lenses, but just witness the last couple of years to see that Sony is pro-active beefing up the system with top quality lenses. No doubt more are coming.

And no, the A9 is not exclusively for sports: high frame rate without VF blackout, and totally silent: this has a few more uses besides sports...

[jeremyrh]

However, I note from Kevin Raber's  initial review / impression that he has already ordered an A9  so it will be interesting to see his " real world " review in due course

Hmm - not sure Kevin lives in the same "real world" as me :-)

[Stephen Scharf]

Yes, changing systems is not cheap, what's new?

Yes, the ILCE system lacks some lenses, but just witness the last couple of years to see that Sony is pro-active beefing up the system with top quality lenses. No doubt more are coming.

And no, the A9 is not exclusively for sports: high frame rate without VF blackout, and totally silent: this has a few more uses besides sports...

Combat photography, maybe...