Few things look intimidating at the first look and you are little confused about the fact that how do we take this ahead or how do are really going to survive this patch and then comes love at first sight. Things here are smooth, like a 17-year-old Single Malt Scotch Whisky or you can say you know that this will be just a cake walk. Speaking of the latter few full frame cameras that I have managed to operate or shoot with till date have given me brilliant results but then the Sony A9 is a different monster.
The first thought that comes to your mind when you think about switching a brand for the next shoot is the “New User Interface” & the most common problem is the “Weight of the new Camera”. Now while the User interface in the A9 is quite a bit deep like an Amazon Jungle, but the weight will make you fall for it instantly. For the first time ever you won’t feel like holding a professional camera even with the Sony FE 24-70mm lens. For the interface, it will be too soon for me to comment on it since I only had a week to use it during my travel and for me you need to live with it for quite some time before you pass a judgement on it. I will keep this part aside & probably carry on with the experience I had with the A9 for the seven days of my travel.
The Grip:
I liked the overall size and ergonomics but for my brother who is a wedding photographer and is habituated using a Nikon Full Frame for last couple of years, he said would probably need bigger hands for this camera to operate and feel at home. For me during my travel what stood out for was the reach to the dials and buttons and the functionality though somehow, I felt like the feel of the switches could have been a little more premium.
Features:
As I said previously for the time I had the camera is little less for me to describe the whole experience but having said that what stood out for me are couple of things like: The dials which gives quick response to the commands like switch on and ready to shoot, The adjustable LED panel which offers touch commands too, the viewfinder which comes with a sensor which helps the camera to shut down the LED when it senses you are using it & last one is my favorite one: The Shutter Performance. The Sony A9 come with two types of shutters: The Mechanical & an Electronic one. The initial thought was to shoot with both the shutters equally but then the electronic mode just didn’t let me switch onto the mechanical mode. Imagine the speed 1/32000 when I say as compared to a Nikon D750 or a Canon 6d which can maximum reach upto1/4000, so a person like me who is more into Travel and Automobile shoots, the Sony A9 perfectly fits my bill.
Battery Life:
If excellence can be attained by perfection then this is it. I shot with a fully charged battery straight for 3-4 hours a day for 4 days and I still think it could have managed one more day, but I avoided taking that risk. Where most of the Full Frame DSLR’s demands an extra battery, I think that’s what gives the A9 a little more edge as compared to other cams during travel.
I would definitely need another couple of weeks with this camera to do a fun shoot, explore its full capacity & come up with some wonderful shots the camera deserves. The pricing however makes my situation difficult, currently priced at INR 3,29,990 I am not sure how purists from Nikon and Canon kingdom would like to switch to the Sony A9.
–Sensor: BSI-CMOS (35.6 x 23.8 mm), 24 megapixels
– Image Size: 6000 x 4000
– ISO Sensitivity: Auto, ISO 100-51200 (expands to 50-204800)
– Storage Media: 2x SD • Continuous Shooting Speed: 20.0 fps
– Max Shutter Speed: 1/32000 sec to 30 secs
– Number of AF Points: 693 AF points
– Wi-Fi Functionality: Built-in
– Weight (Body Only): 673 g
– Dimensions: 127 x 96 x 63 mm
Note – None of the images are edited in any way. They were shot in JPEG format and have been resized for faster loading.
