Shooting With Sonys Killer A9 Almost Feels Like Cheating. If youve ever wondered how a photographer managed to capture the exact moment of an incredible end zone reception or the instant a bird takes flight, the answer, in part, is that the photographers camera also captured the garbage moments directly before and after that golden frame, with a very expensive camera rattling off photos at tommy gun speeds. For these professional sports and nature photographers there are two widely accepted options The tippy top cameras from Canon and Nikon, with their big bulky bodies, incredible power, and the most advanced image sensors. Well, Sony finally has an answer to the incumbents in its A9. Not only is this full frame, mirrorless camera smaller, lighter, and cheaper than the Nikon and Canon competition, it absolutely blows their doors off when it comes to speed. Sony A9. What is it The fastest mirrorless camera Sonys made yet. Like. So fast youll forget about Nikon and Canon. Freerapid Downloader Android here. No Like. That price means this is a pro camera. For those not entirely up on the high end camera scene these days, heres a quick catch up. In an arena that has been dominated by Canon and Nikon since pretty much forever, Sonys star has been on the rise. It had been making solid mirrorless cameras for a while, but when its A7 series came out a few years ago, thats when professionals really started to take notice. These were compact mirrorless cameras with sharp electronic viewfinders good enough to rival the optical eyepieces in DSLRs. They also had very sensitive full frame image sensors that could capture beautiful photos. When we say full frame, what we meanis a 3. Basically, the bigger the sensor, the more light it can gather. But while the A7 models and their successors could get professional results, they didnt quite have the power the most demanding photographers require. The A9 changes that. Its like the A7s track star big brotheran undeniably pro level shooter with a 4,5. The first thing to know is that the A9 is real small. At roughly 4 inches by 5 inches by 2. A9 is only slightly bulkier than Sonys very svelte A7 series cameras. Lightroom 5 Time Lapse Templates For Powerpoint' title='Lightroom 5 Time Lapse Templates For Powerpoint' />Learn software, creative, and business skills to achieve your personal and professional goals. Join today to get access to thousands of courses. How to Photograph the Milky Way Astrophotography Tutorials, Tools, Gear Inspiration. Canons high end sports shooter, the 1. D X Mark II is 6. Hell, even Canons mid range professional DSLR, the 5. Motion graphics tutorials cover topics from learning video effects to layering videos. Learn more about motion graphics from lynda. This July, we asked for software tips from the 2017 Microsoft Office National Champions, a set of charming teens who are officially the best at using PowerPoint, Word. The app is certainly a relic, from a time when the casual computer user couldnt crack open Photoshop or Skitch or Pixelmator or thousands of web apps. Photoshop_Lightroomhjsdj.jpg' alt='Lightroom 5 Time Lapse Templates For Powerpoint' title='Lightroom 5 Time Lapse Templates For Powerpoint' />D Mark IV is substantially bigger and heavier than the A9, and the same can be said of Nikons entries. Its amazing how much Sony has crammed into that little frame. And of course, this thing is absurdly fast. Its capable of firing off full resolution 2. JPEGs at a blistering 2. It sounds like a Gatling gun, unless you turn the sound off, in which case it is literally silent thanks to the electronic shutter more on that in a second. Even when shooting in RAW JPEG mode, I was able to fire off an 8 second burst at 1. The A9 is equipped with a wide autofocus system that covers more than 9. It is lightning fast and extremely accurate, even when shooting at its blistering top speeds. I tested it with running dogs and with people on a zip line flying right at me. Even at a shallow depth of field f2. Nothing else on the market comes close to this kind of performance. Its bananas. But let me try to explain what its like to shoot with this camera. Not to get hyperbolic here, but it almost feels like you cant miss. An example I was walking by a creek with the camera dangling off my neck, powered off. I saw a golden retriever emerge from the water and start to shake itself off. It has already started shaking before Id hit the power button to turn the camera back on, and yet I was still able to fire off a burst of 1. My A7. S which is by no means slow wouldnt have even gotten a single shot off in that time. Using the A9 almost feels like cheating. I loved shooting long exposures with it, too. Unfortunately, there was always too much moon and too much haze for me to try a nice, clear shot of the Milky Way, but Im confident it would excel there. I did get a handful of shots while driving down Highway 5. Nevada the so called Loneliest Road In America that I was really happy with. The above shot was a single exposure taken with the electronic shutter around midnight. I was side lit by the moon and backlit by an oncoming truck relax, it was very far away. It was a 2. 0 second exposure at ISO 8. Obviously, I did plenty of tweaking in Lightroom, but I use this to show you just how much dynamic range is captured in the RAW photos. In terms of low light I find myself shocked to say its nearly as good as the Sony A7. S which has been my main camera for the last two years. The low light focused A7. S is a hair brighter, but noise levels are nearly identical, and the A9 has twice as many megapixels to play with 2. MP vs 1. 2MP. Sonys image sensor does a great job of sucking up any available light even when you turn up the sensitivity that would ordinarily turn light into garbage. Pci Serial Port Driver For Windows 8.1 64 Bit. At ISO 6,4. 00 there is almost no noise at all. Even ISO 2. 5,6. 00 is extremely usable, though youll probably want to use some noise reduction in Lightroom. ISO 5. 1,2. 00 could maybe do in a pinch, but at that point things are starting to get fairly chunky. ISO 1. 02,4. 00 isnt the worst thing Ive ever seen, but youre better off avoiding it unless youve got a rare shot at Sasquatch or something. The A9 has mechanical and electric shutter options. You can manually select either, but Id recommend leaving it in auto. When shooting a single shot or a low speed burst 5 fps maximum it will default to mechanical shutter, which gives you a bit more depth in your RAW images 1. Youll also want to use the mechanical shutter if youre using an external flash the A9 doesnt have one built in. If youre shooting medium or high speed bursts, the camera switches over to electronic shutter, which is also better for fast moving objects. When using the electronic shutter you can also shoot completely silently, which is almost eerie, but awesome. The A9 does a solid job with video. It can shoot 4. K at speeds of up to 3. I will say, my least favorite thing about the cameras design is that Sony put the video startstop record button right next to the viewfinder. I mean, its practically touching it. If you use your left eye in the viewfinder as I was taught to do your nose will absolutely, 1. Its just about the worst imaginable place for that very important button to be. There are some other annoyances, too. The A9 has two SD card slots, which is great, except for some reason only one of those slots supports UHS II SD cards i. The other one is stuck at UHS I. Other grievances Sonys menu system is still extremely intimidating, to say the least. The menu is a whopping thirty six 3. Also, after shooting about 1. K 2. 4fps video spread out over 4. I noticed that I was getting an overheating warning on the screen. Thats not good. It still allowed me to snap photos, but Im not sure what would have happened if I kept pushing it. Other users have been complaining about this issue, and its definitely something Sony needs to address. Update Sony claims this issue has been fixed in a firmware update, though we have already returned our review unit, and were not able to test it for ourselves. So, all that being said, should you buy it Well, do you have the need The need for speed If so, then youre not going to find a faster camera out there. The A9 costs 4,5. While thats cheaper than the Canon 1.