[Winder]

I'd first ask why anyone would consider an a9 for landscape photography?

With that said, and while I'd add the the K-5 allowed for unprecedented DR latitude, I'd add that I've shot quite a few landscapes with the K200 and K20D's without issue. And so I'm thinking the same could be said for the a9 if someone was intent on doing so.

It would be a huge waste of money.

[JohnBee]

It would be a huge waste of money.

I agree. Then again, it could prove enough for landscapes as a secondary to sports and wildlife. Though it certainly wouldn't make sense for anyone to pay that kind of money for an all around camera imo - ouch

[Ian Stuart Forsyth]

I agree. Then again, it could prove enough for landscapes as a secondary to sports and wildlife. Though it certainly wouldn't make sense for anyone to pay that kind of money for an all around camera imo - ouch

Until we see some testing done on the camera, more specifically the intended usage for what the camera is designed for ( action photography) we might be in for a little bit of a surprise.

With cameras that are designed for this kind of work we usually see them perform rather dismally, but once you start to use them in their ideal conditions you can see increased DR for those areas and really see them pull ahead from the general purpose cameras like the K1 D810

[Dan Rentea]

Until we see some testing done on the camera, more specifically the intended usage for what the camera is designed for ( action photography) we might be in for a little bit of a surprise.

With cameras that are designed for this kind of work we usually see them perform rather dismally, but once you start to use them in their ideal conditions you can see increased DR for those areas and really see them pull ahead from the general purpose cameras like the K1 D810

Internet marketing and paid reviews are fooling only one part of photographers. Beginners and amateur photographers see videos on Youtube or read articles on DPreview and on other similar sites about how good Sony is and how "old" and borring DSLRS's became and run to the store to buy Sony.

Pro action shooters laugh and laugh when they see Tony Northrup, Rishi, Matt Granger and some other Youtube's gurus praising Sony A9. Pro action shooters know that Sony doesn't offer them:
- adequate lenses
- the same or better build quality as they have on their existing bodies
- the same battery power
- the same service and support
- the same grip and balance between the body and the tele lenses

But beginers and amateurs with a lot of many see titles like "Sony A9 is the 1Dx/D5 killer" and this type of marketing/reviews is washing their brains.

I'm happy however to see that Sony is doing such an agressive marketing because is forcing Canon/Nikon/Pentax to release cameras with more specs and features than before.

[Rondec]

Internet marketing and paid reviews are fooling only one part of photographers. Beginners and amateur photographers see videos on Youtube or read articles on DPreview and on other similar sites about how good Sony is and how "old" and borring DSLRS's became and run to the store to buy Sony.

Pro action shooters laugh and laugh when they see Tony Northrup, Rishi, Matt Granger and some other Youtube's gurus praising Sony A9. Pro action shooters know that Sony doesn't offer them:
- adequate lenses
- the same or better build quality as they have on their existing bodies
- the same battery power
- the same service and support
- the same grip and balance between the body and the tele lenses

But beginers and amateurs with a lot of many see titles like "Sony A9 is the 1Dx/D5 killer" and this type of marketing/reviews is washing their brains.

I'm happy however to see that Sony is doing such an agressive marketing because is forcing Canon/Nikon/Pentax to release cameras with more specs and features than before.

Much is hype, but if Sony A9 really can auto focus EOS lenses as fast or faster than Canon does, then the lack of lenses ceases to be a problem. I still would probably prefer to get a Canon camera if that was my main purpose, but certainly Sony has access to some of those nice L lenses and can auto focus them pretty well.

[normhead]

I'd first ask why anyone would consider an a9 for landscape photography?

We stopped using the K20D after the shooting a sunset beside a K-5. We bought a second K-5. Other people don't seem to always notice the difference. It's pretty clear to us. Where we go, there's both landscape and wildlife. Right tool for the job and all that.

The A9 as far as I can tell will be professional wildlife and sports shooters or insanely rich amateurs. But ya, when I posted my images demonstrating why we switched to a K-5 from a K20D, some people didn't get it. If you're one of those an A9 might be fine for landscape. My guess is a lot of people simply don't understand what Dynamic Range is or how it affects their images. Tracking and burst rate aren't nearly as subtle.

I believe that the DR for most film was 7 EV. Some people still like shooting film. Whatever works for you.

[Rondec]

Obviously the reason you would use an A9 for landscapes is if you spent your whole budget on that camera body and didn't have anything left for another body. A D5 isn't a landscape camera, but I warrant if you are a guy who shoots sports, but occasionally likes to do some landscape photography, you use the tool that comes to hand.

Clearly, you would just end up having to do HDRs a little more often with a sensor that has lower DR, but it can be done.

[Winder]

You Tube

You Tube

[normhead]

Sony A9 Review - YouTube

Sony Alpha Ambassador for Australia... say no more.

Not really a review, pure marketing. He lost me when he started going on about loving his Electronic Viewfinder. He's talking to somebody, but I know he's not talking to me.

[biz-engineer]

I think cameras are like cakes. Base of the cake: the things we use 100% for all of our photographs: good sensor, good glass, AF single focus, ergonomics and battery.
Then comes the cherries on the cake (things that are only used sometimes): live view, evf histogram, tilt, touch screen, video, high frame rate, very fast AF tracking etc.
Sony give a lot of cherry on a smaller cake. Just look at how well their new 12-24 and 16-35 balances not so well with the Alpha bodies. As soon as you bring those WA lenses, it's pretty much game over to carry the Sony gear into a small bag.

[JohnBee]

I think cameras are like cakes. Base of the cake: the things we use 100% for all of our photographs: good sensor, good glass, AF single focus, ergonomics and battery.
Then comes the cherries on the cake (things that are only used sometimes): live view, evf histogram, tilt, touch screen, video, high frame rate, very fast AF tracking etc.
Sony give a lot of cherry on a smaller cake. Just look at how well their new 12-24 and 16-35 balances not so well with the Alpha bodies. As soon as you bring those WA lenses, it's pretty much game over to carry the Sony gear into a small bag.

I personally never cared for smaller camera bodies personally. Which all seems rather odd to me as Sony appeared to be marketing their mirrorless camera's this way.

With that said, I guess there's nothing stopping Sony from designing smaller lenses such as the pancake ones from Pentax either.

Whatever the case, it would appear that the a9 is showing a change in direction with respect to body size as Sony seems to have added meat to their otherwise tiny mirorless bodies this round. Which seems like a move in the right direction given that their previous bodies were often criticized for cramping hands and needing grips to compensate.

[biz-engineer]

Sony Alpha Ambassador for Australia...

Ahhh ahhh ahhh. No, Sony does not pay him for presenting the A9. If you make a promo video for the Sony A9, you get cameras for free, you better say only good things about the camera if you want to continue to have free gear from Sony.

Anyway, the reason why I purchased the K1 was handling. I also tried Sony A7, Fuji XT2, Fuji XT10. And I did not like the Sonys. The only camera that was worth considering was the XT2 at almost the price of a K1.
Here in Europe, for the price of a Sony A9 system, you get a new car and not the smallest car... That's a lot of money to take photos. Think about it... that's a lot of money for having digital photos on a hard drive most of it no one cares about. Canon long lenses also cost the price of a car, but there is a minor difference, a lens can be sold second hand without losing too much money. However, Sony release quite a lot of new cameras and the prices tend to go down fairly quickly. Pentax get it right with the K1, not the best AF out there, but still the best bangs for the bucks for 99% of photographs.

[normhead]

Ahhh ahhh ahhh. No, Sony does not pay him for presenting the A9. If you make a promo video for the Sony A9, you get cameras for free, you better say only good things about the camera if you want to continue to have free gear from Sony.

But it's not the same as a guy who previously used other systems coming on and saying he likes the camera. Most of what Sony is selling he's already bought into. His spiel is really only of interest to Sony shooters. 1Dx shooters, not so much. K-1 shooters, not at all.

[JohnBee]

...an A9 might be fine for landscape. My guess is a lot of people simply don't understand what Dynamic Range is or how it affects their images.

I'm thinking bracketing will come to the rescue - not nearly as elegant as single frame solutions, though more than enough to overcome any DR limitations in landscape photography. ie, I continued bracketing my landscape shots well into the K-5, as it derived better results than with shadow recovery - better; detail, color fidelity, noise and signal amplification aberrations, latitude etc. etc.

With that said, and in getting back to the a9, I've been looking over the dpreview article and couldn't find any significant differences between the provided a7r II and a9 samples. Which apparently works out to be 1 stop shy of the apparent 14 stops of DR. Leaving the a9 with a measly 13 stops of DR



In addition to this, I found the following chart that seems to be claiming that the a9 is equal to the a7r II on DR.
Granted, the results are only estimated at this time, though I wouldn't expect drastic changes between the preliminary and official results.

Whatever the case, and with regard to the samples, it really doesn't seem as though a9 owners will have anything to worry about if these samples tell the tale. My guess is that this is is nothing more than hype at this stage - conversation piece type thing

And finally, I'd question whether Sony could add a 14bit mode to the a9 through FW as it was done with the a7r II.
My guess is that this could address the issue should users want to squeeze everything out of the sensor. - though I'm thinking 13 stops of DR will prove to be sufficient for most anyone regardless.

[ffking]

When people talk about capturing the perfect moment, fps certainly helps, but there's a couple of things to bear in mind if you take the machine gun approach:

first, say you're shooting action, then 20 fps at 1/1000s, you are still only capturing 2% of the action - it increases you chances of getting a usable shot, but there's still a big chance of missing the 'perfect' shot.

Second, it's not just the time factor of having to look through 20, 40, 60 .... shots to find the peak moment , not just the rate you fill up memory - it's the wear and tear effect of the number of actuations. I know this is using an electronic shutter, but at that rate (given no buffering) you could get through the K-1s 300,000 shutter actuations in a little over 4 hours. Yes this is a spurious observation - by the same logic you could wear out a K-1 shutter in 20 hours - but the point is that if a camera is marketed as a machine gun, then the durability of components must be pretty high to avoid somewhat disgruntled customers - that's something time will tell.