First Sony a1 Hands On Reviews/Previews/Impressions
A few lucky photographers got their hands on the Sony a1 and the videos are finally starting to roll out. We didn’t get a whole lot of content at launch, but it looks like many reviewers received cameras after the announcement. Above Tony speaks about the good and the bad of the Sony A1, but he is still under embargo for sharing images and video shot on the camera.
- Gorgeous EVF with no lag that you can track moving birds while continuously shooting without issue
- EVF that’s finally equal to an OVF
- Larger and higher resolution than the Canon R5
- Good handling and the grip might be a little deeper than an a9
- Tilt screen that won’t turn to the side
- There are weird quirks like dumb stuff in the menus
- 3 useless FN buttons
- Must disable C3 because you press it accidentally a lot
- Still has dumb menus even though they are improved
- EC still annoying
- The shutter can be programmed to protect the sensor from dust
- Tracking is awesome with great human eye AF, good Animal eye AF, not great bird eye AF
- Best real-time AF yet that is much stickier
- Canon has better bird eye AF at this time
- Had a lot of out of focus shots with the Sony 600mm f/4
- In high mode with a still subject, he got 29-30fps, but in motion, it dropped to 19fps and with third party glass he got 15fps this is due to if the lens motor can keep up
- No detectable rolling shutter for stills
- Banding is very under control, but it is not entirely fixed especially under artificial lights with a fast shutter speed
- Buffer clears immediately and was able to take 260frames in 11 seconds shooting to two cards without an issue and when the buffer is full the camera only drops to about 10fps
- Battery life is excellent shot 5500 shots shooting birds and the battery was at 69% than did 23 min of 8k which burned through 17% of the battery
- Sony Flash E-shutter 1/200th and M-Shutter 1/400th work fine and the camera will auto switch to HSS when you go above
- Generic flash would only sync with a mechanical shutter to 1/250th
- Godox designed for Sony worked like a Sony flash
- Standard overheating will shut the camera down after 16 min of filming with a warning at 15 min
- If you turn off overheating protection the camera doesn’t shut down and he recorded for an hr and twenty minutes
- Testing will continue
- Canon R5 keeps up with the A1 better than you would think
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Sony A1: B&H Photo / Amazon / Moment / Adorama
Canon R5: B&H Photo / Amazon / Adorama