How do you follow a product that has ruled as the king of mirrorless cameras for the last four years? For Sony, Answer With A1 Was simple: just improve everything. the result is $ 6,500 A1 IIA powerful supporter-tier hybrid mirrorless camera that is the best of Sony to date.
The A1 II is equipped with a 50-megapixel stacked sensor, not a global sensor like A9 III, so it is not Extremely So fast. However, a mixture of its speed and resolution makes the most versatile camera in Sony’s lineup. It also affects the video side with 8k 30 FPS 10-bit capture, as well as up to 4K Slo-MO 120 FPS.
I expect very out of a Sony flagship camera, however, and while the A1 II has lots of small improvements, there is not much innovative. It is also against the impressive (and inexpensive) competition like $ 4,300 canon EOS R5 II and $ 4,000 Nikon Z8. In addition, a similar price is a supporter-level canon R1 and Nikon Z9. So despite its strength, I found Sony’s new head a bit disappointing.
Body and handling
A1 II is Sony’s best-handling camera to date. In terms of design and control placement, it is similar to the company’s high-end A9 IIIAt 743 grams (1.64 pounds), it is heavier than the 617-gram (1.36 pounds) A1, but is still like a winged compared to other professional models. Three pounds z9The new grip has a slight soft material and more round shape, so it is more comfortable and safe than the hard-edited A1. This is a great help for professionals working with heavy lenses.
If you like manual control, A1 II is a dream. It has three primary dials compared to just two on rival flagship. For both shooting and autofocus, photos, videos and so -called slow and quick mode with a dual control wheel are a mode selector ring. Around the back, yet there is another dial, as well as a joystick and several adaptable buttons.
The A1 II’s menu system is refreshed to match the A9 III. It now offers a “home” setting for your most used features, and everything is neatly arranged in the sub-minus. Sony also added an easy-to-use section to customize buttons, dials, quick menu and more.
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Despite the price difference, it is natural to compare the design and setup of A1 II with Canon R5 II as both are high performance, high-resolution cameras. R5 II feels a little good for more round shape and soft material. But the A1 II has a large array of control, so once you get used to them, it is easy and fast to shoot with it. Sony also has a more intuitive menu system that makes it easy to find the major settings.
Then A1 II has withdrawal electronic viewfinder (EVF). Although this is the same resolution as A1 on 9.44 million dots, it no longer falls into resolution at its default 120 FPS frame rate. With this, it is so fast and bright that it blows any argument for an optical viewfinder. Sony also offers even two episodes cups, including a “squishi” option, which molds to block the light around your eye, making me perfectly experience. With all that, it is easily the best EVF I have ever used.
Vloggers complained about the lack of fully artistic performance on the A1. Sony addressed that by outfiting A1 II with a bright, 3-inch, 2.1-dot screen, which not only bends up and down, but completely swing .
As before, the A1 II has a dual card slot system with SD UHS II and (Sigh) Sony’s support for CFEXPRESS Type A card that no one else uses. They are faster than SDs, but are not as fast as CFEXPress type B slot found on R5 II, Z8 and others.
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The Z-type battery distributes a decent 520 shots on a charge, slightly less than 530 on A1. It comes with a good array of ports, including full-sized HDMI and high-speed USB-C 3.2 gene 2 that allows a fast 10 GBPS file transfer. You also get mic and headphone ports, a 2.5 GBPS Ethernet connection and a flash sink port. Even Wi-Fi was upgraded with 2×2 mimo support that allows 2.5GBPS transfer speed instead of 1GBPS as before.
Display
The A1 II is the fastest high-resolution camera available, allowing you to hit up up to 30 FPS, when in electronic mode, continuously shoot raw shoots with autofocus enabled, or 10 fps with mechanical shutters. They match the speed or defeat its main rivals, but there are no improvements on the four -year -old A1. This is a surprising, given that the Bionz XR image processor borrowed from A9 III in A1 II is very fast.
Autofocus is a major improvement, though. It quickly gets locked on topics compared to before, so I watched the focus shots while firing from bursting. The A1 II also features Sony’s latest algorithm and AI III features that make the theme-identity faster and more user friendly. It can now recognize the human body, face and eyes with animals, birds, insects and many types of vehicles. At its top, A1 II is Sony’s first camera that automatically identifies subjects, so that you need not to choose yourself. In other words, if you are taking pictures of birds and to see a bear, you will not waste valuable time switching mode.
Sony is a little late for the game with this auto theme selection, as Canon and other brands have done it for some time. However, A1 II is the best implementation that I have seen till date, as it chooses and locks on topics. Like other cameras, it can get caught in situations with many subjects, sometimes selecting wrong. With human themes, Canon has an edge for its face-memorization feature on R1 and R5 that will always try to lock on a specific person.
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While the A1 II has both a mechanical and electronic shutter, the sharp readout speed of the stacked sensor means that you can use the latter almost particularly. Even in sports like golf with high speed movements, slanting and deformation when using electronic shutters is rarely an issue, and you can shoot a photo shoot without harassing the participants.
The pre-capture is a major new feature, allowing you to keep the shutter button up to 70 frames when pressed half, before pressing it completely. It reduces the chances of disappearance defining moment In a scene.
When it comes to stabilization, the A1 II also represents the company before. It offers 8.5 stops, defeating A9 III with a half stop and matches the EOS R5 II and R1. Thanks to this, I was able to nails faster photos even at the shutter speed ridiculous slowly like a full second. This is ideal when you need to shoot in low light or intentionally blowing subjects without using a trippai.
While the A1 II is accelerated, it did not take the jump of the expected generation compared to the four -year -old camera. My professional photographer friend (who already owns A1S) would not be felt and upgraded in the same way.
image quality
The A1 II is not only sharp, but also distributes high resolution, and it is a combination that you pay a large rupee. Images about any full-frame camera are sharp, with Sony’s exception to their A7R V. The dynamic range is excellent and colors are accurate when shooting JPEGS, although I prefer Canon’s warmer images directly out of the camera.
The new model has the same sensor as the A1, but Sony managed to give little boost to the dynamic range in high ISOS. As a result, you get the least noise around ISO 6,400 and images at ISO 12,800 are very useful. It is outstanding for 50MP camera, and is better than Canon’s EOS R5 II. In addition, and up to a maximum of ISO 32,000 of the camera, the noise begins to be distracted.
Raw files offer adequate rooms to dial the highlights of photographers or promote expansion in shade areas. If you need a maximum amount of dynamic range, you would like to shoot using defective compressed raw format, as harmful compressed raw files are quite worse in highly wide images. The negative side for the latter is that the shooting limit bursts up to 20 FPS and fills your memory card very fast.
While the quality of the image is outstanding, it is not an improvement on A1. For studios and landscape photographers who give importance to the image quality above all and already own A1, the possibility of A1 II is not worth investing.
Video
On paper, A1 II is a powerhouse for video, which offers 8k 30 FPS recording with 10-bit log shooting and 4K 60 FPS (with a sound up to 4K 120 FPS). It comes with a new feature that allows you to load custom luts while shooting in log (S-Tog3) mode, so you can judge your exposure better. It also has a setting that allows you to facilitate better match footage with Sony’s professional cinema cameras. It is at the top of other reforms that I have already mentioned, such as a fully articulating display and upgraded stabilization, which are also beneficial when recording videos.
8K video frame from Sony A1 II
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The autofocus has greatly improved with more reliable trekking of moving subjects, as I found when shooting a fast -running football incident when shooting. It also supports the same subject tracking mode available when capturing photos (eyes, face, body, birds, animals and vehicles).
However, looking closely, video abilities are a bit disappointing. Unlike very cheap Nikon Z8 and Canon EOS R5 II cameras, A1 II does not offer internal raw recording, possibly because CFEXPRESS type a slot cannot handle the required bandwidth. This can create a big difference with the ability to adjust colors and levels when the video quality and editing.
Nevertheless, when recording 8K or 4K 10-bit log videos at the highest data rates, image quality and dynamic range are solid. The S-Tog3 and 10-bit features give a lot of rooms to the creators to twenty-inner or bright sunshine to make the shot shot a day.
In-body stabilization can be the best that I have seen on any camera till date. Optical mode does a great job to remove any hand shock if you do not move too much. And for walking or walking, electronic stabilization (not available in 8K) provides near the intersections like Gopro, none of the sudden zools on other models. If you need to move the camera quickly, the rolling shutter is usually a non-dust. I only saw no deformation while shooting 8K video, and even then, it was minimal.
Wrap
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A1 II is a terrible camera and is near the top of the food chain in terms of speed and power. Almost every aspect has been improved on the A1, including stabilization, body design and autofocus.
However, Sony is innovation Known for Here is lacking, and above it, A1 II is Very expensive. Note that, I think it’s less. The A1 II A1 is only a mild upgradation and when it comes to the video, it is behind the Sony R5 II with Nikon Z8 and Z9.
If you already have A1, I do not think the A1 II provides enough additional additional to justify a new investment. And anyone who is more serious about the video should consider either Canon R5 II or Nikon Z8, as both offer high quality raw videos up to 8k 60p for less money. However, for the first time professionals or serious enthusiasts going to the A1 lineup, who focus on photos and have no qualifications about $ 6,500, Sony A1 II is a great pick.
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