Introduction
Sony`s looking to storm the sports photography market with its new a9 mirrorless camera.
When I started shooting sports for college publications, I was stuck working with 3 fps. Then I graduated to a new camera offering 5 fps, and gravitated towards weddings and events. Now that I`ve been with DPReview for a year and a half, I`ve gotten used to 12, 14, 18 and 24 frames per second for shooting just about everything.
To be blunt, past a certain threshold, burst shooting speeds don`t net me appreciably more keepers in my usual style of photography. But that won`t be the case with everyone, and honestly, it doesn`t hinder my enthusiasm with regards to the new Sony a9, even though that`s one of its headline features. Even setting burst speeds aside, this camera is among the best I`ve ever used, bar none. Here`s why.
Background
During my time at DPReview, Sony`s always left me feeling a little conflicted.
On one hand, the technology and features crammed into the company`s cameras are always impressive; during my interview for this job, our own Rishi Sanyal showed me Eye AF on an a7R II, and I accidentally blurted out an expletive as my jaw dropped - it was something I`d never seen before. On the other hand, I`ve consistently found the usability of Sony`s cameras to be a primary concern for me. The interface and general operation were laggy enough to be irksome, I got lost in the menus all the time (movie options should never be nonsensically shuffled among stills options), and there were times that I felt I was fighting the camera to get it to just do what I wanted.
Sony`s RX100 V is an incredibly capable pocket camera, but the series hasn`t seen any ergonomic or UI improvements in two generations.Photo by Samuel Spencer
The list of qualms I have with the a7-series in particular is full of items that, on their own, are quite insignificant; but as the list grows, they all c ...
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