Backscatter Underwater Video & Photo is the largest underwater imaging equipment supplier in the world. They love the water, and they personally dive and shoot with the gear they sell. This article originally appeared on their website, and is reproduced here with permission.
With the high speed shooting of the Sony a9 mirrorless camera and just released Nauticam NA-A9 underwater housing, we decided the best underwater photography test was to take it to the island of Guadalupe off the Baja California coast to shoot great white sharks.
The white sharks are a perfect subject to test with this camera due to their speed, relative unpredictability, stealthiness, and camouflage. All of these factors require a camera to have fast and accurate autofocus, fast continuous shooting mode, and a really deep image buffer to capture as many pictures as possible to nail that one special shot.
Sony designed the Sony a9 to do just that and aimed this camera to directly compete with the Nikon D5 and Canon 1DX II, both of which are the top cameras from Nikon and Canon for high-speed shooting.
Sony a9 Camera, Nauticam NA-A9 Housing, Sony 16-35mm Lens. Shot at 1/250 F8 ISO 320
Blazing Fast Autofocus Performance
The Sony a9 has a crazy amount of AF points at 693 when set in wide mode that covers 93% of the frame and updates focus at a stunning rate of 60 times per second. I used the Sony 16-35mm f/4 lens exclusively for this trip and let the camera pick from the 693 autofocus points on its own. With this camera and lens combination, I did not have any problems with the camera and lens not tracking the subject, even during high speed `attacks` of the sharks going after the bait, when letting the camera choose on its own among the 693 AF points. Only when a shark was at the limit of visibility did the AF system lose the subject and started to track the water surface instead. When a shark came back to be within the limits of visibility, the A ...
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