Sony a1 - TOP 10 WOWs!! 🤩 _ $6500 March 2021 RELEASE!

Happy new gear hybrid shooters, it's Jason Vong, and today marks a historic moment in the Sony Alpha full frame E-mount universe, and that's with the introduction of a brand new camera, the first in its series, the Sony A1. Go ahead, make all the A1 sauce and the Jet Li jokes all you want, but this is the truest hybrid camera in every sense. It's pulling the best of the best from the other Alpha cameras, the speed from the A9, the resolution from the A7R, the sensitivity from the A7S. Okay, maybe not the sensitivity from the A7S, but we do have some of the best video features from the A7S III in the A1, mainly the 10-bit 4.2.2 up to 4K 120p with picture profiles. On top of that, this camera can shoot in 8K. Now, this was a very tight-lipped announcement. You would have to be in an inner circle of another inner circle within Sony just to know about this product, and a lot of you seem to think that I'm part of that inner circle, and that's definitely not the case, and I can totally explain why there is an image of me and Vivian in that presentation later, but the point that I'm trying to make is that there was no major leakage of this camera, not even a single photo. I literally found out about the A1 along with everybody else, so if you clicked on this video thinking that I have a hands-on impression of this camera, I'm sorry to disappoint. However, check back in a couple of weeks. Hopefully, I'll have a demo unit in hand to play with, so let me know in the comments down below what you want to see from my video, but today's video, I'm going to do a breakdown of the brand new A1, talk about what's really exciting to me, why you should be excited for it, address some of the major questions that you might have, like, where's the A7 IV? What can we expect from the A7 IV now, now that this camera exists? What will be the future of the A7R and the A9, now that there's another major behemoth in the market? And really, who are these cameras for? Why would someone want to buy a camera like this? This is the A9R that everyone and their mom have been chattering about on the rumor sites for the last few years, except they're not calling it the A9R, they're calling it the A1. This is their brand new flagship model, completely dethroning the A9, and obviously, this is going to be for the high-end pros, the ones specifically in the sports and the news professions, but I think who's watching this video right now, whom I'm really talking to, are the rich enthusiasts. Now, you might think I'm part of that rich enthusiast crowd. No, I'm actually part of the crowd who's going to be going into debt, again, buying this camera and delaying myself from buying a house for like another 10 years or so. This camera costs $6,500. Really made me glad that I didn't pull the second trigger on another A7S III. I really, really love this camera. I was considering getting the second one, but now that the A1 has been announced, I think I might be picking that one up. Let's start off with number one, 50 megapixels. High resolution is no longer exclusive to the A7R series. The first three iterations of the A7R was capped at 42 megapixels, and the latest iteration, the Mark IV, is capped at 61 megapixels. The A1 is sitting comfortably in between that with 50 megapixels. So, with the future of the A7R series, it's still going to have its defining crown feature. It's going to keep climbing up that megapixel ladder. Now, for you A7R III and IV shooters, if you ever take advantage of the pixel shift multi-shooting, you can now do it with the A1. You can do a 16-image composite with approximately 199 megapixels, and you can also do this with flash sync as well, up to 1 over 200th of a second. Pretty insane. But for the rest of us, I think what we really care about is what is that effective megapixel look like when we are shooting in crop mode, and that is 21 megapixels. Not too bad. It's a shy under the 24 standard megapixels that we get from the A7 III and the APS-C cameras, but it's still enough to work with if we're shooting with crop lenses, or we just want that extra reach when we're shooting with the full-frame lenses. Now, what's also interesting here is if you shoot only in JPEG or in the high efficiency image format, which is brand new to this camera, you can do 50 megapixels in the larger JPEGs, but 21 megapixels in the medium JPEGs. But what's interesting about the 21 megapixel in the medium JPEG is that it takes that 50 megapixels oversample and downing it into that 21 megapixel file. So you're getting really crispier image results in that JPEG or even in that high efficiency image format. Now, this is going to be more applicable to people who aren't going to be doing any sort of editing, people who shoot sports, live sports, live events. For me, concerts, these are all shoot to publication. These have to be out within seconds after the show or after the event. And with the high efficiency image format, it's twice the compression without any sort of quality compromise. So there's less data to transfer, less to upload, and it's faster for publishing. With this camera being 50 megapixel, I'm a little more hopeful that the A7 IV will get a megapixel bump now, something like 30 megapixels. That's just me being hopeful. But speaking of 30, number two, the A1 has 30 frames per second blackout free. That's 10 more frames per second over the A9. Now, just to give you guys a little bit of clarity right here, you only get 30 frames per second with compressed raw. With uncompressed raw and the losses compressed raw, it can only go up to 20 frames per second, which is still not bad. That's literally A9 speed right there. But what's interesting here is that the amount of frames per second is assignable on your dial. So the high plus is the full 30 frames per second or whatever is the highest for that particular raw format. But the high medium, the high low, that's customizable in increments of five. So if you're like, hey, I don't need to be spraying and praying, you can set the medium to 15 frames per second and the low to be only five frames per second. So you're not wasting space or generating too many images. But again, 30 frames per second, it is a super overkill reserved for sports, wildlife, anything for that split second accuracy. But this can be advantageous for wedding shooters and street shooters as well. Moving on to number three, with the new 30 frames per second shooting, the autofocus performance also got a bump. We now have 759 phase detection autofocus points. So 92% screen coverage along with the same 425 contrast detection autofocus area. But what's crazy about it is that it's able to do 120 calculations per second. That's twice the amount that the A9 can do. But what does that mean? 120 calculations per second. So what we're really talking about is the autofocus and the auto exposure calculation. So with the autofocus, what that means is that it's able to keep up with a fast moving subject that's coming towards or away from the camera. It's going to keep focus on that subject. With auto exposure, when you're shooting in a natural light situation and you're following a subject that's going from a bright place to a dark place or a dark place to a bright place, it's able to change that exposure on the fly, giving you a more accurate exposure for the photo that you're taking. And this is all thanks to the Bionz, okay, not Bionz, Bionz XR chip, which gives it eight times more processing power. And with this eight times more processing power, number four, there's improvement, huge improvement with human and animal eye autofocus. So Sony is saying there's 30% improved recognition over the A9 of human eyes in variety of directions. So now you're able to still get the eyes no matter like how much you turn, I guess, or which direction you shoot at. And that's insane because the eye AF is already so good. I'm looking back at it right now and it's following me pretty damn well. And it's also going to do better with animal profile shots. So let's say you have a cat or a dog that's turning off too much to the side, like a profile right here, it'll still be able to grab its eye. Or if your pet's looking at you upside down, it can still get the eye as well. I'm saying like you're going to get this camera for pet photography. This is an overkill for pet photography, okay? You can literally wait for the next iteration of the A7 or the A6000 series and likely that improved animal eye autofocus will trickle down to those camera. Oh, and wait for it, bird eye AF. So this is huge, right? If you do a lot of birding photography, I guess apparently there's a huge improvement to capturing the bird's eye with the animal eye autofocus. So for all you hardcore bird photographers, this is a fantastic thing for you. Now, another autofocus feature that they're introducing is the temporary canceled real-time tracking. Okay, they didn't call it that, but that's the best way to describe it. So let's say you're tracking like two skiers, right? In the same frame as they're flying by and you have the tracking on one skier, right? But let's just say, hey, you want to get focused on the second skier. What you can do is hold down on a button and it will temporarily cancel the tracking on the first skier and you can focus on the second skier and get focused on them. And when you let go of that button, the tracking goes back to the first skier. And hey, that's pretty cool. That's going to enable more variety of different shots to deliver. All right, that's a little too specific, okay? Let's just open it up to somewhat more of a general application for other users out there. Electronic shutter, okay? So we're kind of seeing the same things. We have the anti-distortion shutter, which reduces the rolling shutter when capturing things like a golf swing. You know, that golf stick will not be warped as much when you're shooting with the electronic shutter and it's quiet. So you don't ruin Tiger Woods concentration. I don't shoot golf, I don't know. But this is really helpful for if you're shooting on a movie set, which sometimes I do to capture behind the scenes on things, also live but quiet performances. But what's really cool is that the auto flicker shooting is much improved. So again, if you're shooting somewhere that has a lot of fluorescent lighting, you're shooting an in-game, indoor basketball game, or again, that live performance that your tree kit's in, you're not going to get that banding that you would if you're shooting with a faster shutter speed that those fluorescent light, I hate those lights so much, that would cause. And all of this is included in a all-in-one silent mode, which is all pre-programmed to enable all the necessary parameters for you to do electronic silent shooting. Now for flash photographers, you can do flash shooting with electronic shutter now. Up to 1 200th of a second in full frame mode and 1 over 250th of a second in APS-C mode. Now speaking of flash photography, number six, with the A1 and mechanical shutter, not electronic shutter anymore, you can actually do 1 over 400th of a second flash sync speed in full frame mode and 1 over 500 flash sync speed in APS-C mode. And that is wild, okay? I remember when I first started experimenting with speed lights and the rule was to never ever go past 1 over 250th of a second or something like that, or else you get this black streak over your image. This is going to allow for more possibilities when you're using flash photography and you're shooting and you're capturing action. And the way that they're able to do this is with the new dual driven shutter system, okay? So apparently conventional cameras use a spring system, but in the A1, it also uses an electromagnetic drive actuator to make this possible. Yeah, it sounds super understandable, right? But the flash sync speed needs to be either in auto or enabled in the menu for you to take advantage of that faster sync speed. Now, likely it's going to be put on auto in default out of the box, so it will take advantage of that faster sync speed. But in case you need to turn it off, there is an option for that. Moving on to number seven, oh baby, 8K 30 frames per second. Wait for it. No crop. Boys, it is finally here. 8K, oh my God, we literally talk and deliberate about this if it's necessary or not. For the last, I don't know how many years, but God dang, we finally have 8K in the Sony Alpha camera, in a Sony Alpha camera. It's still an overkill in my opinion, but hey, it's a step towards the direction that we need to be heading. But what's the catch here, hmm? Well, Sony is sort of taking a jab at Canon here, right? They're saying that the A1 can shoot 8K for approximately 30 minutes, possibly more, before needing to cool off. Now, this is not to be confused with a 30 minute recording limit. There's no recording limit on this camera in any shape or form. It's just that it's been tested to survive for at least 30 minutes. Now, I don't know anything about the whole 8K Canon debacle. I just know there's a debacle. You can catch me up in the comments down below, but 30 minutes, at least here on the spec sheet, 30 minutes is a good chunk of time, for me, at least. I probably wouldn't use this for more than a few minutes, if I'm being honest here. And I would use 8K to do these very clean, nice, scenic, landscapy shots that I love to do on a gimbal. And what's crazy is that it's technically shooting 8.6K, but it's down-sampling it into an 8K composition, so you're getting richer-looking footage. Like, okay, damn, all right, 8.6K. And of course, you have the age-old reasoning about shooting in higher resolution, but editing in a smaller composition. Same principle applies with 8K footage. Shoot an 8K, edit in a 4K composition. You have the ability to crop in or reframe or have that extra bit of data to use for post stabilization in the editing software. Now, of course, this camera does also have gyro data recording capabilities, so you can also throw it into Catalyst Browse for extra and better stabilization. But, you know, just to throw it for extra sake right there about the advantage of shooting in 8K is that you do have that little bit of extra information around the edge for your editing software to post stabilize. Even for weddings, by the way, coronavirus knocked on my door last year and, say, ripped your wedding career. But anyways, when I shoot weddings, again, it'd be nice to set up this camera as a wide shot, shoot it in 8K, and be able to punch in for a fake secondary angle. And this is, of course, for short non-Catholic ceremonies, right? But also for things like interviews or multi-cams, it's just a great way to fake a close-up shot if needed when you shoot in 8K. Nice to have, but not necessary. And I say this, of course, again, 8K is still an overkill. It's nice to have, but it's not primarily why we would be getting this camera. Now, there are a couple of other minor catches when you're shooting in 8K. 8K is not going to work in APS-C Super 35 mode, so you would only be able to use it in full-frame mode. 8K is also only limited to XAVC HS, which means H.265 only. So it's likely to help keep the file size small while maintaining the quality. And hey, that's not a bad thing. That means you can shoot 8K onto an SD card. Now, this next bit right here might upset a few videographers and some filmmakers if they were planning on getting this camera for 8K. It's limited to 10-bit 4.2.0 internal. So that means no 10-bit 4.2.2 internal with 8K. And when you output this via HDMI to an external monitor, I think you're also capped at 8-bit 4.2.0. Now, again, this is not going to be a major deal to me because that's not why I'm getting this camera for, for the 8K. But I don't know, there might be people who would complain about this. So let me know in the comments down below if this rustles your jimmies. But number eight, surprisingly, this camera has 4K up to 120 frames per second, 10-bit 4.2.2, all eye. Oh my God, I am losing my voice here. This is the most I've talked in a while, but you can tell I'm genuinely excited about this camera. It's surprising because they are taking the best of the best things about the Sony A7S III and putting it into the A1. They're not holding back any punches. They're literally making this the truest hybrid camera in every sense. So we have the amazing photo features, and we're also getting all the amazing video features from the A7S III. So 4K, 120, 4K, 60, 10-bit 4.2.2, all eye. It will record video with a lot of that data. Now, is there any cropping? Yes, only a 10% crop in 4K, 120, or a 10% crop when you're using active stabilization. And I don't think you can use active stabilization in 4K, 120, like the A7S III. So in either of those modes that you're in, you're going to get a 10% crop. Speaking of crop, if you're shooting in APS-C Super 35 mode, what you're getting is a 5.8K oversampling. So it's shooting in 5.8K, but downsampling into a 4K composition. So you're getting really crispy 4K footage when you're shooting in APS-C Super 35 mode. Now, this does not work with 4K, 120, though. It just heads up on that. But the other surprising thing is that the A1 has picture profiles with S-Cinetone. So you can shoot S-Log2, S-Log3, and Hybrid Log Gamma with 15 plus stop of dynamic range. Now, this is surprising because the A9 and the A9 Mark II does not have any sort of picture profiles, but it has some of the best autofocus for videos. And filmmakers and videographers would literally be like, Sony, we would love to pick up this camera, but you did not include picture profiles. Like, why? Why did you hold back on that? And boom, now they're throwing it into the A1, thank God. Now, like the A7S III, you also get 16-bit raw output up to 4K 60p with the A1. Moving on to number nine, the question in everyone's mind after I said all that is, is the low light as good as the A7S III? And honestly, that remains to be seen, but likely no. If anything, it might be on par up to a certain point, but the A7S III will likely still come out on top. Because the highest limit for the A7S III is 409,600 ISO expanded. The A1 is only up to 102,400 expanded. So do the math. It's four times the amount-ish, kind of, not really. On top of that, the low megapixel count, it's what's needed to reduce the amount of noise that you see in the image and the footage. So in terms of the cleaner image and video in low light situations, the A7S III is going to be better than the A1. But earlier, I also said it might be on par up to a certain point. So just for comparison, just for illustration sake, not comparison sake, but illustration sake, if you're shooting 12,800 on the A1 and on the A9, sorry, the A7S III, it might look the same. You might get some clean image, but when you start pushing past that 16,000, 20,000, 40,000 or whatever, the A7S III might still look a lot cleaner compared to the A1. A1 might be looking really noisy. Again, I just threw out a random number, but that's what I'm thinking right now. Until we get the cameras in hand, we're not gonna know. Number 10. You might have flipped out about this, but there is no flip out screen on the A1. You might think it's odd because we have a flip out articulating screen on the ZV-1, the A7C, and the A7S III, but this camera, the A1, is using the original tilting screen articulation, which is fine because this camera is really designed for the person behind the camera. The flip out screen can be troublesome at times, especially when you're shooting photos. When I was shooting out of the helicopter in Vegas, my strap would keep getting in the way. It would keep blocking the screen and I didn't like that. And I would have much preferred using the original screen articulation from the older Sony model. So this camera, again, is designed more for the person behind the camera. So the original screen articulation is fine. All right, number 11 is sort of like a wrap up, just sort of the tiny things that I've missed out on that I didn't really expand on, but they're really important to know. We have a new raw option now. So in addition to compressed raw and uncompressed raw, right in between, we have a lossless compressed raw. That's going to give you a slightly better raw quality over compressed raw. Duh. Yes, it's using the new menu system like the A7S III. You can also do four channel recording like the A7S III with 48 kilohertz up to 24 bit. Through the live viewfinder, you have a 240 frames per second refresh rate, which is nice. You can also do panning shots with electronic shutter, meaning if you slow your shutter speed down and you're trying to capture something that's going by really fast, but you want to create that sense of motion while keeping your subject relatively in focus, you can do that now without your viewfinder being too wonked out on you when you're using a slow shutter speed and you can keep up with your subject that way. It's hard to describe, but it's easier to understand once you see a visual of it. And yes, they're using the same Z battery, so there's no difference in batteries. It still takes SD cards, but also like the A7S III, it can use the CFexpress type A cards as well. In the USB-C department, we have an upgrade 3.2 with power delivery. So you can plug a USB-C charger onto, into the A1 and be able to do long recording without draining the battery. So there's going to be a lot more power output coming from the USB-C. They also have built-in Wi-Fi so you can, I believe, tether your images to your computer on the spot wirelessly. I'm going to have to double check on that, but if not, you can use a 1000BASE-T ethernet connection or the USB-C to tether to a computer. So as you shoot, those images will pop up onto your computer and it takes full size HDMI and it has a flash sync terminal. Okay. So the reason why I was in the presentation of the A1 is because on this same exact day, they just dropped the brand new Xperia Pro smartphone and me and Vivian were actually on the Xperia Pro project. The camera in that photo is actually the A7S III. I'm so sorry to disappoint, but they included that slide because they wanted to show the compatibility of the Xperia Pro with their Alphaline cameras, because the Xperia Pro has a micro HDMI connection. So you can plug in your cameras to the phone and use it as an external monitor, but also you can tether your stream from the cameras over 5G to do live streaming, which is pretty damn cool. We got a chance to beta test that out. If you want to know more about it, let me know in the comments down below, but that's not going to be in this video because I'm getting raspy from my excitement talking about this camera. Now for the rest of us who is just like, Hey, this camera is way out of my budget. Where's the A7 IV? So now that Sony has this big launch on this big camera, we probably won't see anything that's going to top this camera for like another few years, right? Probably. So now they can be, now they're able to start working, not start working, but start rolling out the updates for the other cameras. So hopefully we'll be seeing the A7 IV middle of this year, end of this year. Either way, it's due for an update. We might see an update for the A6000 series, the APS-C line. Hopefully we'll get 4K 60 or 4K 120 in those smaller bodies. Now, regarding the A7R and the A9 series, I don't think the A1's rendering them completely obsolete, right? I think Sony's going to keep building on the iterations of the A7R and the A9 because there are going to be people out there who don't need all the fancy bells and whistles of the A1. They just need certain video, photo, or to speed capabilities of these certain cameras. So for example, photographers who don't need all the 8K and all that stuff, they can still opt for the A7R or the A9. And for the video folks, let's be real here. They're probably going to get the FX6 or something or the FX9 or something like that. But if they want a smaller portable form factor, they're likely probably going to go for the A7S III and not the A1. Why spend an extra $2,000 for this high-end A1 camera and not go for something cheaper that has everything that you need? But man, the A1, it is super exciting because you know they're going to put the best of the best, the latest innovations in the future iterations of this camera. And it's just all going to be sneak peeks and sneak previews of what's to come for the lower end Sony cameras. And I say lower end, but you know these cameras on the bottom of the pyramid are still flipping fantastic. Anyways, I'm hoping to get a demo unit of this camera very soon. Let me know in the comments down below what you want to see from my video. Guys, thank you so much for watching and I'll see you guys in the next video. Peace.