Three two one first it's David Evelyn From the camera store and today we're Taking a deep dive into the Sony [Music] A93 this Sony a93 is a camera that is Perfectly designed for things like Wildlife Sports photojournalism it is an Action camera this camera is all about Speed from it's 120 frames per second But the big headline feature is global Shutter this is brand new it's a first Full-frame camera to feature Global Shutter in the camera world and this is Exciting because it opens up the door For new possibilities for both Photography and video so Dave and I have Had the opportunity to test one back Home we've been doing as many tests as We possibly could a lot of really fun Stuff so we can give you our Comprehensive review there's a lot to Like about this Cameron when we first Got our hands on it in New York we Notice that it already feels a lot Better than the previous Sony cameras do Yeah they've made this camera a lot Easier to use and this is good news for The entire Sony lineup they made a lot Of refinements with the ergonomics the Shutter button and just the experience Of using this camera has come such a Long way especially with the A9 Series This is a high-end offering from Sony And theyve packed this camera full of
Some really highend features and right Off the bat one thing you notice is that The viewfinder is gorgeous in this Camera it's 9.4 million dots with a Resolution at Jes at 120 HZ and you can Even go up to 240 HZ if you want an even Smoother experience yeah speaking of the Experience I love that they added a C5 Button on the front of the camera all of The dials and everything feel really Good and we have the fully articulating Hinge screen which looks pretty good Nice and bright light conditions we do Have an optional grip and as far as Media goes for this camera we have the CF Express type A cards or or SD cards It's dual card slots dual compatible so I think Dave it checks that box for you I do like the fact that both card slots Are dual compatibility which is really Nice you can mix and match cards or use Two of the same kind of cards I do like That they've thought of that the size And handling of this camera is still Very much on par with the A9 series and It's weather sealed so it's a very Durable camera and it has a lot of other Professional ports so we have the USBC 3.2 so it's for fast charging and data Transfer you also have ethernet Wi-Fi And a full size HDMI so it has all of The boxes that would be checked for Professional use and that's what we're Going to get into is the professional
Capability and performance of this Camera so I was very excited to get my Hands on this camera and put it through Some torture tests against some other Cameras because Global shutter is a very Big deal in the Camera World Traditionally all these sensors have to Do what's called scanning and they'll Scan from top to bottom of the sensor And there's a phenomena called rolling Shutter where the subject that you're Shooting will move as the sensor is Scanning giving you some weird kind of Effects kind of a Jello effect what what Have you so Global shutter is going to Remedy that so we went out put it Through a torture test we went out to a Field outside of Calgary where you're Allowed to shoot things and we had a lot Of fun blowing some stuff up and we got Some really cool shots like this but the Most interesting shot for me was we Brought out a compound bow so somebody Was shooting a bow and arrow and what You can see when we shot against these Other two cameras we had the Canon R3 Plus the Nikon Z 9 both very fast Scanning sensor cameras one's a little Bit higher resolution and we're shooting At 116,000 of a second shutter speed so Plenty enough fast enough shutter speed To freeze the action so it's coming down To how fast the sensor can scan if you Take a look at the Canon R3 here as the
Archer releases the arrow you can see The bow in the string you can see it's Not perfectly straight like it should be And as the sensor is scanning the string Is moving so it's giving us this kind of Rolling shutter effect now when you take A look at the a93 you can see that the Bow lines are perfectly straight this is The advantage of global shutter how it Freezes the action it captures Everything all at once in a single shot Without having to scan from top to Bottom the negating any rolling shutter This is very impressive to work with the Two other features I really enjoyed About shooting that day was the Pre-capture mode I mean as you can Imagine trying to time somebody who's Firing a gun and you want to capture That shot it was so nice to be able to Have them shoot the gun and then I push The button and I can still go back a Second and a half and play back it's Captured all of that now the other part We were having a lot of fun with was Being able to shoot at 120 frames per Second but at the time of our launch our Camera is only able to do 16,000 of a Second in continuous and you can take a Look at these series events here and It's a lot of fun shooting things and Being able to play it back at 120 frames Per second now we can also go up to 180,000 of a second but we had the time
The shot quite effectively and I was Able to get a shot with Drew here we Able to make it work and you can see What 80,000 of a second will do now Future firmware is going to unlock it Where you can do continuous at 80,000 of A second that's going to open up a whole Bunch of possibilities one of the caveat When it comes to shooting 120 frames per Second is the ability to autofocus while You're shooting 120 frames per second Now Sony has published a list of lenses That are compatible with it and can keep Up this camera has a 24.6 megapixel Sensor it is stacked and we don't have To say that it's fast scanning because Of the global shutter it's all being Exposed at the same time as Dave was Mentioning and it's interesting because This camera is definitely breaking Barriers with this Global shutter and Sony mentioned that it was doing so Without really impacting ISO or dynamic Range so this is one thing we were very Curious about it was really tough for us To test at the launch but now that we've Had more time with the camera we've been Able to look at raw files with imaging Edge software we have some answers so One of the things that we notice right Away is that the base ISO for this Camera is 250 what this means is that You can't give it as much light as its Peers that have a base ISO of 100 so on
A bright sunny day like today we're Having a base ISO of 100 would be Beneficial you just can't go to that low Level now of course for landscape Photographers or people that are Shooting other things for having that Base ISO of 100 is really important for Sports and action photograph pH graphers Typically you're going to be increasing Your your ISO anyways so you can hit Those really fast shutter speeds so is This going to be an issue for you you're Just going to have to decide on how You're going to use this camera but Generally speaking I don't see this as a Huge problem now when it comes to Dynamic range we are noticing that this Has a little bit less dynamic range but Whatever Sony's doing in the file Processing is making things look pretty Good I think there's a little bit of Noise reduction happening in the files But what we're seeing is that they're Definitely is a little bit of an impact Compared to other cameras in a similar Class of camera one of the biggest Advantages with a global shutter camera For SN speed and strobe photography is Being able to shoot up to 180,000 of a Second Dave and I were very excited About this and we wanted to be able to Do it back home where we could take it Into the studio and see what we can do So we went over to mass Studio our good
Friends down the street from the camera Store and we were able to check out how This was going to work for strobe Photography somebody who's also very Excited about the spec on this camera 80,000 of a second SN speed is our Tech Guy and probably the biggest Sony nerd That I know Gary our Tech guy from the Store first hands on experience with This camera so far this is so Nice now you run a Sony A1 and you Immediately notice a difference in the Grip yes I really like it it's really Comfortable in the index finger compared To my alpha one interesting it's uh Super super it's natural it feels more Natural in my hand that's good that's Good now you shoot a lot of Cosplay you Shoot a lot of flash indoors Outdoors Does 80,000 of a second excite you when It comes to suiting flash yes yes it Does um the biggest thing is i' after You know seeing everybody's reviews and All that all the stuff on on YouTube Regarding is is how we don't have to use Highs speeded sink anymore I can use High full power at at high duration at Bright bright light outside it wouldn't Be a problem with this guy and that's be Super cool because 880,000 of the second We can Crush any ambient light Regardless of the sunny conditions right We can make day look like night and just Use a strobe to fill in the flash really
Interesting is to hear you say that like You have to fine tune sort of exactly Where is where where I'm not surprised Because uh over the many years of you And I having discussions about flashes We know your your highest peak is your First when you hear that first pop and Then it dips right off the bat and it's Interesting to see where you can where You have to splice it to see exactly Where it is so I appreciate you coming Out Gary uh we're going to carry on with Our review here as well but it's going To be an ongoing process to really fine Tune this camera now of course one of The things that is really cool about Shooting at 80,000 of a second is being Able to shoot outdoors in conditions Like today basically if you're shooting Say into the Sun and you want to be able To control your ambient light as much as Possible having that flexibility up to a Crazy fast shutter speed is very cool Very beneficial most cameras today Actually fullframe mirorless cameras can Shoot up to 1 250th of a second there's Some that can shoot up to 1/400th of a Second and even Leaf shutter cameras Like a Hos blad can only shoot up to 1/ 14,000 of a second so we're getting a Lot more flexibility with this Global Shutter camera so it does open up a lot Of possibilities I mean shooting on a Bright SUNY day like today and being
Able to crush my ambient light with the Shutter speed alone and still retain Full flash power not having to go into Highp speed sink and reduce my flash Power certainly a really powerful tool Now what I found was there's a little Bit of experimentation oh yeah if you Shoot at 500th of a second or below no No problem at all syncing it but when You go up to 18 0,000 of a second which Is of course what I did first thing Grabbed an 8600 Pro and the transmitter And went to 80,000 and I was having Trouble syncing it because you're Actually faster than the flash duration A lot of times and you have to time the Flash sync one thing but also the cycle During the flash itself so so what Sony Has done is giving you the ability to Delay your flash die the millisecond Basically you have a chance to go from Z To 1,000 millisecond delay between when It actually fires and sinks your shutter Speed speed now it's impressive because You really need to do that and I found It was frustrating at first because at 180,000 of a second you're actually Taking a sliver of The Flash cycle so You might not get the most powerful Section of that flash cycle and you have To play around and experiment to get Exactly the results you need and it Changes with your shutter speed and it Changes with the power of your flash
These parameters are all different so You almost had to create a cheat sheet Of what settings and what shutter speed To make it work consistently now once You got it dialed in it was a lot of fun And we were able to get some really cool Results out of it but it did take some Experimentation to make it work yeah and Really the bottom line here is that the Flash technology is not as advanced as The camera so the camera is outpacing The strobes that we have I do think Dave That it's going to get easier you might Not need a super Advanced cheat sheet at One point and I think that now that we Actually have a use case for having a Short flash speed it would actually give The the manufacturers a challenge to be Able to come out with some new Technology on their side so I'm excited To see how this evolves for sure but I Also have to mention that that with Sony In particular I mean this is kind of Pioneered technology for them as well And anytime that they've pioneered Technology they've improved on it fairly Quickly but we have some very cool Technology to play with definitely some New things to learn about and this gives So much more creative freedom and I Think has a lot of potential for the Future and speaking of things in the Future and Technology getting better and Better we can't forget to talk about the
Autofocus with all the machine learning I mean this is Sony's best autofocus Performance and I feel like some of us Even forget to talk about autofocus Performance because it just works so Well it's great we've got like you know The real time autofocus tracking on the Previous models was very good but this Is their most recent one with their AI Built into it as well you know we we Forget that how good it really is and we Don't really need to criticize it Because it's hard to criticize it is so Good tenacious when it finds situations You know shooting hockey shooting Different sports it does such a great Job of holding on being sticky on the Subject doing body recognition face and Eye detection I mean I've always been Impressed with Sony realtime tracking Autofocus and I think that they're Really hitting it out of the park here The other thing we have to also mention For low light shooting and a variety of Applications is that we have eight stops Of inbody image stabilization using Their five access system eight stops of Stabilization is so impressive when it Comes to photography but even more Impressive with videography so we're Going to bring Drew on the camera now And talk about his experience with video With the a93 all right Drew we're Excited for a video because this is the
First full-frame camera with a Viewfinder that has This Global shutter Sensor now compared to other cameras Like you were comparing to the z9 and The R3 what was image quality like for Video I mean we talked a little bit the Dynamic range isn't quite as high but I I struggle to find a big difference s Log 3 they definitely have touched the Color up it looked really good it graded Phenomenally well uh we'll have a couple Of test shots that you guys can see and This is the first Sony camera that does No crop 4 k220 I I honestly forget 4K 1220 on even the fx3 has a crop 4K 60 is Down sampled from the full sensor Readout 4K 120 isn't but you got to have Some compromises somewhere and then the Uh 1080p at 240 I'm all of it looked Good all of it looked clean colors were Coming across pretty well and yeah for For all of the talk of lower dynamic Range I wasn't really having any any Issues with it yeah and then from a Functionality standpoint of course you Can take advantage of that eight stops Of inbody image stabilization for a Video and it it's eight stops of inbody Image stabilization like when people Talk about you know seven eight stops I'm so used to them being dual Stabilization or oh you need the Electronic stabilization boosted or Something no it's just eight stops EV
Direct in body you don't even need to Use the new catalyst so like it's going To be insane to see with all the extra Boosts and stuff apply uh they're Starting to say gimbal style Stabilization and I'm starting to Believe them honestly at this point now From a functionality standpoint Ergonomics is again very nice you got That evf full-size HDMI port gives you Some benefits there uh just we keep Ragging on like full-size HDMI ports They're just so much better they're so Much more usable you don't torque on Them quite as hard the data TR it's 16bit raw coming out of the HDMI like They really did not skimp on the video Which is something I love to see cuz so Often we see these Action Sports cameras Where they're like oh hyper focused on Action sports photography and then they Have another camera where it's Action Sports video but it really does feel Like they they took a good look at this And went this is what videographers and Photographers both need and they smash The two of them together so did you find That there was any disadvantages in like Some maybe use cases where you wouldn't Choose this as a video Tool uh yeah a Couple of small ones uh so the inbody Stabilization excellent but when we Turned it on I was noticing it was Starting to soften a little bit and
Additionally uh it does feel like There's more aggressive noise reduction Just directly into the footage I know You're mentioning that as well and it Does have worse contrast in lower light Situations so really nothing that I we Weren't expecting honestly everything That's going on but with the lack of Rolling shutter artifacting being Nonissue yeah it's funny how when you're Watching video and your mind kind of Gets used to seeing like the Jello Effect the rolling shutter but then when You don't see it there's just something In your brain that clicks that this is Like higher production quality that it Just looks really good almost not hyper Real but it just gives you that that More clear precise look do and the fact That this is again the first Global Shutter full-frame system yeah Global Shutters have been used a lot in video And Cinema cameras but you don't have Things like Ibis good autofocus no evf And so this is exciting for the world of Video so and there's literally nothing Else on the market like that it makes it A really compelling option and and Honestly something that I would struggle To not pick in in most cases well Dave After a lot of testing with this camera Trying to figure out all the puzzle Pieces of things that we didn't have the Answers to in our launch I think our
Sentiments about this camera are still True I 100% agree I mean we put it Through in the studio and playing around With the flashes which was honestly Quite frustrating at first for me Because I really had to figure out how To get into the brain of this camera and Get my sync speeds happening with the Different flash powers and make it work That way it was very impressive to see What this camera is capable of and you Can totally see how this camera is Purpose-built for high-end Sports and Action photographers yeah and video as Well I mean again this is a very Compelling video tool This Global Shutter does provide some new Opportunities some new technology that We haven't seen before from Sony or Other full-frame mirrorless camera Manufacturers now is this camera Niche I Would still say yeah it is it doesn't Check all the boxes of being kind of Like the ultimate Flagship camera you Know the resolution is kind of low for That it doesn't necessarily have as much Dynamic range I mean if this is a niche Camera yeah it's certainly a niche Camera for high-end Sports and Photographers and it's the highspeed Sync is certainly going to help out People but the 120 frames per second at The push of a button but also the global Shutter how it helps you capture those
Very fleeting moments with no rolling Shutter whatsoever and things like Really tricking lighting situations Often Sports photographers are in poor Arenas with bad lighting or Rockstar Photographers who are shooting concerts We need to be able to control the Flickering of lights and if we have Multiple light sources we can't just Dial in the flicker for that right so Global Shad is really going to help out Definitely now the experience of used in This camera is fantastic I think this is Sony's best camera in terms of Ergonomics feel control they've really Talked to pros and have put a lot of That thought into the camera and I think It's their best iteration yet in that Regard now is this a great camera when It comes to image quality I do agree With them that it is kind of The Sweet Spot for photojournalists and sports Photographers people that are delivering Files very quickly and what we found is That the images that are coming out of The camera do look great the way that Sony is processing the images I think Has done a good job despite not having As much d dynamic range to some Comparable modern models and I think We've been spoiled with dynamic range Over the last few years anyways I'm okay Losing a little bit dynamic range for The advantages that Global shutter gives
Me absolutely and again I think that This does kind of seal the deal as being Like the Ultimate Sports and action Photographer camera is it for everyone Is it kind of like an all-purpose jack Of all trades camera maybe not but if You're someone that does have the use Cases where you want to be able to hit That action have the pre-burst some Excellent video capabilities and I think It does check a lot of those boxes but Of course we want to know what do you Think of this new camera and the new Technology from Sony did we answer all Your questions do you still have more Let us know in the comments below and Make sure you like And subscribe this Has been David Evelyn from the camera Store and we'll catch you again very [Music] Soon hey thanks for sticking around and Watching this very exciting episode on The Sony a93 if you want to check out More of our recent content click up here And if you are Canadian want to shop Local check out the camer store.com down Here
