There are so many reasons to buy a 880000 yen camera. Sony "α 1" (1) | my navigation news

Sony began selling the "α 1" in mid-March. The price in Sony's online store is 880000 yen.

Inherited small lightweight fuselage and unique shutter sound

With the real machine of α 1, the first surprise is that the appearance has not changed much from the existing model. Sony's fully committed professional model may become as one-piece as the Canon EOS-1D series and Nikon D one-digit series, although this was predicted before the release, but once the lid is opened, the design will not be significantly updated. Inherited the previous α series common small lightweight fuselage, but also inherited the basic form of angle and surface.

In this appearance, I can't feel the strong launch of "cameras over 800000 yen". Even if it is juxtaposed with α 9II, it is difficult to tell the two right away. Not only that, there is not much difference between long-distance words and popular α-7III. 880000 of the camera and 250000 of the camera give the same impression. People who want to use a camera that looks expensive is where a camera like mine is a little inadequate.

The second surprise came the moment I tried to press the shutter. A bang, a small, short sound like a knock on the door. Hey, is that the shutter sound? It's not just the author who is surprising. The choice of electronic shutter can be silent, which is the same as before, but even in the usual mechanical shutter state, it is a very small and docile sound.

By the way, when it comes to the shutter sound of the full-size mirror α series, it starts with the loud and sharp sound of the original model α 7 / α 7R, and then, through the improvement of the shutter unit and the adoption of impact absorption dampers, with the increase of age, become very small, become low-key. In particular, the advanced model after the Alpha 7R IV launched in 2019 is more mute than the previous product.

Inheriting the silent-low-impact trend and turning it into a shorter, softer sound is the fast door tone of α 1 this time. The new shutter screen uses carbon fiber, creating a soft shutter sound that is not similar to any previous camera. It could be a critical voice that varies from person to person. Personally, I was at a loss from the beginning, but I gradually became familiar with my ears in the process of using it.

However, for example, through the loud shutter sound to improve the tension of the shooting scene, improve the mood of the subject, which is not suitable for the previous shooting method. On the other hand, it is suitable for quietly capturing snapshots, wild animals, landscapes, etc., and there is no shutter sound in character photography, the style of shooting while talking.

In this way, my first impression of α 1 is the exterior design "" and the shutter sound "0". Ah, it's ordinary. To tell you the truth, if you just touch your body, you can't feel the value and heartbeat of 880000 yuan at all, and you won't mobilize the desire to buy.

But... This kind of mood will change slowly after you go outside to actually shoot. The more you take pictures, the more slowly the materialistic list in your brain rises, and finally, "as a camera for work, you must buy it!" No, buy! "changed 180 degrees.

Where do you feel the charm of α 1? From here, let's introduce four key points that have been the decisive factors for me to buy.

The fusion of "Pixel Manager" and "continuous shooting Manager"

The first point of charm is the coexistence of high-pixel and high-speed continuous shooting. The Alpha 1 is equipped with a newly developed cascaded CMOS sensor and image processing engine "BIONZ XR", which can capture 50.1 million pixels of high-pixel data at a speed of 30 frames per second.

So far, the alpha series of advanced models are divided into different areas of expertise. Therefore, if we pay attention to the reproducibility of details, we need to perform the appearance of "total pixel length" α 7R IV (61 million pixels is 10 frames per second) and speed "continuous shot length" α 9II (24.2 million pixels is 20 frames per second). However, depending on the shooting scene and the purpose of use, you may also want details and speed.

For example, when shooting fierce sports scenes, animals, wild birds and so on, in order to keep the balance of the subjects in the picture, on the basis of a little capture, the shooting method of pruning and adjusting the composition is often used during RAW development. It is in this case that α 1 has both the number of pixels close to α 7R IV and the continuous beat speed exceeding α 9II.

In advertising photos, in order to improve the freedom of layout and reproduction space, they do not dare to capture the main subjects to the full screen, but leave space around the composition, which is often favored by designers. In this sense, even if the horizontal position of the photo is trimmed to the vertical position, it is fortunate to be able to maintain a sufficient number of pixels, that is, the pruning patience of α 1.

The following photos are taken at the same location with α 1 (50.1 million pixels), α 9II (24.2 million pixels), and α 7R IV (61 million pixels). Comparing the text on the signboard in the vision, it can be found that the resolution is proportional to the number of pixels. To what degree of resolution is necessary, depending on the purpose, everyone is different. In my case, α 9II is not enough, α 1 and α 7R IV is enough.

Make full use of 8K movies to retain both video and still images

The second point is to support 8K video. The Alpha 1 series provides 8K (7680 × 4320 pixels) 30p video for the first time, enabling color sampling at 4:2:0, bit depth of 10 bits, and 8K recording in a format XAVC HS system.

Some people, even 4K video do not have any demand, still need 8K? You might think. I also think that it is better to introduce 8K not long ago. In fact, most of the videos shot at work are in full HD. Even if you shoot at 4K to pan and zoom while editing, most of the time the delivery is in full HD.

Even so, I am attracted to the 8K of α 1 because I want to leave a still image while animating. Recently, there has been an increase in the number of entrusts who want to shoot animation at the same time. Still painting and animation have their own cameras, and one person operates two cameras at the same time. At that time, if you took pictures with 8K, you could use a camera to record both animated and still images.

Of course, video needs to slow down the shutter speed, so there is a common problem that is not limited to α 1, that is, sharp still images cannot be cut in moving scenes. In addition, the optimal lighting of video is different from that of still images, as well as the disadvantage of time-consuming and laborious capture of subsequent still images. But in spite of this, even if the scene with less action is limited, the shooting method of killing two birds with one stone in video and still images makes me feel possible and interesting.

Below, use the three sets of α 1, α 9II and α 7R IV to shoot the animation at their maximum size, and cut out 1 frame as a still image. You will find that only alpha 1 is a higher resolution.

In addition, in terms of animation, the high frame rate recording of 4K/120p is also supported with the previous animation total length "α 7s III", and the 4K RAW animation can not be missed in the external recorder.