A flagship in the truest sense, the Sony a1 is the one camera designed to do it all. Built without compromise, this full-frame mirrorless offers high-resolution for stills shooting, impressive 8K video recording, speed and sensitivity, and connectivity for the most demanding professional workflows.
A revised BIONZ XR engine greatly benefits image processing capabilities throughout the camera system, including up to 8x faster processing, greatly reduced rolling shutter, and more fluent interface and file management handling speeds.
Efficient sensor design and processing enables high-speed shooting up to 30 fps at full 50.1MP resolution, with full AF and AE capabilities, when working with an electronic shutter. When working with the mechanical shutter, speeds are still kept high at 10 fps. Also, a large buffer memory permits recording up to 155 compressed raw frames, or 165 JPEGs, in one single burst at 30 fps.
Suiting fast-paced continuous shooting is a blackout-free viewfinder experience, which makes use of a 240 fps refresh rate for fluent eye-level viewing.
Updated electronic shutter offers silent, vibration-free performance and also supports anti-flicker shooting for working under fluorescent, LED, or other flicker-prone types of artificial light, even while shooting at 30 fps with 120 fps AF speeds.
Due to quickened readout speeds, electronic shutter flash sync is possible up to 1/200 sec. Even faster flash sync speeds are available when using the updated mechanical shutter, too, which can sync at 1/400 sec in full-frame or 1/500 secwith an APS-C crop.
Making use of the high-resolution sensor and fast processing capabilities, UHD 8K 30p XAVC HS 10-bit 4:2:2 video recording is possible using the full width of the sensor, offering 8.6K oversampling for impressive sharpness and realism. For easy handling of this high-res recording mode, low bit-rate proxy files with HD resolution can be simultaneously recorded faster for playback. Also, 8K video at 400 Mb/s can be written to a V90-rated UHS-II SD card, or 200 Mb/s to a V60 card, and 8K can be output over HDMI in 8-bit 4:2:0 format.
Recording up to UHD 4K is possible with frame rates up to 120p; when recording up to 60p the a1 offers full pixel readout and at 120p it uses a 10% crop. Oversampled 4K recording is also possible, via a 5.8K capture area, with a Super 35 crop. Internal 10-bit 4:2:2 sampling is also possible in all recording modes and, if recording externally via the full-size HDMI A port, 16-bit raw output is also possible from a 4.3K capture for even greater tonal reproduction and post-production flexibility.
Recording Flexibility
The a1 employs a pair of codecs to suit different workflows: XAVC HS, which uses HEVC/H.265 encoding to retain more detail at smaller bitrates and XAVC S-I, which is an intraframe codec for consistent performance and quality at bitrates up to 600 Mb/s.
High-speed, 120 fps recording also enables 4x and 5x slow-motion movie recording with the frame rate playback set to either 30p or 24p or, if moving down to Full HD resolution, an effective 240p frame rate is also available for even greater motion control.
No recording time limit allows for unlimited clip lengths and the camera’s physical design features an improved heat-dissipating structure to promote longer possible recording times; longer than 30 minutes for 8K 30p or 4K 60p videos, or recordings done at 10-bit 4:2:0.
Advanced Color Control
S-Cinetone can be used to deliver distinct colors and healthy-looking skin tone rendering that matches the FX9 and FX6 cameras and is based on technology from the professional Cinema Line cameras, such as the VENICE. This color profile offers natural mid-tones, soft colors, and especially well-controlled highlights.
Affording extensive customizable color and gamma controls, the you can adjust the gamma, black level, knee, color level, and more. Also, users can use the same S-Log2 Gamma Curve that is found on high end Sony Cinema cameras that squeezes up to 1300% more dynamic range into the video signal then traditional REC709, for increased post-production flexibility.
HLG (Hybrid Log-Gamma) support is also available, along with the BT.2020 color space, for recording within a wide color gamut and, in addition to S-Log2, S-Log3 is also available for producing a 15+-stop dynamic range with increased grading control in the shadow to mid-tone regions of the image.
Fast Hybrid AF System
Covering 92% of the image area, a Fast Hybrid AF system incorporates 759 phase-detection points along with 425 contrast-detection areas for quick and precise focusing in a variety of lighting conditions with sensitivity down to -6 EV. This focusing system is available for use in all recording modes, to benefit both video and stills applications.
Fast sensor readout and improved processing also enables up to 120 AF and AE calculations to be performed per second for faster, more responsive tracking and accurate results.
Lock onto subjects quickly using Real-time Tracking for AI-based tracking on moving subjects or touch tracking for manual selection of the subject.
Real-time Eye AF, suitable for both humans and animals, also ensures critical sharpness when shooting portraits.
Dedicated Real-time Eye AF Bird Mode lets you select the bird to be tracked and the camera will automatically detect the bird’s eye and track it, regardless if the bird is in flight or still. This mode even works once a sitting bird takes flight.
Helping to fine-tune how the focusing system performs, seven-step AF transition speed and five-step AF subject shift sensitivity controls let you refine how quickly focus shifts from point to point and how smoothly focusing shifts occur.
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.