In less than a month since the start of 2021, Sony has brought two new product releases. Except for the long-awaited G master SEL35F14GM lens released on January 13, the α1 brought by today's conference is the moment for Sony to show off its muscles. Not only has the α full-frame product been released for more than 7 years (α7 was released in October 2013), it has opened up a new product route, and even for such a new product that is particularly eye-catching in all aspects, there were no rumors before the conference. According to the news, perhaps Sony is hoping to ignite this explosive atmosphere at the moment of product release!
Sony's 50.1-megapixel flagship α1, a major new product in 2021, shows off its strength
Posted by TekFiz on Tuesday, January 26, 2021
From the perspective of the product release layout, the Sony α9 II, which emphasizes high-speed shooting performance, was released on October 3, 2019, more than 2 years ago; the α7R IV for high pixels was also released in July 2019.. .... In addition to the α7S III released in 2020, the new generation of flagship product α1 that we are looking forward to has finally arrived today. The official guide price of 47,999 also confirms the flagship status of this product. Suo fans can shout "Suo Dahao" to their heart's content!
Flagship vane: 50mp X 30 fps high pixel + high-speed continuous shooting
In fact, in the era of SLR, the flagship machine's indicators are more towards its high-speed performance, such as continuous shooting and focusing performance, but also due to the limitations of the cache and sensor technology, it is difficult to achieve the coexistence of high-resolution and high-speed continuous shooting. In the mirrorless era, the change of mechanical structure and the rapid development of electronic technology has gradually allowed us to enjoy more shooting creativity brought by high-resolution + high-speed continuous shooting. Here, Sony has achieved 50.1 million pixels and a continuous shooting speed of 30fps (so that the electronic shutter can shoot up to 155 compressed RAW or 165 JPEG photos at a speed of 30 frames per second), so the sensor reads, caches, and stores And the focus is unprecedentedly powerful. On the premise of high pixels, high sensitivity can still maintain a strong level, the highest ISO can be extended to 102400.
Therefore, many software and hardware advantages, such as 759 phase focusing points (with up to 120 focusing/metering calculation speeds per second), 0 black screen 240fps high refresh rate viewfinder, and many other software and hardware advantages, have jointly created the performance that α1 can obtain. The addition of 8K video is Sony’s first micro-single product with 8K specifications, and even its own video flagship α7s III has never had it. So far, it can be said with certainty that the carrying of 8K video has entered the definition of flagship products.
Α1——Sony shows true hard-core strength
In terms of overall performance, the existence of α1 is almost perfect. Speaking of the sensor first, the level of 50.1 million pixels has completely surpassed the α9 II, second only to the α7R IV, but it crushes the former in the continuous shooting speed. Sony has always been called the power of tolerance, the 15 level of the level of reference to the performance of previous products is not mixed.
With the powerful BIONZ XR image processor, the real-time eye focusing performance has increased by about 30%. In addition to the upgraded real-time eye focusing and real-time animal eye focusing, α1 also uses advanced object recognition technology, which is the first in Sony's micro-single camera Added real-time bird eye focus function. The optimized algorithm can keep the focus tracking even if the stationary bird suddenly flies or changes its attitude suddenly. α1 also has a real-time tracking function based on AI artificial intelligence, which can continuously keep the focus point on the subject.
In addition, Sony α1 also has a built-in upgraded pixel conversion multiple shooting mode (commonly known as sensor pixel shift), which can synthesize up to 16 full-pixel images. The camera accurately moves the sensor in increments of 1 pixel or 0.5 pixel, and shoots 16 images with different pixel displacements, which contain approximately 796.2 million pixels of data.
In terms of video, 8K 30p10-bit 4:2:0 and 4K 120p10-bit 4:2:2 are also very core and flagship specifications. The excellent heat dissipation structure can ensure continuous recording of 8K30p video for about 30 minutes. The built-in S-Cinetone color mode has the same color and skin tone performance as the Sony professional cinema camera systems FX9 and FX6 while providing natural mid-tones, soft colors and gorgeous highlights to meet the growing demand for image expression depth. The S-Log3 gamma curve can achieve 15+ levels of dynamic range, and the S-Gamut3 and S-Gamut3. Cine color space settings can easily match the Alpha1 shooting material with the video shot by CineAltaV, FX9 and other Sony professional movie cameras.
Professional users not only need powerful functions and performance, but also reliability and durability. α1 has dual memory card slots, both of which support UHS-I and UHS-IISDXC/SDHC cards, as well as the new CFexpress TypeA memory card to achieve larger storage capacity and faster reading and writing speed. It also has a durable magnesium alloy body frame, can use VG-C4EM battery handle to extend battery life, improved dust removal function, shutter close function after shutdown to protect the image sensor, dust-proof and moisture-proof design *23, etc. These can be used in harsh environments Reliable performance used in. In addition, it also includes HDMIType-A interface and USBPD fast charging (power supply) support, allowing a higher power to be provided from an external power source so that users can record for a long time.
Salute to the α1 that broke all "Tucao"
Sony used α1 to break through all previous Sony complaints, and everything was built for the top-new menus, a viewfinder with higher pixels and refresh rate, stronger focus efficiency, high-speed continuous shooting at higher pixels, 8K Video...These flagship specifications will bring new trends to the trend of future camera products and even redefine cameras.
It has to be said that Sony, as one of the earliest brands to enter the full-frame mirrorless single, still has its own unique perception of product performance. It is worthy of belief that the continuous strong attack of competing products has also affected the final direction of the α1, such as 8K video, and the threat of continuous shooting performance under high pixels. Perhaps we have never expected that Sony's new series α1 will be unveiled in such specifications, and it is unknown how much room such ceiling-level specifications leave for next-generation product upgrades. And the official sale price of 47,999 yuan is indeed the most expensive new product of the Sony α series as exposed before the release!
Finally, looking at the pace of new product releases, Sony has brought two fuselages α9 II and α7R IV in 2019, and two fuselages α7C and α7S III in 2020. What is worth looking forward to is that Sony may also bring two new Alpha products in 2021-the next one may be the longer-awaited α7 IV!
Sony α1 detailed specifications
- The newly developed approximately 50.1 million pixel full-frame stacking Exmor RSTM CMOS image sensor and the newly upgraded BIONZ XRTM image processor increase the processing capacity by approximately 8 times;
- Up to 30 frames per second without black screen continuous shooting;
- Faster data processing speed, 120 shots/sec focusing/metering calculation can be performed at 30 frames/sec high-speed continuous shooting, which is twice the speed of Alpha 9 II;
- 0.64-type 9.44 million dot OLED Quad-XGA electronic viewfinder with bright and wide field of view, with Sony’s current highest 240fps refresh rate;
- Quiet and vibration-free electronic shutter;
- Anti-flicker shooting function supports electronic shutter shooting for the first time;
- The flash synchronization speed under mechanical shutter reached 1/400 second for the first time in the Alpha Mirrorless TM series, and 1/200 second for the first time in electronic shutter mode;
- 8.6K oversampling to obtain 8K 30p 10-bit 4:2:0 XAVC HS video, 4K mode can record 120p, 10-bit 4:2:2 video in-camera;
- Photos and videos reach a wide dynamic range of 15 levels and 15+ levels respectively;
- Upgraded real-time eye focusing and real-time animal eye focusing, real-time tracking function, new real-time bird eye focusing function;
- Built-in 5-axis anti-shake, can achieve 5.5-level anti-shake effect;
- Equipped with the same S-Cinetone color mode as FX9 and FX6, which can provide an expressive film color style;
- Support professional workflow, built-in 2.4 GHz / 5 GHz Wi-Fi, high-speed USB 10Gbps, 1000BASE-T Ethernet connection, etc.
0 Comments