The Sony Alpha 9 Mark 2 has improved on perfection
I’m Bob Martin
I’m a professional sports photographer
I’m lucky enough to travel the world to the best events, taking the best pictures I possibly can
The previous camera was the market leader
Was the one I want to use
Now we have an improvement on that
And the little details and fine tuning that Sony have given to this camera add up to a big change
This socket now is 1000 Base-T
So, therefore, it’s ten times faster than it would have been before
If you want to set up a number of cameras
And you want to send the pictures out quickly
The great thing is you can fire them
And then retrieve the images from one workstation for, like, ten cameras
So, 1000 Base-T, therefore ten times faster, is a big upscale for us
For us now, working at sports events every second counts
It’s essential you get your picture away quickly
You need to send pictures all the time
To fulfil the needs of social media and websites
You can take the greatest pictures in the world but if you can’t deliver them
You might as well throw them away
The Wi-Fi has improved
It is now 5GHZ as well as 2.4
Sony have developed a software “Tag & Transfer” for your mobile phone
You’re not always next to an internet connection
You haven’t always got a socket to plug in to
Or an access point to access
You transfer your pictures as you shoot
You then have a chance to review, check
You can add an IPTC caption and send them on to your clients
So, you know, you could be in the middle of nowhere and you could still FTP your pictures to your clients
The ability to send a note
Or a voice tag
Is a great tool to have
And it’s an absolutely industry standard tool used by every agency photographer out there
And the great thing about the voice tag is that straight out the bag it works and it’s perfect
And it fits in to everybody’s work flow
Tag & Transfer will read the voice tag
And transfer that to text within the captions
That’s a pretty cool thing for a one-man band
The AF is quicker to respond
It’s quicker to lock on
There is a notable difference in this new camera, the mark 2
The AF is yet better
So the market leader in AF has now been improved
Your controls as a sports photographer you use a lot
The joystick to move the point to focus
And the AF button
Are bigger and more tactile
There’s a locking button on the exposure compensation
And then, to me, the biggest thing they’ve done
Is when I start shooting vertically
The buttons are all the same feel
And in the same place
As if you’re shooting horizontally
So they’ve really put a lot of thought in to it
That little notch there, just means it’s easier
It’s a little, little detail
Real attention to detail
Turning this in to an absolutely high-tuned professional tool
Some modern LED lighting flickers terribly
It means you get erratic frames
Some a bit darker, some a bit lighter
And by using the mechanical shutter you can reduce that
To have 10 frames per second with the mechanical shutter
And there’s also a flicker free setting in the new camera
Is fantastic
Because it means now on those rare occasions when I do shoot under really bad lighting
I’m covered totally
Sony are listening to us
And they are producing product
And they are producing service
That absolutely delivers on what we need to do our job
You want the best tool to take pictures
You want to have nothing stopping you from getting the picture you want
And this camera helps me worry less about my work flow
And the technology
And worry more about taking great pictures
And therefore means I’ll get better pictures