the Sony a93 is touted as the world's first full-frame Global shutter sensor that can shoot
an insane 120 raw 24 megapix photos a second it will film 4K up to 120 frames a second it has an
amazing eight stops of dynamic stabilization for handheld shots and the incredible AI autofocus
system that Sony's been putting in their new cameras but before we jump into the video you
need to know that I don't work with Sony Sony doesn't work with me as far as I know they
don't even know my channel exists I have gotten laner equipment through my Sony Pro support plan
that I pay for but in this case my buddy jeev and Doby came up here to hang out with me for 3 days
so that we could test this camera and this lens in as many situations as possible here in Alaska
the a93 takes fantastic photos that shouldn't be surprising this is one of their top-of-the-line
photo Centric cameras what sets it apart though isn't really even the global shutter we will talk
about that more in a minute but it's the fact that the 24.6 megapixel sensor can shoot 120 Raw photos
per second now 120 frames a second might seem insane but if you're shooting and photographing
anything that happens really fast 120 frames a second is actually really crucial to ensure that
you don't actually miss the shot so this camera is definitely aimed at people who work in high
stakes environment like sports or Wildlife where you can't afford to miss the shot one of the only
problems is that 120 frames fills up the buffer in the camera extremely quickly but if you use
CF Express type a card cards the buffer will clear relatively quickly and get you back up and running
in just a couple of seconds and especially if you don't shoot the full 120 frames if you just
do short little bursts at that speed then the buffer can actually clear and almost keep up
with you pretty quickly all of these sequences here were shot at 120 Raw photos per second in
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and this is where the AI autofocus system that Sony's been putting into their last few cameras
really comes into play it locks insanely quickly on the eye of birds or people or whatever you
might be shooting and captures perfectly in Focus shots in my experience at least with near 100%
accuracy I did get a few out of focus shots but most of those were because I was moving the camera
extremely fast in comparison to what my shutter speed was set for on this long lens and while
we're going to cover stabilization more later in the video this is where the eight stops of
stabilization in the dynamic active stabilization mode really come in handy handheld panning shots
on a 600 mm lens and you still get sharp photos so while obviously this camera is going to work
incredibly well for people who are photographing wildlife and especially because it has a pre-roll
where it's constantly capturing photos beforehand and as soon as you press the shutter button it
will save photos up to however long you set it to save before that which means you really
won't miss a shot when it comes to Wildlife but a lot of my work here in Alaska involves filming
and shooting around helicopters and this time of year specifically it involves a lot of H skiing
and this is where the global shutter really comes into play because the global sensor reads out the
entire scene all at once instead of a rolling shutter which means it reads out from top to
bottom you get perfectly straight lines no matter how fast your panning from side to side or my case
because of the work I do with helicopters it means the rotor blades and the tail rotor Blades of the
helicopter are always perfectly straight but one of the big downsides of a global shutter sensor
is that you in many cases you give up some dynamic range in order to have that Global shutter so one
of the things I really wanted to check check and test was how much dynamic range the a93 had in it
especially in photo modes here are some examples of shooting in the widest dynamic range I can
think of shooting a black subject against sunlit clouds in the background here you can see before
and after so while the a93 might suffer a little bit in dynamic range in Practical use I did not
notice a difference my normal camera the A1 is a fantastic photo camera it takes incredible photos
and honestly I would have gotten to the same place doing the same shots with the A1 that I
did with the A9 so I didn't see in Practical use a huge difference in the amount of dynamic range
available in photos on this camera and really quickly we need to talk about noise while most
of these were shot at pretty high shutter speeds and fairly High isos I wanted to shoot a few at
extremely high ISO to make sure to get a good idea of what the noise performance is so these
photos were shot at 10,000 or 12,000 800 ISO and you can see the before and after I used Lightroom
noise reduction in post but because I'm a hybrid shooter and a solo crater it means I'm shooting
both photo and video on the same camera all of the time so how does the video quality hold up
because this has 10bit 422 color science we can use slog 3 which gives us the most amount
of dynamic range available in this camera and in Practical use Again the video out of this
camera is stunning the 4K 120 looks absolutely incredible and again here is where the global
shutter really shines because you don't need to worry about rolling shutter warping or bending
any straight lines you can capture some really spectacular video of very fast moving objects
and know that there will be no Distortion in any way on any of those fast-moving subjects but the
biggest potential problem with this camera is the limited ISO range available because of the
global shutter Sony set the base ISO in slog 3 at ISO 2000 which is pretty good definitely
means you're going to need ND filters for bright situations or you're going to have to stop The
Lens way down but they also cap the iso in video modes at 25,000 so one of the biggest
questions I have about the a93 is how the low light performance is because I live in Alaska
and because it's dark so much of the year and I do a ton of low light shooting I really want to see
how well the camera performs against something like the A7 S3 which is the absolute low light
King I don't expect it to get anywhere close but I think I don't know with the test we've
been in so far the the camera's been pretty surprising on how well it handles low [Music]
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one thing that Gerald andone pointed out is that it seems to clean up at ISO 6400 and while I did
notice something similar on this one it's interesting to me that the noise profile
doesn't dramatically change even up to ISO 20,000 or 25,000 the noise doesn't appear to
degrade the image like it does in many other Sony cameras where you start to lose definition and
you start to lose some of the color Clarity that should be in the image overall I would
say the noise performance of the a93 is actually pretty impressive but you have to have realistic
expectations if you're going to film things at very very high isos like 20,000 or 25,000
you are going to have noise now the noise does clean up nicely with programs like neat video
or hop has but you are going to have to process it in post in order to get a clean image hey if
you're enjoying this video or getting value out of it then consider subscribing my goal
is to help other solo creators like myself make good decisions when it comes to purchasing gear
but also to use that gear to its fullest potential by giving you tips and tutorials on how to use it
and get the most out of it and here's another place where the dynamic active stabilization
really comes into play filming handheld video with this camera means you get almost gimal
likee shots even if you're walking through deep snow or stumbling over a path the footage that
comes out of the camera is incredibly smooth and really usable I would have no problem using this
camera handheld even on longer lenses without a gimbal for client work because the footage
that comes out of it is so good and so smooth everything about this camera is fast and this
is where the AI autofocus system that Sony's been putting in the last few cameras really comes into
play because a camera can film so quickly and because the autofocus responds so quickly and
adapt so fast it means you're going to miss a lot less shots the autofocus system in every situation
I tried it in whether it was backlit subjects or whether it was a dark subject with a black eye
that it still was able to pick out or it was very underexposed very dark situations the autofocus
system performed extremely well and really does help make sure that your shots are going to be in
Focus you can of course use something like tap to focus or if you're using lens with direct
manual focus you can get it to where you want it and then as soon as I got it on like the eagle
here it definitely locked on and stayed locked on the eye even though there was a lot of foreground
elements but what was really surprising to me was how well the autofocus system worked in low light
in this situation here we were well past the sun going down probably by about an hour and a
half and we were shooting at 20,000 25,000 ISO in order to capture these shots the autofocus
definitely locked on the subjects that we wanted it to when we wanted it to occasionally using tap
to focus to make sure it was on the right subject it worked almost flawlessly the new ergonomics and
body design of the a93 made it really nice to use and especially in my case because I'm out in the
cold a lot having gloves on the new body style with the larger buttons or the easier to reach
buttons really made a big difference on being able to get the shots change the modes change
settings whatever I need to do without having to take my gloves off which I do a lot of time with
my other cameras and two of my favorite features that need to be on all Sony cameras going forward
are the multi-function switch here where you can quickly switch between video and photo modes and
you can have three memory slots per mode so three for photo three for video and three for snq mode
which is fantastic when you're running and gunning like me and you've really got to change your modes
fast the camera switches modes almost instantly and is ready to go by the time you get it back up
to your eye and are ready to start shooting but the other thing that needs to be standard on all
Sony cameras going forward is is this new type of screen that can be flipped out it can be rotated
it can be bent up or bent down this is by far the best screen design that Sony or frankly anybody
else other cameras that I've used has ever come up with because it's so versatile and can be used
in so many different situations and being able to actually tap on the screen and change some
of the settings really quickly makes this camera a lot faster to navigate and get around one of
the things that did get my attention was battery life now while most Sony cameras have pretty good
battery life the A1 definitely suffers a little bit the a93 seems to do a little better than the
A1 but it definitely eats up batteries if you're using things like the AI Focus if you're shooting
a lot of high-speed photos or the dynamic active stabilization now they do they do do okay in the
cold but it's really important to keep your batteries warm when you're using them in the
cold they definitely did seem to drain a little faster when we were on the mountain tops with
the heli skiing but a few batteries and we were able to get through the 4 hours roughly that we
were out there no problem now this camera is not the perfect camera for everybody it's an
amazing camera that comes at a really high price tag of $6,000 and if you want to buy one there
are links in the description and buying through those links help me do what I do while the price
might seem outrageous this is a high-end photo and video camera aimed at high-end professional users
who can't afford to miss a shot because they're covering sporting events they're trying to make
sure they get that one shot with wildlife and they cannot afford to miss it this camera is going to
be the tool for them so what about me somebody coming from the A1 I probably am going to sell
my A1 and get the a93 because I don't need 50 megapixels 99% of the time and I even though I
love shooting 8K on the A1 it's fantastic I really don't need it because everything I do is in 4k or
even delivered in 1080 in most cases with clients and I will have a whole video comparing the A1
and the a93 coming up there are a few other downsides one is the very limited ISO range
I routinely go out and film in incredibly dark environment that's why I have an A7 S3 is I can
shoot at ridiculously high isos under Moonlight the a93 is definitely not going to be the camera
for that the only other question that I've not been able to answer is how well the camera hand
handles overheating obviously it's the winter time here in Alaska I can't test overheating
I suspect that the camera will do well unless you're shooting in much higher frame rates in
4k or shooting a lot of Burst Mode photos in a really hot environment under direct sun but
other than those very specific situations I don't see the camera having any issues with overheating
I'd really like to know what you think of the Sony a93 and is it a camera you're considering
picking up let me know in the comments below next you're going to want to watch this video
over here I'll see you over there as always if you have questions that maybe I didn't answer
in this video let me know in the comments below or join my live stream that happens
most Wednesday nights at 4 P p.m. Alaska time 8:00 p.m. Eastern where we can have more of a
conversation maybe I can answer things I didn't get to in this video I'll see you soon cheers