Sony has unveiled its flagship mirrorless camera, the Alpha A9 III, with global shutter technology. The new product will provide an impressively high shooting speed, and should also eliminate distortions and distortions in both photographs and videos.
The Sony Alpha A9 III is a full-frame mirrorless camera with a stacked 24.6-megapixel image sensor and succeeds its predecessor, the A9 II, which launched four years ago. The new product is the first full-frame camera to use a global shutter.
This technology allows the image sensor to read data from each pixel simultaneously, both when shooting video and photos. Most mirrorless cameras, such as the Canon R5, Panasonic GH5 and Nikon Z9, are equipped with a shutter that reads data line by line, that is, lines of pixels. This can lead to the appearance of some distortions in the photo (less often in video) caused by the movements of objects in the frame. By definition, the global shutter does not have such a drawback.
On the left is a conventional electronic progressive shutter, on the right is a global shutter
The Alpha A9 III can shoot burst photos of 14-bit RAW images at 120 frames per second. The buffer is designed for 192 images. Moreover, the shots are taken with real-time autofocus (thanks to the Bionz XR image processor), as well as flash synchronization at any shutter speed. By the way, the shortest shutter speed is 1/80000 second or 1/16000 for continuous shooting.
The camera has a one-second pre-shoot function. Due to this, you can take 120 frames before pressing the shutter button, from which you can then select successful frames. There is a function to temporarily increase the shutter speed while holding down the shutter button – a skilled photographer will be able to take a photo at a higher shutter speed without removing his finger from the shutter button.
Thanks to new shutter technology, the Alpha A9 III can shoot 4K video at 120 fps without cropping. It also offers 10-bit recording with S-Log3 capture in all video modes (including 4K 120p)
However, global shutter technology is not without its drawbacks. The technology performs less well in low light and may not provide the required dynamic range. Sony itself does not specify how the camera copes with shooting in low light, but the list of characteristics includes support for ISO up to 51,200 units.
The new camera comes with a long list of other features you’d expect from a high-end Sony camera, including optical stabilization up to 8 levels of exposure. The electronic viewfinder is the best among Sony cameras with a resolution of 9.44 million dots. Moreover, the screen both rotates and tilts. And to quickly free up the buffer after burst shooting, the A9 III supports fast CFexpress Type-A memory cards over SD UHS-II.
Sony has priced the Alpha A9 III at a hefty $5,999 for the body itself. Sales will start next spring.
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