Sony A1: First Impressions

When the Sony A1 was announced, I’ll be honest, I had no intention of buying it. The price tag turned me off, and I’ve been historically one that purchases multiple bodies for specific needs, so, looking what I currently had, and besides not having the speed of any of the A9 series cameras, I was covered by having the A7rIII for high resolution and A7sIII for video as well as extreme low light coverage.

But then one day, while I was perusing through Adorama’s website, that they had a demo unit (Open Box) available for about $500 off the regular price. Adorama has always sold their open box, used and demo conditioned products in pristine and almost perfect condition, and I thought to myself, I probably won’t see a deal like this for awhile (or ever), so should I do it??

Well…I did it. And I have to say after an initial bout of buyer’s remorse due to getting my head around the price, as well as selling off some dormant gear, collecting some dust on my shelf, which made the investment more comfortable; I feel pretty good about this purchase, so I wanted to share my first impressions of the camera.

First thought for anyone who has experience with the Sony Alpha system but haven’t owned a A9 or A9 II, but is planning on getting the A1; check out Mark Galer on YouTube. He’s a Sony Alpha Ambassador out of Australia and posts some very informative videos. He has some great tutorials that really helped me understand the A1 camera. a lot more, and really sold me on my purchase! It’s worth it to really educate yourself on this extremely sophisticated camera.

Sensor and Image Quality

The Sony A1 has a new stacked sensor sporting 50.1 megapixels. The image quality out of this camera is expectedly stunning! I always felt like the A7rIV was a little too much resolution for a full frame camera and there were things like high iso noise that often made low light performance a bit lacking. I’m glad that Sony decided to bring that resolution down to a sweet spot at 50 megapixels.

One thing I noticed right away is that the color science has finally been dialed into the right spot. Sony has been notorious for weird color science in earlier iterations of Alpha Cameras, but each body that they have released has had incremental improvements in it’s color science and color rendering in both video and photo. In fact I compared images between my Sony A1 and a Canon R6 I have, and noticed, how close they are now, and that the differences are extremely small. That’s a serious achievement for Sony, and color snobs should feel better with this camera!

Dynamic range continues to be Sony’s strong suit being able to recover highlight and shadow detail. This camera is no exception. It continues to exhibit industry leading dynamic range, and coupled with great color now, offers a great straight out of camera image experience.

Files Formats in Photos

In addition to Sony offering JPEG formats and RAW in both Uncompressed and Compressed, they have now introduced a Lossless Compressed format. This is huge, because this camera can generate some pretty beefy files, and with compression your file sizes can be much more manage-able. Currently Sony and Adobe software editors can work with it, so you should be all set if you use those tools, but Capture One at the time of this writing is still not compatible with the Lossless Compressed format, but I anticipate compatability shortly, and of course, it still works with compressed and uncompressed file formats. I have not been able to detect any quality differences between Uncompressed RAW and Lossless Compressed RAW. Although I’m sure pixel peepers may prefer uncompressed just based on the numbers.

Additionally Sony offers the new HEIF file format which has mainly been available on mobile phones and offers a very efficient file format with flexible editing capabilities highlighting dynamic range. I have not used it myself yet, but it’s nice to see that Sony is thinking forward.

ISO and Low Light

A lot of people have been concerned about this camera’s capability in low light due to it’s high resolution sensor, but I’m happy to say that this camera does very well in low light! Surprisingly better than I had thought and experienced with a high resolution camera. If anyone will figure it out, it’s going to be Sony.

First with RAW files, I found the images, were totally use-able at high ISO’s from 1000–5000. and in some cases I had totally sufficient files with images at 12800 ISO. And the noise is a fine grain so it is easily correctable with noise reduction in your editor. This camera of course will not perform as well as the A7sIII in low light, but you should be totally fine with how this camera performs, and I would even go as far as to say that I even found lower megapixel APS-C cameras performed poorly compared to the A1.

In JPEG you have some very good noise reduction tools in camera, so it produces nice clean results.

I have to say overall this camera is more than sufficient for lower light situations. This was a big surprise.

Shutter Speed

This is an area that’s always been important to me ever since I owned Fujifilm cameras. Fuji’s had an electronic shutter capable of up to 1/32000 of a second. This hasn’t been offered with mirrorless full frame cameras except for the A9/A9 II.

Why do I want a shutter that fast? For portrait photography I tend to shoot wide open and on those particularly bright days and with fast glass like the upcoming 50mm f1.2, a 1/32000/sec shutter lets you shoot wide open without the need for ND. This is huge! That’s my main reason for seeking this feature and I’m really glad that it’s been implemented into this camera.

Mechanical Shutter and Electronic Shutter

When it comes to shutter mechanisms, I’m old school and really like the feel of a mechanical shutter. However I do appreciate and love a quiet mechanical shutter, and I have to say this is the quietest mechanical shutter mechanism I have ever used! At first I didn’t like it. It felt a little two refined and clinical, but after using the camera for a few days I started really appreciating the covert and inconspicuous nature of this dampened shutter. You gotta try it!

Of course the showcase of this camera is it’s silent or electronic shutter. This is one of the only cameras out there that allows you to use a fast electronic shutter that also eliminates banding under artificial light, as well as distortion during fast action. This is one of the key features I wanted to gain in my kit.

When you leverage these great shutter options in this camera, you also gain the ability for the first time to shoot 30fps in electronic shutter at the full 50 megapixels levering the fast processing in this camera coupled with the stacked sensor giving very fast readout of images!

This of course is dependent on using an approved Sony lens that can perform at that speed.

You can reference an approved lens list here: https://www.alphashooters.com/cameras/a1/lenses/

Third party lenses can only do up to 15fps. For me this is not too big of a deal as I do not currently shoot fast sports action or wildlife. So my sweet spot ranges from 10–15 fps, so that keeps my lenses choices quite open, as well as not needing to rely on CFExpress Type A cards if I don’t want to. (more on that later in this article).

Lastly the A1 mechanical shutter is rated at 500,000 actuations and unlimited for the electronic shutter. I think this is a really important aspect of the camera to note, because it really does ensure that when investing in this camera, you can use it for quite a few years!

Video

This is one of the strong suits of this camera. It contains all the features of the video focused Sony A7sIII, including it’s ability to capture 4K 120fps. However it has also added the ability to capture up to 8K 30fps, making it competitive against cameras like the Canon R5.

I’ve shot with the Canon R5 and one of the few drawbacks within that camera is it’s super hefty codecs that make the camera native files basically un-usable in an edit application without having to transcode the files to a more efficient video codec. This takes a good chunk of time, and slows down your process.

With the Sony A1; Sony’s XAVC codec seems to be a more efficient implementation optimized for immediate post production. In my tests I was able to playback most if not all of the camera original footage even at 8K, with no problems at all. Everything ran smoothly on my 2019 16 inch MacBook Pro. I think a critical aspect of good video in a mirrorless hybrid camera is the ability to work with the files as fast as possible. Most people that use mirrorless cameras for hybrid use are run and gun shooters, capturing and delivering, with fairly tight deadlines and fast turn arounds. Sony really helps by allowing us to edit these files as quickly as possible while retaining the best quality. There are plenty of compression options to choose, so that you can find the right type of file and format you are looking for. One negative I can point out is is the lack of DCI resolution. The Sony captures at a maximum of UHD and not DCI which I think is a bit of a bummer, but not a deal breaker by any stretch.

External recording is also very capable allowing you to interface with recorders like the Atomos Ninja V, at 4K 60p, and giving you the option of capturing Apple ProRes or Avid DNx as well as 16-bit ProRes RAW. This further enhances the camera with seriously high end options!

Lastly the Sony A1 can shoot unlimited at 4K 120fps, and anywhere between 20–30 minutes in 8K 30p. So documentary filmmakers can use this for long form interviews, and record internally. Of course if you record externally you also have the option for your record time to be unlimited.

Video is absolutely stunning on this camera. I’m also an owner of the A7sIII, and the A1 is an A7sIII on steroids. Colors are accurate, and Slog3 is finally color gradable with plenty of dynamic range and good skin tones. I used to struggle with grading Sony footage, but this camera was a breeze color correcting the Slog3 profiled footage. I used to envy Canon colors, but now I actually prefer the Sony colors coming out of this camera. Good job Sony!

Autofocus

If you’ve bought into Sony — chances are that you got into Sony partly because of it’s reputation for industry leading autofocus. I’ve often said when I owned the A7III and the A7rIII, that I couldn’t imagine having better autofocus, and that those camera bodies were the best I had ever experienced. Well I’m here to tell you that it’s actually gotten even better. It’s hard to explain in words, what the improvements feel like, but there are definite improvements in the autofocus engine of the Sony A1.

Sony seems to have upgraded both the Sony A7sIII and the A1 with a new and improved Sony algorithm making the previous 693 Phase Detect AF point engine to a new 759 AF point system. It focuses fast, and sticks to subjects when tracking, and you have tons of options to customize the overall autofocus experience. This camera is a crazy autofocusing beast!

I just recently took the camera out on a documentary shoot project, covering a rally in New York City and I was able to nail focus on the majority of my shots in AF-C mode roughly averaging about 10fps. It also autofocuses fast and consistently even in low to no light situations! I also tested a few shots with the 30fps and I can say those were also majority in focus. Focus will always be a strength of the Sony Alpha cameras and the A1 continues this tradition. I can honestly say that this autofocus system is better than even on the A9/A9 II, which I can’t believe I’m even saying!

EVF and LCD

Historically this has NOT been Sony’s strong suit on the Alpha cameras, despite being the leader in screens like their televisions and broadcast monitoring equipment.

However Sony took the advanced EVF in the A7sIII and included it in the A1. This EVF is industry leading with a fast refresh rate of up to 240Hz and with 9.4 million dot resolution. This IS the best EVF on the market today.

I’ve rather enjoyed using it on the A7sIII, so it was nice to continue using it on the A1.

One thing I did notice with the EVF, specifically on the A1, was that you could tell there were certain circumstances where the resolution of the EVF would throttle up and down based on function. There are also some very specific settings to use in order to optimize your EVF experience.

For instance, putting the Display Quality setting in your Settings menu, would yield the best quality out of the EVF, only if you put the EVF Framerate to Standard. When putting the EVF Framerate to High or Higher, you see incremental quality decline in the EVF, amplifying moire and aliasing. I reached out to Sony about this, because according the manual the resolution should not bump down when in High mode, but it visually does and I was able to confirm this on two A1 bodies. So I will update this article if Sony has any updates or answers to this as they consult with engineering.

The premise behind switching your EVF framerate from Standard to High or Higher is the ability to track fast moving subjects with the fast refresh rate. When doing this, you will have to sacrifice the quality. One other observation I had is when in the best quality setting of the EVF — as long as you are not half pressing the shutter, the quality will remain at the full resolution however when you engage or half press the shutter for focus, the area around the focus points will drop in resolution temporarily. This of course does not reflect in the resulting image.

Weird stuff and I’m working with Sony to see if their engineering team either has an explanation or confirm that it might be something else. But besides that, the EVF is an absolute dream to use.

The back LCD screen is Sony’s weakest point and many were surprised that the A1 didn’t get an LCD upgrade. It is still using the 1.4 million dot LCD which by industry standards is the worst currently in the line up of professional cameras today. Thankfully I rely more on the EVF, but it is a hard pill to swallow when you pay money for a $6500 camera that doesn’t have the best LCD in the industry. But the benefits of the camera outweigh this short coming.

Tilt Screen vs Fully Articulating Screen

Some people like tilt screens and others like fully articulating screens. The debate rages on, but I think it comes down to if you are a photographer mainly — then you like the tilt screen so you can flip the screen up while shooting down at hip level, rather than using a full articulating screen and folding the screen to the side.

However if you are mainly video than understandably video users and especially vloggers prefer the flip out screen so they can monitor themselves.

The Sony A1 has the tilt screen rather than the flip out screen. This is due in part to the camera being mostly geared at the high end photographer as opposed to the videographer. I like the tilt screen better for both video and stills, so this is a plus for me, but I’m sure quite a few users are irked by this decision.

My main argument of the tilt screen being better is because flip out screens get in the way of the side connections of external gear on the camera like microphones and external monitoring. The only use case I see with needing a flip out screen is if you are a vlogger. However I have seen portrait photographers argue that it comes in handy when shooting in the portrait orientation, and I tend to agree. Luckily I have a A7sIII which has a flip out screen so I have the best of both worlds.

Card Slots

I think Sony designed a “slam dunk” when it comes to card media management here. When Sony came out with the A7sIII with the Dual CFExpress Type A and SD Card hybrid slots, allowing to use both types of card in the same slot, I thought that was one of the slickest designs on the market. The Sony A1 has inherited this awesome design!

The camera allows you to use the newly released CFExpress Type A cards giving you access to higher shutter speeds, all of the video codecs and a significantly faster buffer or you can use the same slots to use dual SD Cards. For my work, the CFExpress cards haven’t been needed yet, however I do plan on getting them eventually as it seems that Sony is including this hybrid design to future models in their roadmap, or so it seems. They are expensive, so make sure you need them before you get them. You’d be surprised how much you can get away with using the fast V90 SD cards. You still are able to capture 8K 30p and 4K 120p on an SD card with no issue, as long as you pick the compatible codec. And really the only codec that doesn’t work in those flavors on the SD card are the XAVC S-I in 8K 30p or 4K 120p, but any of the other codecs work really well, have amazing quality — with some codecs offering 10-bit 4:2:2 Color and should be sufficient for most people’s needs. But if you need the best quality setting and also need to shoot consistently at 30fps in stills mode with fast buffer clearing; then the CFexpress cards will be the way to go, but at a premium!

Connectivity

This to me is another area in which I felt that Sony really took care in providing what people wanted. Specifically the full size HDMI port, and the RJ45 port.

For those recording or monitoring to an external display or recorder, this is a game changer. Originally only available in the Sony A7sIII; adding it as an offering on this camera was a good move.

A full size HDMI is typically more secure and also more durable, where as the micro and mini HDMI connectors tend to be sensitive and can be easily damaged. I personally haven’t had any problems with the smaller HDMI ports, but I don’t use them as often as a full time videographer or cinematographer would.

I also find the the continued inclusion of the RJ45 connection, which was on the A9 II; is a really nice and unique feature geared towards the sports photographer or photojournalist needing a fast way to upload images while on assignment.

Connections always seem to be a struggle with mirrorless cameras when it comes to availability and stability. I think Sony did a good job in making professional connection options available, and even offering professional audio connections with their optional Sony XLR-K3M, allowing for the more professional XLR and ¼ inch inputs. I hope to eventually invest in this and their relatively new ECM-B1M Shotgun mic that conveniently connects to the hot-shoe and does not require a mic cable to use, freeing up a port on the side. Always a good thing! All in all Sony has got you on connections to the camera!

Size and Weight

Size and weight are a big reason I chose Sony as my main camera system to use. Coming from exclusively shooting Fujifilm for a number of years and no desire to ever revisit DSLR size cameras and lenses; Sony seemed to check mark all the boxes when it comes to keeping things compact, but powerful!

Ergonomics has sometimes been a compromise due to keeping the camera system compact, however I feel like Sony’s recent updates to ergonomics has addressed these concerns. The A1 follows the latest design Sony offers in the Alpha line with a more hefty grip giving a much more diverse group of photographers comfort in their hands, while maintaining a relatively compact size.

Additionally Sony and some other third party lens companies have started releasing amazing compact and powerful glass again, keeping with the Sony design of compact.

The Sony A1 is slightly heavier than any of the other cameras in the Alpha line. But not by that much. When combining all of the features the A1 has to offer extracted from three separate camera lines, it’s gonna be slightly heavier. There is a noticeable difference between the A1 and the A7sIII, but not enough to really matter, and lenses of all sizes balance really nicely on the A1.

Native Lens Choices

The Sony A1 has a plethora of lens options today in the E-Mount lineup. Although you can also adapt Canon EF glass to Sony bodies, you truly get the speed and magic of the autofocus algorithms through native E-Mount Glass.

Since Sony’s mirrorless offerings are the most mature, they have a head start in lens selections when it comes to mirrorless native glass. There is no shortage of options that the Sony A1 can use. However to take advantage of the speed of this camera, you may have to stick with the newer lens offerings or just know that some of the older Sony glass might not perform as optimally at it’s maximum capacity as mentioned above. But honestly in my experience using Sony GM glass, Sony FE glass, as well as Tamron and Sigma lenses; they all performed really well. I’m really looking forward to testing out the new 35mm f1.4 GM and the 50mm f1.2 GM. Both focal lengths that I use often!

How It Compares

Many are comparing the A1 to the Canon R5, and contrary to Canon users protesting this comparison, I think it merits some comparisons for sure. One could argue the Canon R5 has a lot of similarities in features and presents a compelling value proposition offering almost 80–90% of what the A1 offers.

They both have similar sensor sizes, similar shutter speed, comparable autofocus, and high end video features, and with Canon, all at almost half the cost of Sony A1! I definitely pondered this possibility owning a Canon R6 myself.

But when you compare the specs side by side, the Sony A1 just does things a little bit better and more complete. The Canon R5 is no doubt more of a high end photography tool than a video tool, where as the A1 really does give you a complete solution from top to tail and from photography to video feature sets with no compromises.

The race between Canon and Sony is blistering and keeping up with these two brands back and forth with releases is overwhelming, so although Sony currently offers the best hybrid camera available right now — in my opinion, this may quickly change, as Canon preps for the rumored R1 or something similar.

At the end of the day either system will offer an immense amount of options, and you really can’t go wrong with either, and although I use Sony as my main camera system, there is a reason why I own a Canon R6 as a side system to gain access to the RF glass and ecosystem as well. Pick a camp and you will be satisfied either way.

Final Thoughts

To be honest, I kind of wanted to NOT like this camera, based on the investment required, but Sony rarely disappoints, and I was able to get it at a rare discount upon launch. But it did take me a minute to warm up to this camera. It feels very different to me then the A7/A7r/A7s series cameras that I’ve been used to using the last couple of years. It definitely has a more A9 feel to it for sure, which I consider a whole different animal. So it feels more like an A9 series camera that got the features of the A7R and A7S camera, as opposed to the other way around.

The shutter felt different, and that took some getting used to. Many A9 users laugh at me, because I first took note of how different the mechanical shutter felt and many of them say, they didn’t understand why I even use the mechanical shutter at all. They go full electronic shutter all the time. I still like the feel of a mechanical shutter and really leverage the electronic shutter when I need it. But when using the camera out in the field, it really won me over. So refined, so quick and so accurate. There’s nothing sloppy about this camera.

This camera offers the best that Sony offers today in every way and that’s why I got it! It offers the best photography features money can buy, and offers some of the most advanced video features in a mirrorless camera. All in one package. It literally is an A9 II, A7sIII and A7rIV rolled into one camera body. And for many that doesn’t make sense for them to invest in, but after using it for a couple of weeks now, it’s making more and more sense to me.

My new setup for 2021, is now going to be a Sony A1 as my main body and the Sony A7sIII as my secondary body. I mainly shoot documentary photography, as well as all kinds of portraiture, with occasional event and photojournalism. With these two cameras I feel I have everything covered. From high resolution to low light, as well as two cameras with formidable video feature sets for when I’m shooting video coverage or any commercial or creative video work. Plus both of them share the same new menu system, as well as the new and improved autofocus engine, which will make switching between them seamless. If work increases for me this year I do see myself eventually getting either a second A1 or whatever the A7III successor might be (A7IV ?), when that becomes available. But for now I’m set, and it’s a good time to be on the Sony camp.

Stay tuned for my Canon R6 review, and why I have one in addition to my Sony kit, as well as a “what’s in my bag” post, going over why I have the gear I have, including one of my favorite cameras to date: The Fujifilm X100V