DpreviewTV: a 4K video from the Sony a1’s 8K capture

Preorders:
Sony A1 at BHphoto. Adorama. Amazon. Focuscamera.
Sony XPeria 5G PRO at BHphoto. Adorama. Amazon.
Sony A1 in Europe at FotoErhardt DE. Calumet DE. Fotokoch DE. Park UK. WexUK.
Join the Sony A1 Facebook group here.

Dpreview tested the 8K feature of the Sony A1:

8K might sound like it’s completely unnecessary, given how few people have 8K displays and the diminishing returns that higher-resolution panels show at comfortable viewing distances. However, just like the early days of 4K, there’s a distinct value to being able to capture footage at higher resolution than you intend it to be viewed.

In this instance, most of the footage has been downsampled to 4K resolution, which should give higher levels of detail than you’d get from native 4K capture. The higher resolution also offers the possibility to crop and pan within the larger 8K region, while still offering at least 4K quality. Such examples are marked in the video.

Sony 50mm f/1.2 GM lens review by Lenstip: “A round of applause for Sony!”

The full Preorder links:
Sony 50mm f/1.2 GM at BHphoto. Amazon. Adorama. FocusCamera. Fotokoch Germany. Calumet Germany, Foto Erhardt. ParkCameras UK. Jessops.

Lenstip tested the new lens and writes:

Like in the case of the Sony FE 35 mm f/1.4 GM, tested by us not so long ago, our summary will be short. It seems Sony is on a winning streak – they managed to launch another outstanding lens on the market. It deserves our ‘Editor’s Choice’ badge just for the way it performs at the maximum relative aperture but the list of its assets doesn’t end here. This list is really long and impressive. A round of applause!

Pros:

  • solid and sealed mechanical construction,
  • sensational image quality in the frame centre up from the maximum relative aperture,
  • very good image quality on the edge of the APS-C sensor,
  • good image quality on the edge of full frame,
  • properly corrected longitudinal chromatic aberration,
  • slight lateral chromatic aberration,
  • moderate distortion,
  • decent coma correction,
  • moderate vignetting on the APS-C sensor,
  • good performance against bright light,
  • very pleasant out-of-focus areas,
  • quite fast, silent and accurate autofocus.

Cons:

  • high vignetting on full frame.

 

Sony 50mm f/1.2 GM video review and comparison samples (Magicweddingphotographer).

The new Sony 50mm f/1.2 GM is cheaper, lighter and better than the competition. What else do you want?

Preorders:
Sony 50mm f/1.2 GM at BHphoto. Amazon. Adorama. FocusCamera. Fotokoch Germany. Calumet Germany, Foto Erhardt. ParkCameras UK. Jessops.

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A couple of years ago Nikon and Leica said they will be better than Sony’s lenses because of the wider mount diameter. Today Sony proved they can make better, smaller, lighter and cheaper lenses than the competition. You can make an accurate specs comparison ar this BHphoto comparison page.


Comparison I made based on Camerasize

Compared with the Canon 50mm f/1.2 the Sony is:

  • $300 cheaper
  • 178g lighter
  • 2.8mm tighter
  • 5mm less filter size
  • 11blades instead of Canon’s 10 blades
  • it has an aperture ring
  • it’s weather resistant
  • has much faster autofocus
  • focus is silent

Compared with the Nikon 50mm f/1.2 the Sony is:

  • $100 cheaper
  • 312g lighter
  • 42mm shorter
  • 2.5mm tighter
  • 10mm less filter size
  • 11blades instead of Nikon’s 9 blades
  • it has an aperture ring
  • has much faster autofocus
  • focus is silent

The mount diameter debate is over. It was just a fictional nonsensical discussion. Let’s drop the mic :)

Dpreview analysis: New Sony a1 sensor offers class-leading dynamic range, along with high-speed and high-resolution

Preorders:
Sony A1 at BHphoto. Adorama. Amazon. Focuscamera.
Sony XPeria 5G PRO at BHphoto. Adorama. Amazon.
Sony A1 in Europe at FotoErhardt DE. Calumet DE. Fotokoch DE. Park UK. WexUK.
Join the Sony A1 Facebook group here.

Rishi Sanyal from Dpreview tested the Sony A1 sensor and writes:

The sensor in the Sony a1 displays a marked improvement over the first-generation full-frame stacked CMOS seen in the a9 and a9 II, with increases in resolution, readout speed and dynamic range. Up until now it had seemed as though fast sensor readout and high dynamic range were mutually exclusive. The a1 has the fastest sensor scan rate of any camera we’ve measured, to our knowledge only roughly 1ms or ~25% slower than a traditional mechanical shutter.
And yet despite the speedy readout and shooting rates, the a1’s base ISO dynamic range is class-leading compared its sport-oriented peers, and lies within our measurement error of its class-leading high-resolution full-frame peers. Meanwhile, high ISO dynamic range remains competitive, surpassing that of many of its high-resolution peers and falling only slightly behind lower resolution cameras that have less cumulative read noise due to fewer pixels.
That means you won’t have to worry about trading off any image quality for the capabilities the a1 bring that hinge upon its fast readout. High contrast scenes such as the one above, and more challenging ones, can be handled with ease if you expose to retain highlights and tone-map underexposed tones to be visible in post-processing. And the dual gain design of the sensor ensures low noise levels as light levels drop. The Alpha 1 should offer a great deal of flexibility regardless of your shooting scenario.