Sony Alpha 1

Hi all,

Sony has just announced the Alpha 1 mirrorless camera:  https://wetpixel.com/articles/any-announces-the-alpha-1-mirrorless-camera

If the specs are anything to go by, it looks rather special:

50.1 MP sensor, 240 fps refresh rate EVF, 1/400s flash sync and 8K 30p 10-bit 4:2:0 video recording?

If only there was a fisheye lens!
 

Special indeed:

"The Alpha 1 will ship in March, priced at $6,500."

- brett

It looks fantastic! I think I shall have to have one. Eventually...

Reportedly, it gives as good low light performance as the a9 II, but with double the resolution.

About the only thing I can think of for them to add, to make it better for u/w shooting, would be Fish Eye AF.

What about adapted canon fisheye lenses? You don't need superfast AF, do you?

AF is subjective! It will be exciting to see how the implementation works with this camera. To date, Sony mirrorless has had AF issues for macro shooters primarily. When I hear of people having to use manual AF with the 90mm, this seems like a huge step backward. I gather that it is significantly better with the A7R IV and A7S III, but have not heard (or used) much about it, I suspect due to people being unable to travel and try them out...

Certainly, adapters like the Metabones allow the use of the Canon 8-15mm. One of the optical advantages of using mirrorless is that it allows the lens and the sensor to be positioned closer to each other. Of course, when you add an adaptor, you lose this advantage. Whether this is significant for underwater use remains to seen.

I can't wait to see what this camera does underwater. The specs like flash sync speed and EVF refresh rates are very exciting!

I'm hoping they will take all that new tech and scale it down to refresh the A6xxx line with a new sensor - that might make me consider upgrading. Otherwise, my A6300 provides a reasonable balance point between price and performance - a $6500 body is way outside my price range, and even if it wasn't, I'd rather spend the money on more dives.

When you add the Metabones the lens acts like it would on a DSLR, does that make it better or worse?

The Alpha 1 is a bit like the $6500.00 Nikon D6 or $6500.00 Canon EOS-1D X Mark III in terms of user base. Not really targeted at the consumer level.