The Sony A9 Omigod! (Nextmania)

I'm not sure I'm the best person to talk to about rumors. I just seem to lack the gene that gets all tweaked out for upcoming things. Where is the world headed to?!? What's going to happen to it? Like, it's been spinning on its axis rilly rilly fast while traveling in this giant arc around this rilly close star! Where's it going? Where's it gonna end up? What's going to happen to the world?!?

Chill. It's just going around and around like an idiot kid who won't get out of the revolving door is all.

I mean, I like new products. I just don't quite see the point in getting too lathered about them before they're real.

Of course I understand that many people really do enjoy rumors. I hung out on the ND section of Miata.net for about two years before the 2016 Miata was unveiled, and I'm pretty convinced there are still some guys out there who won't get out of bed or pull the covers off their heads because they miss their favorite form of argumentation and disputation so much and are still grieving. That car was discussed so much before anyone knew anything that just the rumormongering had became a lifestyle for some guys. A bunch of middle-aged motorheads arguing heatedly over speculative beliefs that couldn't be confirmed or debunked—there's fun for ya.

So I'm not one to rain on anyone else's parade. Clearly, people love camera rumors. Call it...nextmania. The craze for whatever's coming next.

So anyway—I started off track here and am now going to take a crowbar and wrench myself back on course—there's a rumor that's been going around, that started apparently on sonyalpharumors.com, that Sony will release a full-frame mirrorless camera in the Fall positioned above the A7 series. The "A9"—not an official name—will have either 72 or 80 megapixels, and continuous capture (without a buffer limit), writing to dual high-capacity, superfast XQD cards. (In related news, my mental hard drive for things known by three initials is almost full, and nothing will delete—but never mind.) Fantastic! So you'll be able not only to record pictures that are too big, but you'll be able to get too many of them too fast, too.

Sorry, I'm just trying to be funny. I don't mean that.

...Meanwhile, we just couldn't have IBIS in the A6300, could we. Grump.

We could either discuss the "A9," or just wait till it happens. I suppose I'll be ready to write about it after it's been out for a year. I guess I'm more of a classicist. When I was young I was more interested in old things than new things.

Mike

P.S. Every time someone in the Comments uses the phrase "game changer" it's going to hurt me like a bee sting, as I'm allergic to it. Do as you like, but take it easy on me please.  :-)

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Dennis: "I think we need to stop measuring camera companies on big flashy numbers like 72 MP. Take a lesson from sports and their assists and turnovers, earned run averages and more stats than you can shake the proverbial stick at.

"How about measuring each camera company's LBR (lens to body ratio) each year? Or it's FFC (full frame to crop)? What's their average FU (firmware updates per body)? We can talk which company has an aging lineup and which one is in (or should be in!) a rebuilding season. Just think how much easier it would be to argue over who's best if you had access to stats like these (and 20 or 30 others).

"Of course, to settle it once and for all, we'd need a fantasy camera league. That would undoubtedly be more fun than taking pictures for some."

Comments

[Kenneth Tanaka]

I thought this was a follow-up to answer the question of why Ebony cameras are going kaput. No? Well it certainly should / could be.

Yes, I saw the "A9" rumor a week ago. Sony's also rumored to be preparing a medium format camera and lens line. As they already make "medium format" sensors it holds some traction.

[Chris Vickery]

Don't fail to leave room in your brain for TLA (three letter acronyms).

[John Krumm]

I actually just ordered a true "retro" digital camera, The Pentax K1. Who knows when I'll get it. But I hope to be immune from nextmania for a while, if that is possible. I'm sure it's unwise to purchase a new camera as a nextmania inoculation, so that probably means I'm in the throes of the disease, and there's nothing I can do.

One thing for sure, if you have an A7RII and the A9 comes out with improved everything, especially battery life, I expect an increase in online cliche density. The forums will resound with "teeth gnashing" and "soul searching" as Sony owners check their pocketbooks in anticipation what is sure to be a huge... well, I won't say it.

[David Zivic]

"Passion" is my bee sting, but "GC" is a close second. My experience is that Nikon rumors are pretty reliable but after the a6300 "miss" (a7300, ibis, touch screen, full frame) why bother following the "rumors" from Sony. I would rather read about turntables, pool tables, or go to the dentist !

[David Dyer-Bennet]

And when we run out of TLAs, we can go to ETLAs (extended three-letter acronyms).

(Actually, we ran out of TLAs years ago.)

[jim woodard]

I'm just waiting for my Techart adapter to arrive. Its supposed to make M mount lenses autofocus on my Sony A7mII, and maybe a A6300- if I had one!

[Oskar Ojala]

I like that the A6300 has a small form factor, though it would be nice if Sony would release a bigger crop sensor mirrorless for those who want more features and/or a bigger form factor.

An A9 would be nice, but personally I feel that I mostly need ergonomic and handling improvements, image quality already being on an insane level in models like the A7R II.

[John Camp]

Thats's Yoooge!

[Nigel Voak]

80MP just what I must have to create my Blurb books and ePubs where I need those huge 2MB JPEG image files. Those 6MB equivalent screen viewed shots will of course look much better too.

I will be able to all that camera shake, shutter shock and mirror slap much better when I view at 100% also.

[Paul Bien]

And I just bought a Nikon F6...shoot.

[HVJ]

I'm as excited as the next person. However, blessed with the thaumaturgic mind of The Mystical Mephisto, I believe we'll see the real, uh, recreation modifiers later in '17, once Lytro trickles back down and Magic Leap reveals its hand.

[Mahn England]

Does this mean that all images taken with other rumors prior to the release of this rumor are redundant?

[Rod Thompson]

Nothing wrong with old things.......I hope.

[Ger Lawlor]

Mike, now's your chance!!! https://www.namepros.com/threads/nextmania-com-since-1998.882707/

[Steve Jacob]

Fairly soon Sony will have more lines of cameras than lenses in any line...

[Michael Cytrynowicz]

Reading Dennis' comment I just glanced at the "...What's their average FU (firmware updates per body)?..." and thought to myself, well, dunno about firmware updates, this sounds like something else these companies tend to do to us.

;-p

[Bob Rosinsky]

When and if the A9 comes out, the market will be flooded with second-hand A7R IIs. I'd be tempted, maybe, to buy an A7R II for under $1,500.

[Bill C]

"Camera Fantasy League"... I love that title, but doesn't it describe about 80% of the digital camera forums today?

Its funny, but I have been finding joy in an ancient (released in 2013), miserable 16mp, 4/3 sensor size E-M1. I mean, how do I even manage to capture even an Instagram post with this rig?

Aside from being able to shoot everything at a wide angle and cropping from there, I simply can't find reason for 40mp+ for a mere enthusiast as myself.

Now, lenses, oh my, it is easy to chase glass...

[Richard Newman]

So you think the photo world has too many acronyms and abbreviations? Two, three or four letters? Count your blessings! Consider the plight of the poor government employee. For example, just for DOD, there are a hundred pages or more -see

Joint Publication 1-02, DOD Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms 08 November 2010, as amended through 15 October 2015
and this doesn't cover most of the other gov't departments, which are just as bad.

[G Dan Mitchell]

It is new... but it isn't.

It is (another) step in the continuing development and advance of camera technology, which is a fine thing. Before that some other company had the highest MP camera, and a bit further in the future some other company will. The same for camera speed, and all the rest.

Progress is good, and the trend has been and continues to be in useful directions. That said, nothing to get worked up over. :-)

[Bruce McL]

What surprises me is how bad most cameras continue to be. Every year the menus get more and more overloaded and the screens get more cluttered with icons. The camera makers continue to think that adding more features actually makes a camera better. They will never understand what Apple has done to them.

The pros and the wannabe pros will continue to buy from Nikon, Canon, at al. and put up with firmware that just overwhelms normal people. More and more people who want to take good pictures will find other, less painful ways to do so. Soon enough they will start selling their work...

[A Facebook User]

I also did not get it why no IBIS on the 6300. They lost a client on me right there...

[Winwalloe]

A9 models have been rumored, or loudly wished, ever since Sony started doing DSLRs.

I mostly care about what I can afford, or justify to spend!

[Paulo Bizarro]

If the A9 ever shows up, the only thing I know for sure is that it will be dearer than the A7RII - I can not afford it. I am also sure it will sell like hot cakes, and will make thousands of cat and flower photos to keep peepers happy:)

P.S. What is a Miata?

[Steve Jacob]

So far, none of these improvements seem to be making photographs any more interesting to look at.

What we really need is a 'photographer AI' mode. We could select from Henri Cartier- Bresson, Ansel Adams, Walker Evans etc., attach camera to an autonomous drone and wait an hour or so for the images to appear on our smart phone.

[Robert Roaldi]

Is A9 the end? They have been using single digit based names in that camera line, but what are they going to call the next one after the A9? I suppose they could go to hexadecimal and call the next one AA, but wait, they skip even numbers, so it would be the AB. They've painted themselves into a corner, time to hire new branding consultants!

Is there a name for the modern hobby of buying new gadgets?

It might be interesting to do a census of the number of cameras sitting in peoples' homes that aren't being used.

[John Lehet]

The main thing I hope from this is that the crack software engineers at Sony will now be compelled to learn how to make lossless compressed raw files (I guess they could just ask Nikon if it's hard to implement ancient compression algorithms in-house. At least on the D8xx cameras Nikon offers lossless raw files, half the size of Sony's uncompressed ones).

As it is now, on the a7rii, the uncompressed raw files are 80MB each, and the only other option for raw in the firmware is lossy compression, which has been shown to create bad artifacts. This has added steps and data-moving to my workflow, way too boring to detail, in order to not overwhelm my main photos drive. 80MB files add up to a lot of drive space quickly.

[dan]

Affordable digital medium format is the future and always will be. Anything else is purely incremental improvement to the canon 5d.

So says I.

[sneye]

I don't get it. Photography is supposed to be fun, but most new cameras are certainly not.

[Jack]

In some ways digital cameras are, essentially, computers with imaging sensor. So perhaps a comment made by Dave Barry many years ago about the latest greatest computer now can be applied to digital cameras.

Dave said (paraphrasing here): " I bought the latest greatest computer and immediately tossed it into the trash can outside of the store and ran back into the store to buy the next latest and greatest computer."

[Herb Cunningham]

the term is FOMO, which stands for fear of missing out. It drives human behavior in many areas, including traffic, never mind the latest and greatest.
I am reminded of my favorite quote, from Ghandi:
there is more to life than increasing its speed.

[Chris]

"Game changer", "pulling the trigger on...", "and I never looked back". At least "thinking outside the box" is dying.

If hear any more of these cliches on photo forums...I'll stamp my foot.

[Stephen Scharf]

Chr*st. 72 Megapixel Sony A9. More mindless incrementalism for the sake of mindless incrementalism.

Like that's going to make me a better photographer.

I can see it now: DPR will start to slag Fuji and Olympus for being "behind the times" with their puny 24 and 20 megapixel sensors. When will it end?

[David Cope]

Wot! No 20k video!

[Chris Fuller]

I remember 12-14 years ago when the big news was breaking the 3 megapixel "barrier." The terms change; the marketing BS is the same.

[hugh crawford]

"game changer"
Is that when the Garrard drops the next disk on the platter while the tone arm is still in the runout groove ?

[Rob]

I have a friend who is a Sony dealer, and he tells me that the A9 is more than rumor. Sony is trying very hard to break into the professional market, and with this camera, pros will most certainly take notice. I expect that more than a few non-pros will as well. I will not be amongst them.

[Alan Carmody]

How many pixels can the human eye see, when it is able to fit in an image into its field of view?

How loose is does a photographer's framing have to get, before he is no longer composing a picture at all?

Answer those two questions, and you have the maximum number of pixels a sensor really needs to have. Any more, and you are unfavorably trading dynamic range and low light capability for unused detail.

I daresay the answer is somewhere between 10 and 20 megapixels for almost every type of photography except for surveillance.

For me, it is 6 megapixels. I know this because the pictures from my old Nikon D100 yield nothing to the pictures from my Nikon D7100.

Not color, not a missed moment, not a cropping opportunity lost because of insufficient detail, nor a low light shot I would have liked to take.

I daresay digital technology has made camera engineers lazy and camera marketing departments drool. Improving a host of irrelevant specs is routine, now.

Improving and simplifying the experience of getting the image is, however, a forgotten engineering goal. A plethora of settings and options make modern digital camera photography a minefield of mistakes waiting to be made, and distractions from the image making task at hand.

I'm really, really tired of these hype-filled new camera announcements.