Sony Announces Flagship Alpha a9 Full-Frame 4K Mirrorless Camera

It has been rumoured for a while, but Sony finally made it official: The Sony Alpha a9 full-frame 4K mirrorless camera is real. The Sony Alpha a9 is using the world’s first full-frame stacked 24.2 megapixel CMOS sensor and is packed with an incredible amount of technology that Sony claims it is currently “unmatched by any camera ever created – mirrorless, SLR or otherwise.” Bold words but a quick overview of some of its features certainly seems to validate that claim:

• Blackout-Free Continuous Shooting at up to 20fps for up to 241 RAW/ 362 JPEG images
• Silent, Vibration-free shooting at speeds up to 1/32,000 sec
• 693 point focal plane phase detection AF points with 60 AF/AE tracking calculations per second
• Extensive professional features including Ethernet port for file transfer, Dual SD card slots and extended battery life
• 5-axis in-body image stabilisation with a 5.0 step shutter speed advantage

The Sony Alpha a9 is an incredibly fast camera in a compact body. Much of its advantage over any existing camera is made possible by the 35mm full-frame stacked Exmor RS CMOS sensor. This gives the new Alpha a9 data speed processing at up to 20x faster than previous generation Sony full-frame cameras. Paired with this stacked CMOS sensor is an upgraded BIONZ X processing engine and front end LSI.  Sony has also addressed some of the woes expressed by Alpha shooters, which is the abysmal battery life of the a7, so the new Alpha a9 is packed with a battery that has approximately more than twice the capacity of the Sony A7RII.

Overview video:

Sony Alpha a9 4K Video demo:

In terms of price, the Sony a9 has an MSRP of $4,499 USD for the body only and is available for pre-orders starting April 21 from B&H Audio Video Store, Adorama and other camera stores. It will start shipping towards the end of May/beginning of June.