Sony just launched the new α9 Full Frame digital still camera yesterday. It does 4K (3840 x 2160) Full Frame video in a native 16:9 aspect ratio. By my back of napkin calculations, that also means full width Full Frame spherical widescreen (2.39:1) with any Full Frame lens and full height S35 anamorphic with an E-mount to PL adapter. (Sensor size is rounded up: actual image area of the a9 is 23.8 x 35.6 mm.)
SONY α9 (model ILCE-9)
- Full Frame stacked CMOS sensor, 24.2 effective Mexapixels. (Stacked sensor increases data processing up to 20x faster than previous Sony full-frame mirrorless cameras.)
- Pixel pitch: 5.9 microns (approx.)
- Blackout-Free Continuous Still Photo Shooting up to 20fps for up to 241 RAW or 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
- Ethernet port for file transfer
- Dual SD card slots
- Greater battery life than previous a7 series
- 5-Axis in-body image stabilization which provides the equivalent of 5 stops shutter speed advantage
- High-luminance Quad-VGA OLED Viewfinder with approximately 3,686,000 dots–the highest resolution viewfinder ever for a Sony α camera, 0.78x magnification, ZEISS T* Coating, and a fluorine coating on the outer lens that repels dirt.
- Joystick on the back of the camera to shift focus point within the frame.
- ISO range of 100 – 51200, expandable to 50 – 20480014.
- Uncompressed 14-bit RAW for stills.
- 4K Video capture (3840x2160p) across the full width of the full-frame image sensor (UHS Speed Class U3 required for 100Mbps or higher recording). The camera uses full pixel readout without pixel binning to collect 6K of information, oversampling it to produce 4K footage. Recording is also available in Super 35mm format.
- Internal 4K video recording to SD card is 8-bit, REC.709. 30p maximum, 100 Mbps.
- Full HD at 120 fps, up to 100 Mbps.
Pricing and Availability
The Sony α9 Full-frame Interchangeable Lens Camera will ship this May for about $4,500 US via Sony authorized dealers throughout North America.