Industry News: Sony officially announces the α9 II

Ozarker

Love, joy, and peace to all of good will.
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The A9 is still ahead of the pack in function. Sony didn’t need to press forward to be ahead of the game. For Sony pros, I hope they improved the weather sealing and ergos a good deal.
The drain plug comes with some pipe tape. No leaks anymore. Note: Remove the drain plug before attaching to a tripod. ;)
 
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Not likely.

They can’t help themselves. It’s compulsive. I follow a lot of disparate forums, local photography, senior portraits, Canon specific tips, tricks, gear talk, etc.

Anyone that posts a pic they are particularly proud of and tags it as “EOS R/RP” or even “Taken with my Nikon Z6/Z7” will set off a chorus of squawking that sounds like those seagulls from Finding Dory. “Can you return it? You have to buy a Sony. What a mistake. Why did you do that. Your picture sucks because it wasn’t taken with a Sony” etc etc etc ad nauseum.

The single most obnoxious user culture I’ve ever seen. With the possible exception of Harley Davidson.
I hear you, I almost feel sorry for them... almost...

I drive a classic car and follow loads of different forums and sites, and there is this insane cult of people that INSISTS that every car MUST be exact down to ridiculous detail the way it left the factory, otherwise “You shouldn’t be allowed to own it, you have completely destroyed it” etc.Why can’t they just keep their car that way and let other people do whatever they like...?
 
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unfocused

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...More evidence of a 24 MP 1DX Mark II in my opinion. If Sony thought sports shooters wanted more MP's they could easily have given it to them.

More evidence IMO of a split between what pro sports photographers want/ need and the nature and wildlife market.

I disagree. I still expect and hope that the 1Dx III has at least 30 mp. Having shot with the 1D, 5D and R and experienced no downsides with the higher resolution sensors, I would be shocked if Canon opts for fewer mps. I don't know about other sports photographers, but I certainly would like more resolution. In fact, it can be at least as important in sports shooting as in birding. Many sports photographers, myself included, rely on either single focus point or an expanded single point in order to get the player you need to be in focus to actually be in focus. That means cropping. Sports are messy and messy also means cropping. Sometimes radical cropping. Add to that the fact you can be just as distance limited shooting sports as you can with birds, which also means cropping.

The vast majority of sports photographers don't have access to $8,000 lenses. People's opinions on this get skewed because they watch NFL, NBA and Olympics and think that's how most sports photographers shoot.
 
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Sharlin

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I disagree. I still expect and hope that the 1Dx III has at least 30 mp. Having shot with the 1D, 5D and R and experienced no downsides with the higher resolution sensors, I would be shocked if Canon opts for fewer mps.

If I had to bet, I'd put my money on 28±2 MP. Going over 30 would certainly give Canon some major bragging rights though, if they can make it work, performance-wise. The 90D/M6II's major jump in throughput did take me by surprise (my prediction was something like 28MP/8fps based on past trends) so perhaps I'm being too conservative. After all, the M6II throughput rivals that of the 9II! And that's with a mechanical shutter rather than electronic.

Many sports photographers, myself included, rely on either single focus point or an expanded single point in order to get the player you need to be in focus to actually be in focus.

You should just switch to a Sony or Nikon body, they can automatically figure out which player you want to shoot and start tracking them ;)
 
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I disagree. I still expect and hope that the 1Dx III has at least 30 mp. Having shot with the 1D, 5D and R and experienced no downsides with the higher resolution sensors, I would be shocked if Canon opts for fewer mps. I don't know about other sports photographers, but I certainly would like more resolution. In fact, it can be at least as important in sports shooting as in birding. Many sports photographers, myself included, rely on either single focus point or an expanded single point in order to get the player you need to be in focus to actually be in focus. That means cropping. Sports are messy and messy also means cropping. Sometimes radical cropping. Add to that the fact you can be just as distance limited shooting sports as you can with birds, which also means cropping.

The vast majority of sports photographers don't have access to $8,000 lenses. People's opinions on this get skewed because they watch NFL, NBA and Olympics and think that's how most sports photographers shoot.
I'm not advocating one way or the other I'm just making a calculated guess. I don't think you get 6K full frame with a 30 MP sensor but that rumor may turn out to be false. I agree that the 30 MP sensor in the 5D mark IV takes a crop much better than the 1DX for making high quality prints (nature and wildlife) but I'm not sure how much that matters to the sport's shooters Canon cares about. Pushing work straight to the web as quickly as possible seems to be the priority. Of course, if you are a sport's shooter I'll defer to your opinion on that.

I use my big Canon EF gear primarily for nature and wildlife and I'm resigned to the fact that Canon couldn't care less about what I want. That's probably a sound business decision on their part.

My general rule is I need to be able to get a decent resolution vertical crop out of the height of a horizontal frame (if that makes sense). If I can work out a horizontal crop that's a bonus but I can't really count on it since I prefer the verticals. If I were more talented I might be able to shoot action vertically (single point focus) but in my experience that's pretty tough to do without your subject running out of the frame at the worst possible time. I agree that sometime that crop is a challenge with the 1DX mark II. 24MP's would be better. 30 would be perfect but I don't think we're going to get that.

I would be happy to be wrong but I don't think I am. Personally, I don't expect to buy any more Canon DSLR's. They are great tools and I'm happy with the results they've help me achieve but the market and my interests seem to be going in other directions.
 
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unfocused

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...My general rule is I need to be able to get a decent resolution vertical crop out of the height of a horizontal frame (if that makes sense)...

This actually reminds me of another reason for more resolution. Almost everything I shoot ends up on the web, with a fair amount also ending up in print. For web images, horizontal is almost a mandate, and if it is going to be on a banner, if has to be a narrow horizontal. At the same time, if you need to use the same image in a publication, it might need to be cropped vertically. All of this means shooting loose and cropping later.

I guess one question is whether Canon values video shooters over stills shooters for the 1D line. My assumption has always been that they still consider the 1D to be primarily a stills camera and video takes a backseat. I could be wrong.
 
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That does sound nice but if pushing around all those pixels increases the time lag in the viewfinder it's going to be harder to track moving subjects. I think that viewfinder is spec'd for minimal lag. For other kinds of subjects I love a viewfinder like you're describing.
Surely you understood that the point was a better EVF does make the camera a better sports camera, and it obviously implies lesser lag.
 
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AlanF

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Thom Hogan, who is a pro sports photographer and writes sensible, informative articles has written a positive response http://www.sansmirror.com/newsviews...ber-2019-newsv/sony-a9-mark-ii-announced.html in contrast to 15 pages from angry Sony addicts on Fredmiranda. But, there is a real reason for the difference in opinion. He has written in the past how it is crucial for him to send off small files quickly, and this is different from most Sony A9 users. They tend to be bird and nature photographers who love the AF of the A9 but are frustrated by its low resolution and were led by the rumour sites to expect a 36 Mpx sensor.

It is amusing to read their comments castigating Sony and thinking of moving to Canon - it's the mirrorless mirroring the mirrored!
 
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Joules

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That does sound nice but if pushing around all those pixels increases the time lag in the viewfinder it's going to be harder to track moving subjects. I think that viewfinder is spec'd for minimal lag. For other kinds of subjects I love a viewfinder like you're describing.
I think you use lag to describe the time it takes between something happing in reality and it being displayed on the display.

Assuming there is no initial delay for starting the imaging pipeline and display, this depends only on how long it takes to process and display a single frame.

In that case, higher frame rates are the way to reduce lag, not increase it.

The faster you can process the image, the faster you can display it, given an appropriate display. And that reduces lag. At 60 Hz for example, each image is displayed for 16.7 ms and the processing time can not be higher than that. At 120 Hz, each image is displayed only 8.3 ms, but processing must be twice as fast to allow such a frame rate.

Reducing lag and perceived blur this way does make tracking objects considerably easier though. I use a gaming display with a 144 Hz refresh rate on my computer and it is a night and day difference between that and 60 Hz.

The EOS R viewfinder has a resolution of only 1.280 x 960 pixels. It only does 120Hz 720p video, (1280 x 720 pixels) but I'm wondering: do we know the refresh rate of the R? I had assumed 60 Hz because that's what the LV display is, but the viewfinder spec isn't mentioned on Canon's site I believe.

In any case the M6 II does 120 Hz 1080p (1920 x 1080 pixels) video so it should have the processing power to drive a high res, high refresh viewfinder. A future high res R may give us just that.
 
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Not likely.

They can’t help themselves. It’s compulsive. I follow a lot of disparate forums, local photography, senior portraits, Canon specific tips, tricks, gear talk, etc.

Anyone that posts a pic they are particularly proud of and tags it as “EOS R/RP” or even “Taken with my Nikon Z6/Z7” will set off a chorus of squawking that sounds like those seagulls from Finding Dory. “Can you return it? You have to buy a Sony. What a mistake. Why did you do that. Your picture sucks because it wasn’t taken with a Sony” etc etc etc ad nauseum.

The single most obnoxious user culture I’ve ever seen. With the possible exception of Harley Davidson.
What you say is of course completely true and I for one get very angry sometimes when I see some of the vile comments posted

I can simultaneously see how easy it is on a a forum such as this to think "that's a load of nonsense" and then write a response which feels like you are proving your superior intellect and will impress everyone - when all it does is show what an awful personality you have

Its a trap I can fall into easily - particularly with work-,related emails

I have a horrible side to my personality of which I am terribly ashamed and do a lot to suppress - but sometimes it escapes

On the plus side this forum is also stacked with some really fantastic people who have taught me so much and pointed out things I would never have realized - all with an air of decency and helpfulness

Overall I love Canon Rumors and I think Craig (is that the right name?) does a great job of not being over-censorious - which I appreciate personally - if people shoot their mouths off then most of us can see the problem is at their end and not that of the intended recipient !
 
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