A-port flagship high-profile return to Sony A99II in-depth evaluation

IT 168 evaluation has to admit that the non-opposition camp headed by Sony has been able to compete with SLR through several years of efforts. But in fact, if you are familiar with Sony, you should remember that just before Sony vigorously developed a mirrorless camera, there were a series of A single battery products that were very important to Sony. Maybe everyone has begun to forget this single cell series that pioneered the concept of semi-permeable and semi-reflective membrane.

After Sony released the A77II generation on 20 14, when everyone thought that the A-mount cameras would gradually disappear, in September of 20 16, Sony released its latest flagship product, Sony A99II, which also proved to us that the A-mount is still strong with its powerful comprehensive performance.

Advantages:

1. brand-new 42.4 megapixel Quan Huafu Quan Huafu sensor.

2. fuselage plus 5-axis anti-shake

3.4K video blessing

4. Shutter action video (1fps- 120fps)

Continuous shooting capacity 5. 12 sheets/sec.

Disadvantages:

1. No touch screen function

2. When shooting 1fps fast video mode, the picture is easy to get stuck.

The 3.4K video memory card must still be uhs-3.

4. After converting and storing the SD card, you can't browse the contents of the current card.

Buying guide:

Pass the whole test, of course, plus some small feelings about Sony A series. This A99II shows very powerful performance. As mentioned earlier, Sony launched a new product after four years, and the performance of this product is still not a problem in another four years. Coupled with the existence of so many A-lens groups before. Sony A port is still a very strong series.

But let's talk about it in two ways. Sony is getting better and better, and has a tendency to enter the professional field. So can we still see the A99III generation in four years? These are all unknowns.

So if you used to be a Sony A-port user and still have some A-port lenses in your hand, Sony A99II represents a collection of all the top functions at present, and the upgrade is absolutely no problem. Compared with products of the same level, Sony A99II has also surpassed in focusing on continuous shooting and video functions. At the price of 20,000 yuan, Sony A99II is really competitive.

It's just that if Sony doesn't want to give up this A series completely, it will update the lens from time to time. The only short board of Sony A99II may be on the lens. If it reaches the level of 40 million pixels, the previous lens may rarely support such a high resolution.

At present, the price of Sony A99II is 2 1999 yuan, linked by official website.

The appearance is basically unchanged, and it still tastes like A99.

It has been four years since the last generation A99, but for A99 series, the time of missing seems to have not changed much. This A99II still maintains the same appearance size and key design as in the past.

And even the pixels of the electronic viewfinder and LCD screen are almost the same as those of the previous A99. Of course, this does not mean that Sony is not enterprising. It can only be said that the A99 four years ago did a very good job in this respect, and its strength in four years is still no problem.

This LCD screen can also be folded in multiple directions. The only regret is that Sony added a touch screen function to A6500, but the A99II released at the same time did not have this function, which has to be said to be a puzzling and regrettable place.

However, there must be some differences from the previous A99, such as adding a multi-function controller under the front of the fuselage.

This multifunction controller is an optimized version of the original mute multifunction controller, which can control the settings such as aperture, shutter speed, ISO, exposure compensation, autofocus area, autofocus mode, etc. for still images and dynamic images, and is equipped with a toggle prompt switch. When opened, the controller will click to provide feedback. When closed, the controller will run smoothly and quietly, and will not interfere with dynamic image recording.

As for memory card, Sony A99II also provides the design of dual-card slot SDXC, but because it supports shooting 4K video, if you want to shoot 4K video, you still need to use uhs-3 memory card.

In addition, the dual card slot brings many aspects, but after each switch, you always have to take photos first, or choose from the menu to read the contents of the current main card directly, otherwise the photos will still be played back with the contents of the previous main card, which is a small bug.

Battery or NP-FM500H battery.

Finally, look at Sony A99II with 70-200mm F2.8 G SSM II. Still so domineering, right?

So in fact, in the appearance part, we can't see any obvious improvement or change in Sony A99II, because all the improvement points of this machine occur inside this machine. What is a big leap? Please continue to look at the following test.

42.4 million pixels with outstanding details.

From A99 to A99II, after four years, the whole pixel doubled. Most of the SLR cameras we can see are still at the level of more than 20 million pixels. Although the heat of tank A is much lower than that of that year, this machine will not be released, and it will be guaranteed to maintain a high level in the next few years. This can be seen from Sony's generous matching of A99II with this self-developed low-pass 42.4 megapixel sensor.

In the evaluation room environment, we took photos with Sony A99II and 50mm F 1.4 lens of Sony A port, and then made local section observation.

Of course, from the perspective of local slicing, Sony A99II will never disappoint, and the image quality of both the center and the edge is very sharp, which is gratifying. After removing the low-pass filter, the performance of details should be said to be a higher level, and the sensor level of 42.4 million pixels can completely lead the SLR camera of the same level.

Last year, Sony completely improved the processor structure of its camera and adopted BIONZ X processor supported by front-end LSI. Better control of noise at high sensitivity. The sensory range of Sony A99II is ISO 100-ISO 25600, which can be extended to ISO 50 downward and ISO 102400 upward. The final actual effect, if you still shoot the test in the evaluation environment.

On the sensitivity test film, slight noise appeared from ISO 1600 to ISO3200, but the details began to decline, but it was still within the acceptable range. Therefore, it can be said that the limit sensitivity of Sony A99II is around ISO3200. In some special cases, ISO6400 can also be used, but it is not recommended to use the one with higher sensitivity.

Full size 12 sheets/sec continuous shooting +4D focusing.

You can understand the horror of this machine just by looking at this subtitle. Quan Huafu can still guarantee the continuous shooting capability of 12 frames per second in full pixel size. Earlier, we also mentioned that Sony has further improved the processing capacity of BIONZ X processor and increased the cache of the fuselage, so it is very powerful to achieve the full-size output capacity of 12 sheets/second.

In addition, Sony A99II also adopts Sony's very commendable 4D focusing system in recent years, so it has a combination of 79-point phase detection autofocus and 399-point focal plane phase detection autofocus. There are 79 mixed cross focus points to further improve the focusing accuracy.

For such a camera focusing on continuous shooting, the actual shooting situation may be ever-changing, so Sony A99II has also set a variety of options for us to better complete high-speed focusing shooting.

In the focus menu, in addition to the familiar focus mode and focus area, you can also see the optional AF area option.

As shown in the menu, in the autofocus system, only phase detection is used for focusing. The advantage of phase detection is high speed, but it requires high light, so if you want to achieve the fastest focusing speed in a well-lit place, you can turn this option on.

In addition, when we choose the autofocus mode, we can also choose to display only the cross focus in the autofocus area. Cross focus is the focus with high focusing accuracy. From the above introduction, we know that Sony A99II-* * has 79 mixed cross focus points.

However, we can see that although the cross focus has higher focusing accuracy, it is only concentrated in the central part of the entire viewfinder, and most other areas are not good. Isn't this a waste? In view of this, Sony A99II also has a solution.

Sony A99 II also provides the mode of opening APS-C in the menu. In full mode, the focal length of the lens will be multiplied by 1.5, so it is very useful to shoot ecological themes but the focal length is not enough. Of course, the biggest change after turning on this mode is the focus area. You can see the following two pictures are different effects before and after starting APS-C mode.

▲ Before opening

▲ After opening.

After opening, you can see that the whole area opposite home in the viewfinder has become larger, and 79 mixed crosses cover a larger focus range, so it will be more powerful to only open the cross focus in APS-C mode.

Let's talk about the focusing system first, and then talk about some differences between Sony A99II. Under normal circumstances, in order to ensure that the subject can be tracked all the time, we will use AF-C continuous focusing mode to cooperate with continuous shooting to capture. But in the face of complex environment, the camera is not smart enough to distinguish which object we want to capture, so A99II adds AF-C priority setting.

Sony A99II adds equalization mode in AF-C mode through intelligent algorithm, which can balance focus priority and shutter release priority.

At the same time, we can also tell the camera's own needs by setting the sensitivity of focus tracking. The fifth gear is fast and suitable for scenes with large contrast and only a single subject, such as shooting a bird in the sky. 1 file lock, suitable for shooting a single object in a complex scene. For example, after a group of zebras are running and focusing on one zebra, even if other zebras break into the picture, the focusing system will not respond quickly to ensure that it can always track the previously focused object.

The following are three continuous shooting tests I took with Sony A99II, and finally made them into GIFs.

Sony A99II with 70-200mm F2.8 lens +APS-C mode +AF-C continuous focusing+equalization mode +plus 1 AF sensitivity is used in the whole process. Why use 1 gear instead of 5th gear? The main reason is that Sony A99 II has high focus recognition sensitivity, even splash can be recognized by the camera's autofocus system, so in order to ensure that the subject can be focused in real time, 1 gear lock is selected.

Seeing Sony A99II's focusing system is very reliable. Basically, I didn't find that all the photos were in precise focus when I looked at the photos in the later stage, and this test also gave me full confidence in this product which can be used in continuous shooting and has high image quality.

Finally, 4K mode and 5-axis anti-shake are added.

The camera launched now, without 4K video, is simply embarrassed to say hello to other cameras. So it's no surprise that Sony A99II also joined the 4K video mode.

Sony A99 can generate 4K video by oversampling a large number of information sources with a resolution of about 1.8 times that of 4K pixels in the super 35mm format, and shoot 4K video at 100 Mbps in the XAVC S format.

At the same time, it has the 8-speed video shooting ability of1-120 fps (100 fps), which can create 60 times fast motion and 5 times slow motion effect. Click on the video below to see the 100fps video shot by Sony A99II.

In addition, what excites everyone about Sony A99II this time is by no means the addition of 5-axis anti-shake. The optimized 5-axis anti-shake system helps to give full play to the resolution potential of the 42.4 million effective pixel image sensor of the fuselage, and supports dynamic and static image shooting. The newly designed system is equipped with an accurate gyro sensor, which can accurately detect the tiny camera movement that may lead to blur, providing a shutter speed advantage of up to 4.5. It can effectively compensate the swing jitter during telephoto lens shooting, the displacement jitter during macro lens shooting, and the rotation jitter during night and video shooting.

So in the evaluation room environment, Sony A99II uses a 50mm F 1.4 lens, and the ISO is fixed at 100. Starting from 1/60s, the test is conducted in five steps, and the whole process is hand-patted, which is divided into two groups: anti-shake opening and anti-shake closing.

Basically, it can be seen that after turning on the five-axis anti-shake, the stability can be very good when the third gear is reduced by 1/8s, and there will be slight jitter when the fourth gear is reduced, so it is basically safe to lower the shutter around the third gear, which is quite reliable from the actual effect.

Sony A99II real shot sample: