breaking news the next generation of sony's cameras have leaked i have all that information for you the a5 the a9 mark iii the a7 r5 a new totally different camera called the a3 i'm going to tell you about it but first a word from our sponsor squarespace squarespace makes the best websites you've ever seen anyone can set them up regardless of your technical skill level take your photography or any type of business to the next level by creating a real web presence with your own domain your own set of email addresses Your own storage book sessions with clients and your reliance on social media now by going to
squarespace.com tony try it out for free no credit card required and when you love it use the coupon code tony and you'll get 10 off first off some of these are based on rumors from sony alpha rumors but for the most part i am putting these together based on my own working experience with sony and working in product management myself in my previous lives i want to answer a couple of frequently asked questions first up why are all the new cameras so expensive the last half of this year has been filled with hype for the canon r3 and the nikon z9 both of which are well north of 5 000 meanwhile just about everybody i talked to wants a camera wants to spend like 500 bucks the reason that they're so expensive is that 2021 is an absolute year of turmoil for shipping products but especially all types of electronics of course you've heard of the chip shortage where chip manufacturers simply cannot keep up with the demand but there's also a shipping problem there are shipping containers filled w ith toys out in the middle of the ocean that can't dock that can't be unloaded partially because of a severe labor shortage problem especially in the united states but largely around the world too this means that manufacturers can't make the toys that you want and you might not be able to buy them even if they could make them and if you have a limited amount of production available you're going to focus your priorities on the highest profit items so i think that's a big part of why everything is so expensive there's another factor too of course big expensive smartphones are killing the bottom and the entry level of the camera industry and indeed in our own tests comparing real cameras to smartphones smartphones win now in most situations especially for casual photographers so most people no longer need to buy a camera except those who are serious and those serious people tend to pick the higher end cameras i hope this changes soon as cameras become more friendly hopefully and chips and shipping problems are resolved the next most frequently asked question we get is why haven't you reviewed the canon r3 or the nikon z9 do you hate them are you under some sort of exclusive agreement with sony no we have requested loaner copies of these cameras from both these manufacturers repeatedly for whatever reason i'm not a mind reader they do not want us to review these cameras but that will not stop us from reviewing these cameras of course maybe they'll get one to us before they actually ship to consumers but if not we've pre-ordered them or we will rent them but we'll get them soon i urge you to wait until we get a chance to really scrutinize these cameras because there is a reason they didn't want us to get them it's not that our channel is too small we get hundreds of thousands of views just covering the specs of these cameras we just hit 1.5 million subscribers so many of you rely on us for honest reviews but we happen to be the biggest channel that is heavily into sports and wildlife photography and as a result we tend to scrutinize things like frames per second and focusing systems more thoroughly than other reviewers do we tend to find problems in those systems that other people miss we also own those big expensive 600 millimeter f4 lenses for all three systems canon nikon sony and we use them continuously and that's going to put way more pressure on those new systems than anything else so those are some possible reasons i don't know maybe you know another reason why they wouldn't want to loan us these cameras i'd be happy to hear about in the comments before we get into the specs of the new cameras i want to talk about sony's lineup and how it now compares against canon and nikon because there are some glaring omissions first in the entry level segment sony has the a7c at 1800 but canon has the rp at 999 dollars often more like 900 dollars and nikon has the z5 at 1200 that's a huge gap for sony sony has nothing in this low end full frame market exc ept the very old and terrible sony a7 ii i've never recommended this camera it is inexpensive it has fine image quality but the usability the battery life it's it's garbage it does not have a touch screen come on focus your pieces did you just call that a piece of yeah just because it's a position i hated that camera when it was new and i hate it now and i wouldn't recommend it to they need something more modern for the low end segment so i'm going to give you two answers for that sony just launched the a74 which is targeted towards serious enthusiasts and professional wedding and portrait photographers it's just a great general purpose camera that is closely matched with the canon r6 though they have some key differences and both those cameras really surpass the existing nikon z6 mark ii primarily in its auto focusing capabilities in the high res section this section includes the sony a7r4 with 60 megapixels the canon r5 with 50 megapixels and the z7 mark ii at 42 megapixels in our te st the z7 mark ii really lags behind the other cameras and things like frames per second real world as well as autofocus tracking with telephoto lenses it's not as good of a general purpose camera the a74 really lags behind the r5 though this is the way that sony is actually behind the r5 was our camera of the year it shoots 20 frames per second it has an amazing autofocus system even with our 600 millimeter f4 that's why chelsea chose it for her main wildlife body and indeed her multi-purpose body for video and everything sony does not have a competitor and i think they're going to introduce one a7 is great i have one personally it's great for landscapes but it doesn't have a flip screen it has the old user interface the autofocus system is not up to the task of big 600 millimeter lenses so it's time for an update for that and in the sports section sony actually currently owns this so we don't expect to see too much movement from them they have the sony alpha 1 at 30 frames per second and 50 megapixels that's 30 frames per second raw something the nikon z9 can't do it's limited to 20 frames per second raw the r3 does 30 frames per second but it has a much lower megapixel count keep in mind the a1 was launched in january almost a year ago and actually shipped in march so it's almost a full year ahead of the canon and nikon competitors which still don't match its specs at least sony actually has two separate mirrorless pro sports body the other one being the same sony a9 mark ii and that one i think is going to get an update that i'll tell you about in a second but first a camera that actually competes more with the dslrs like the nikon d500 and the canon 90d i predict this is going to be called the sony a1000 and I've mentioned this camera before a fast high megapixel baby a1 with an aps-c sensor that would be perfect for aps-c enthusiasts but also wildlife photographers who want that extra crop who want that extra pixel density it would come in less expensive than the a1 at about three thousand dollars but it would offer a higher pixel density with a 33 megapixel sensor this is very similar to what the canon 90d does now and indeed it's a fantastic camera for wildlife i think it'll match the a1 specs by shooting at 30 frames per second with a fast readout that means a fast viewfinder low lag and minimal rolling shutter i also think they'll just take a full frame body probably the a1 body and put the aps-c sensor in it three thousand dollars it's a lot to spend on an aps-c camera it's going to be a very nichey camera but for wildlife and sports photographers that niche is really important i also think unlike their other aps-c cameras it'll have dual memory card slots now the a7r mark v the successor to the mark iv which was a high megapixel mostly landscape and portrait camera good for product photography but it was never a sports or wildlife camera along comes the canon r5 which is actually great for sports and wildlife and sony doesn't have a competitor for it and the r5 has been selling like crazy it is incredibly popular because indeed it's an absolutely amazing camera sony is not going to let canon keep the spotlight for long i think they'll keep the same 60 megapixel sensor but they'll up The frame rate they certainly want to match canons 20 frames per second with the electronic shutter so I predict they'll do that and while they're at it they'll update the entire software system so we'll have the new menus that the a7s mark 3 and the sony a74 have again they need to at least keep parity with the r5 so i think they're going to offer 8k at 30 frames per second and 4k 120 frames
per second video i also think that they're gonna want to surpass the r5 in some way but i haven't quite figured out what it is i've debated this a lot whether it would have a tilt screen or a flip screen i love the r5 with the flip screen because it's one camera that can do everything in the sony world now if i want a high megapixel camera i have to pick a tilt screen camera which means i have to travel with my sony a1 tilt screen for stills and then my sony a7s 3 with a flip screen for video i think sony's going to match that make a camera for hybrid shooters and give it a flip screen oh i just realized here's how it'll beat the r5 it'll record 8k at 30 frames per second for a longer period of time like maybe an hour or something with no restrictions something the r5 has been highly criticized for now today sony announced that they have a new partnership with gannet and usa today basically this organization has about 500 news photographers that are going to gradually switch over to so ny cameras they're not throwing out all their old probably canon cameras now but when they go to purchase new cameras to replace those existing cameras they've agreed to only buy so many cameras and of course the reasons that they give are that sony's technology is better they have the best infrastructure these are all valid reasons at the same time ghana and usa today they're not three weeks so i just switched to sony they don't need to announce that they're going to buy a in the future different brand of camera right they could just go to amazon and order themselves up some and just be quiet about it they did this because they have a bigger partnership and don't know what that looks like and it's actually really hard to anticipate because sony is One of the biggest corporations in the world they have spread out horizontally across the media industry they make movies and music and music Blogs and tv shows they make blog games they are so big that the scope the realm of their negotiat ions is almost unlimited there's certainly so many different ways they could have come to this agreement with gannet and usa today and there was something beyond just the camera technology these negotiations can be complex that brings me to a camera that's perfect for sports photographers and photojournalists the upcoming sony a9 mark iii of course sony is going to update the sony a92 a camera that didn't really make much of a splash because it wasn't a huge upgrade i don't expect this to be anything earth shattering i think it ' ll keep the same 24 megapixel sensor but i think it'll have a faster readout speed more similar to the a1 and they'll definitely raise it to 30 frames per second to compete with the canon r3 however i think they might also want to compete with the k the nikon z9 so they might give lower quality images at a higher frames per second so maybe they'll do 30 frames per second raw and then120 frames per second jpeg maybe even in 12 megapixels or something lower somebo dy does not like canon or nikon to have the fastest or the highest numbers in any particular spec so i know they're not going to wait long before they answer it'll definitely get the new menus it'll have a tilt screen not a flippy screen because sony thinks that that's what professionals want i think this camera is going to be priced about 5 000 substantially under the higher megapixel a1 now let's get into the entry level cameras i know most of you will actually buy i mentioned sony doesn't have an rp competitor a nikon z5 competitor so i think they're going to give us the sony a5 with 24 megapixels 5 frames per second a flippy screen 4k video but probably cropped like the nikon z5 just to reduce the amount of cannibalization with their higher end cameras it'll have a single memory card slot and i think it'll be priced about 1200 right about where the z5 is now this is so important because right now entry level for sony is either super old cameras or aps-c cameras but it's really impo rtant to get them into the full-frame system because once they're full frame they're more likely to spend more money on other full-frame lenses here's a henry ford quote if i'd asked people what they wanted they would have said faster horses now how does this relate to sony's new cameras well every time sony revs a new camera i think they talk to existing owners and they say what would make you want to upgrade what they don't do is they don't talk to my 17 year old daughter who is constantly taking photos and videos and wants better quality but does everything with her smartphone they don't say what would make you be willing to spend money on a separate device to get better images indeed they don't talk to any young people or any existing smartphone creators they only ask old folks like us who are shooting with interchangeable lens cameras now and that's why every new camera looks just like the old camera but with some numbers increased slightly right but if they were to talk to this y ounger generation they might realize how much capital there is in the partnership that they currently have between sony's smartphone and camera divisions recently these two groups were moved within a single division and indeed we've seen them working more closely together we recently reviewed the amazing sony xperia pro i smartphone and it has a lot of the sony alpha camera touches moved over into it and a full one-inch sensor doesn't fully utilize it but it does have that full real camera sensor integrated into it that's what happens when the sony xperia smartphone group borrows technology from the sony imaging camera group but what if we were to turn the tables what if the camera group borrowed the android smartphone technology from the smartphone group and built a truly smart camera specifically targeted at first-time camera buyers existing smartphone The creators I'm going to call this the sony a3 it runs android it has a 12 megapixel sensor just like pretty much every smartphone does now but it's full frame so it can take all those great interchangeable lenses it shoots at five frames per second because these creators don't care they're shooting stills yes for things like portraits but they don't need high megapixels or high frames per second for that they'll of course have a flippy screen because so many of these creators are filming themselves i think it'll do 4k at 60 frames per second that's a high spec for a low end camera but that is something that just about every single smartphone has now and being that it's just a 12 megapixel sensor it's not going to take a lot of computing power because there's no need to scale anything down it can just do a one-to-one readout otherwise it'll largely resemble experienced smartphones From the software perspective it'll have physical controls dials and buttons just like a real camera but the software itself will essentially be a smartphone working as a layer on top of conventional camera technology that means the memory ca. n be internal no need to actually swap out memory cards there won't be any it'll probably have 128 gigs internal very fast memory that can be instantly backed up to the cloud just like every modern smartphone can of course it'll have gps and a cellular connection so all your photos will be tagged on a map and if it's ever lost there will be important anti-theft technology yes that means you'll be able to track down your camera if it's stolen the thief will not be able to access your images because the device will automatically lock itself which means if you just got back from photographing this new season's fashion and it's highly confidential they won't leak it for you if you just did a boudoir shoot those private images aren't going to be leaked and you or the client aren't going to be extorted for them i think this new sony a7 3 is going to come in at 999 i think it's going to be a lost leader to get new creators into the sony system sony desperately wants these vloggers and sony th is how you do it now if those anti-theft technologies sounded good to you well good news camera