REVIEWS | SONY A1 FOR WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY - REAL WORLD REVIEW
In this blog post I discuss and review the Sony A1 after 100 weddings
MY SONY CAMERA & LENS SET-UP FOR WEDDINGS
In my other post about the Sony cameras and lenses I use at weddings, I discuss how I use three cameras at every wedding, but it's worth mentioning it here again as it will make more sense when you read through this post.
Typically, for 90% of a wedding day, my camera and lens combo looks like this:
Sony Alpha 1 + Sony FE 35mm F1.4 GM Lens (camera on my Holdfast strap)
Sony Alpha 1 + Sony FE 50mm F1.2 GM Lens (camera on my Holdfast strap)
Sony Alpha A9ii + Sony FE 20mm F1.8 G Lens (camera in my hip bag)
Typically, for the remaining 10% of a wedding day (from 7 pm onwards) my camera and lens combo often looks like this:
Sony Alpha 1 + Sony FE 24mm F1.4 GM Lens (camera on my Holdfast strap)
Sony Alpha 1 + Sony FE 50mm F1.2 GM Lens (camera on my Holdfast strap)
Sony Alpha A9ii + Sony FE 24mm F2.8 G Lens (camera with flash for the dancefloor)
JULY 2023 - UPDATE - The Sony A9ii has now been sold and replaced by a third Sony A1.
MY HISTORY WITH SONY
For two years, in 2016 and 2017, I was a Fujifilm shooter, I started with the XT1 and the XT10, and after a few weddings, I moved to shooting with two XT1’s as I couldn’t cope with having two camera bodies that were different.
I stayed with Fuji until the end of 2017 when after a horrible experience at a wedding with the Fuji’s, I decided I needed to look at some other options.
Step forward Sony.
My goal was to dip my toe in the Sony E mount system and use it alongside my Fuji’s. I purchased a Sony A7r3 and the Sony FE 85mm f1.8 lens from Wex. This combo would replace one of my XT2’s and the sluggish to focus 56mm F1.2.
Within 5 minutes of testing the Sony A7r3 and the 85mm F1.8 lens, I knew I was finically in trouble.. The camera's responsiveness, the AF's speed, the AF's accuracy, the trust I instantly had in the camera, and the inconsistencies that had been there with the Fuji’s meant my camera gear future lay with Sony.
In February of 2018, I travelled halfway across the country to WEX armed with my Fuji X System camera, lenses, and GFX camera and lenses; I was off to trade all my Fuji cameras and lenses in for 2x Sony A9’s and a lot of Sony glass.
I can still remember my first wedding with Sony; it was night and day different from my last wedding with the Fuji system.
With the Fuji system I felt the camera’s and lenses were the weak point in my wedding set-up, I could see things happening and the cameras were not quick or accurate enough to capture what I was seeing, but with the Sony A9’s I was firmly the weak point in the my wedding set-up.
The A9's stayed with me until October 2019 when Sony released the Sony A9ii, which sorted a few issues, better handling, a bigger AF-ON button, two UHS-ii card slots rather than one USH-i and one UHS-ii slot, a better mechanical shutter which was much better damped and faster to respond than the older A9 shutter which had an odd delay, and they added in an anti flicker mode in mechanical shutter.
The A9ii's were, in my view, the perfect wedding camera, 24mp, excellent image quality, class-leading auto focus, an electronic shutter that could be used 100% of the time at weddings, excellent in low light, reliable and solid build - there was nothing else I wanted or needed.
And then, on the 27th of January 2021, it all changed.
THE CAMERA NO-ONE EXPECTED
With the world still in some form of lockdown, on January 27th Sony announced the arrival of its most advanced mirrorless camera yet, the Sony Alpha 1. I remember sitting and watching the announcement on Youtube, just seeing numbers; after numbers of what the camera was capable of, the speed of this camera looked incredible - here are a few things that I remember being blown away with:
The camera has a brand new 50.1-megapixel full-frame sensor.
Continuous photo shooting at 30 images per second with full AF and AE tracking at full resolution RAW.
Improved Eye AF for humans (as well as pets).
Complete silent shooting in electronic shutter mode with new anti flicker technology.
Five-axis, in-body image stabilization.
Electronic shutter flash sync at 1/200 (first full frame mirrorless camera to do so)
New mechanical shutter with a flash sync of 1/400 (first full frame mirrorless camera to do so)
New uprated lifespan of the mechanical shutter of 500,000 actuations.
High-resolution 9.44 million dot OLED electronic viewfinder with a refresh rate of 240Hz.
S-cinetone in video along with new updated colour science.
What Sony had done with the Alpha 1, was combine the speed of the Sony A9 series, the video capabilities of the Sony ‘S’ series and the resolution of the ‘R’ series. Now, rather than have a different camera for different video, speed or resolution, you could have it all in one camera.
DO YOU NEED A 50 MEGAPIXEL CAMERA?
No, no you don't.
But, I knew what I wanted to do with the Sony A1 and its 50 mp sensor, let me explain.
I have mainly been a 35mm & 85mm wedding photographer, the 35mm being the documentary lens and the 85mm lens being the one I go for when I want some reach.
But, I’ve never loved the 85mm focal length, I always found it too long, too tight and I’m a close proximity wedding photographer.
The A1 would allow me to shoot the 35mm in full 50-megapixel glory, but with a single press of a custom button, I can jump into APSC mode, and my 35mm lens now has the reach of a 50mm lens, and I still have a RAW file with 21-megapixel resolution, this meant I would have so much versatility to crop and recompose in post. It also meant that if I used a 50mm lens on an A1, I’d have 50mm in full 50-megapixel glory, and a 75mm reach when I jumped into APSC mode.
DO YOU NEED A CAMERA THAT SHOOTS 30FPS?
No, no you don't.
But, I do use 15 or 20 FPS on a regular basis at a wedding, this will typically be when the people are walking down the aisle, the first kiss, the confetti and when people are playing games.
I have only shot in 30fps mode by accident, when I had knocked the dial to the H+ mode, and because I shoot in silent mode all day, you only really notice when you see your frame counter going down quicker than you expect.
30FPS is 100% overkill for wedding photography, but for the guys and girls who shoot fast paced action of sports or birds in flight, then 30 fps can make all the difference.
SILENT SHOOTING WITH THE SONY A1
Since moving to Sony in late 2017 / early 2018 with the Sony A9, I have always (where possible) photographed weddings in electronic shutter mode. This has revolutionised how I can photograph weddings; not having the constant sound of a shutter going off during a quiet ceremony or in the middle of an emotional father-of-the-bride speech is something that I will never want to move away from.
The Sony A9 was very good at shooting in most situations; there were times when the lights in a particular wedding venue would show signs of light banding which meant jumping into mechanical shutter.
The Sony A9ii had the same sensor and speed read-out, so again, it was perfect in most situations for shooting in silent mode.
The A1, however, is as good as it gets; in 100 weddings, there has not been a single instance where I have been forced to use mcahcnical shutter because of light flickering or banding. The A1’s read-out speed of the sensor, anti-flicker in electronic shutter mode, along with the variable shutter function all work together to give us a camera which can shoot in silent mode in every lighting condition.
I will never own a camera that cannot shoot in electronic shutter for 100% of a wedding day; once you have experienced the silence and watch as people let you get close, you will never want to shoot with the mechanical shutter again.
THE MECHANICAL SHUTTER ON THE A1 vs A9ii vs A7IV
Despite me only shooting the Sony A1 in electronic mode at weddings, I know there will be people out there who like to still shoot in mechanical shutter (I think the next A1 will remove the shutter..).
The mechanical shutter in the A1 is new for the Alpha 1, with a 1/400th flash sync speed, an uprated life span of 500,000 actuations and a damped vibration system that makes the shutter sound like a silenced pistol; it is as good as it gets with a mechanical shutter on a full frame mirrorless camera.
Below are a few recordings of the different types of shutter sounds for a few cameras I own. All were recorded on a Sony TX 650 held at the lens mount, with the 90mm macro attached, at F2.8 and a shutter speed of 1/250th.
The A1 is so well damped, the A9ii is the next best, but still louder than the A1, and finally, we have the A74, which to me is far too loud and sounds like scaffolding falling down.
THE SONY A1 MENU SYSTEM
Sony has always been criticised for its menu system; the original system on the A9 was regarded as confusing and not very well laid out.
The Sony A1 came with the newer menu system, which we first saw on the Sony A7s3. This promised to be much better laid out, with better names and more logical groupings of settings.
I have to say, in Sony’s defence, once you have the ‘my menu’ set up and the ‘FN’ button menu sorted, you never have to go into the menu system, and although there are a lot of settings, the Sony A1 is a complicated camera. Sony must be praised for giving us all the freedom to change almost every setting and customise every button on the camera.
A fantastic setting on the newer Sony bodies is the ability to back up your settings to an SD card; this was first introduced for the AP Newswire photographers, who would have access to Sony cameras for assignments and rather than having to spend a few hours setting up the camera how they like, they could pop in their SD card and copy the settings to the new camera. I love this function; it's great to have a backup should I ever need to loan an additional A1, and it's great when you have two cameras, as you can make sure you have a master copy which is the one you load onto your cameras to make sure they have the same settings and button layouts.
MY SONY A1 SETUP
In the following gallery are photos of the ‘my menu’ settings, the ‘fn’ menu button options and finally, the customisation settings for each of the buttons on the camera.
HOW I DELIVER AND STORE MY A1 RAW FILES
As a wedding photographer and a wedding photographer who takes a lot of images at a wedding, I can easily come back with 10k images across my two A1’s, and this could mean I have in the region of 300-500GB of data to be stored before I start the cull and the final edit..
My process woks like this:
Back-up the SD cards from Slot number 1 to a portable SSD drive.
Back-up the SD cards from slot number 2 to a RAID Drive in my studio.
First cull the images on the portable SSD drive (10k to 3k of images).
Cull the first cull down to around 2k images which I take into LR.
Quick cull in LR to make sure I’m happy with the images to be edited.
Edit the images in LR.
Export the edited images but do so at 6000 x 4000 pixels (this works out to be 24 megapixel files)
Upload the Images to Pictime.
RAWSIE all the RAW Files which did not make the Final Cut.
RAWSIE the LR Catalogue for the wedding.
Copy the RAWSIE’d LR Catalogue and final files to my NAS drive.
Import the RAWSIE’d LR Catalogue into my master wedding LR archive.
ZIP the RAWS which I used to deliver the JPG’s and place in the cloud.
Format the SSD and Raid drive of the wedding.
Looking through the above list, there are three things that I want to talk about. 1 - RAWSIE, 2 - Export settings, 3 - NAS Drive.
RAWSIE
I have used RAWSIE (or Dot Photon) for around five years, it's a program that can compress a RAW file image size by upto 5:1. In real terms, it can take a Sony A1 RAW File saved on the computer with a saved size of 56mb down to 18mb without any loss to resolution size, bit count change, colour loss and does not cause any lossy artefacts.
For a 500 photo wedding delivery, my saved size on the computer without RAWSIE would be 280gb of data vs RAWSIE file size of 90gb of data - that’s a big difference.
RAWSIE has saved me a small fortune on not having to buy storage, the ability to save nearly 70% of the saved down file size, makes life so much easier, and for me, RAWISE is a must for anyone who uses the Sony A1 and generates a lot of RAW FILES.
July 2023 UPDATE - RAWSIE has recently announced that they will stop the support for their RAWSIE application and will incorporate their technology into a new app, no date is set for the new app, but support for me will run until the end of this year when my licence runs out.
EXPORT SETTINGS FOR WEDDINGS
My couples don’t need 50.1-megapixel jpg images for their wedding photos (8640x5760 pixels); the full-resolution files are for me.
I export my Sony Alpha 1 wedding jpgs at 6000x4000 pixels which works out to be 24 megapixels which matches the export I get from my Sony A9ii files (my third camera body I use at a wedding).
24-megapixels I think, is the sweet spot for wedding images, it's the perfect size for printing small and large prints, and when the jpg is saved, it works out to be around 6-10mb, which is a nice size for downloading and sharing.
July 2023 UPDATE - despite having sold my A9ii, and replacing it with a third A1, I will continue to export at 24mpx as I think this size is a great balance between resolution, storage and downloads for clients.
THE NAS DRIVE
All my delivered RAW & JPG files for every wedding I have ever photographed are saved on my Synology NAS drive.
The NAS Drive is a key part in my ability to store my Sony A1 files, It's expandable, it's accessible from anywhere in the world, and its got built-in redundancy.
All the A1 files saved on my NAS Drive have already been compressed using RAWSIE, to ensure I get the most out of my NAS storage.
IS THE SONY A1 THE PERFECT WEDDING CAMERA?
The Sony A1 is the perfect wedding camera for both wedding photographers and wedding videographers; it has everything you could possibly need.
As mentioned in the intro, Sony created the Alpha 1 to combine the three Sony Series together to give you a camera that can do it all; we have the speed of the A9 series, the resolution of the ‘R’ series and the video of the ‘S’ series.
What makes the Sony Alpha 1 the best camera for weddings (not just the best Sony camera, but better than the options offered by the Nikon Z9 and the Canon R3 or R5) is it will work, capturing amazing footage or photos in any scenario.
There have been times when I have been at a wedding, and I know that my A9ii (if that was my primary camera) would have struggled in either low light, mixed light or heavy backlit situations - the Sony A1 is the one camera you can take to any wedding and have 100% confidence that it will not let you down, it will take whatever you throw at it, and it will work.
If you google or ask the university of Youtube what the best Sony camera is for weddings, you will most likely see the A74 or the A7Rv videos. Still, neither of those cameras can hold a candle to what the Sony Alpha 1 can do. Nine times out of ten, the reason the YouTubers pick the Sony A74 or the A7rV is that they are priced significantly cheaper than the Sony A1, and there is a reason they are cheaper, they are not as good.
Some will point to the A7rV having a dedicated ‘AI’ processor for being able to track a range of subjects (you still have to tell the camera the subject..), and that makes the A7rV autofocus better than the Sony Alpha 1. Well, having tried a Sony A7rV at a Sony hands on event, I can say with 100% confidence that the Alpha 1 autofocus is more accurate, faster to latch on to a subject and has a much higher hit rate of in focus images than the A7rV.
The Sony A1 doesn’t have a fancy ‘AI’ processor, and it doesn’t need it. The Sony Alpha 1 can take 30 x 50.1-megapixel images a second with blackout-free shooting in the EVF whilst tracking a subject’s face or eye whilst adjusting the shutter speed, the iso and the white balance, all while writing the files to two SD cards and the buffer. You can still access every menu option whilst the files are being written, all with an incredible accuracy hit rate - no other camera from any manufacturer can do this.
And it can do this in electronic shutter mode (silent shooting) whilst also managing the anti-flicker settings.
The Sony Alpa 1 is, without doubt, the best wedding camera for any wedding photographer or videographer - but it comes at the cost of £6500 RRP here in the UK.
If you want the best camera that Sony offers, its the Sony A1; if it’s too much money (like it will be for most wedding photographers), or it has features that are not important to you, Sony has some other offerings for you and that might very well be the Sony A74 or the Sony A7rV.
UNBOXING A NEW SONY A1 CAMERA
WHAT I WANT FROM THE SONY A1ii & WHEN WILL IT COME?
Although I say in this article that the Sony A1 is the best camera for weddings, there are a few things that Sony could do to make the next A1 even better:
THE LCD SCREEN
We need a better LCD back screen, it needs to tilt up (like it does now), but also needs to flip out to the side to make it easier for people to film themselves, we need what the A7rV has got, but the screen itself needs to be better, needs more resolution and it needs to not ‘bloom’, and it also needs to not have the ‘dots’ of the screen visible, like on the back screen of the A7rV.
ALL THE DIALS SHOULD LOCK
We need a more consistent solution to changing the dial settings. In the image below, you can see that we have, on the left, the ‘speed/ FPS’ settings on a mode dial, we have a PASM Dial on the right hand of the EVF hump, and we have the exposure compensation dial on the back right edge of the camera body. But, to change the ‘speed / FPS’, we have to press the middle button down, and whilst holding the button down, you can move the dial; this is the same on the PASM dial, but the exposure compensation dial has a lock button that when depressed ‘locks’ the dial from moving.
I would love to see Sony implement a standard locking dial on the three main dials, to be able to press to lock the dial/setting would be so much easier than pressing a button down and, whilst holding, turn the dial!
LIGHTUP BUTTONS / DIALS
Keeping with the theme of dials and buttons, I’d love Sony to implement something similar to the Nikon Z9, and that’s having a way of illuminating the dials on the camera. On the Nikon Z9, they have an additional turn on the on/off button on the front of the camera. So you turn the camera switch to ‘on’, then there is one more push-click to keep the camera on while illuminating the the dials and or buttons, then you release the dial, and it goes back to ‘on’.
Having the ability to have the buttons light up would be so helpful in dark conditions, as you can see from the top view of the camera above, there are seven ‘speeds’ you can turn the ‘speed / FPS’ dial to, and if you were to turn the ‘speed / FPS’ dial in the dark, from ‘M’ to ‘L’ and then wanting to go to ‘H’, you will struggle unless you can shine a light on the dial to make sure you get to the right ‘speed / FPS’.
‘AI’ SUBJECT DETECTION
We know that 'AI’ is a thing, and we have seen Sony implement ‘AI’ into the Sony A7rV; it can now track many different subjects, from people to cars, to planes to insects. But, you still have to tell the camera what it is you are looking to track; the camera then uses it’s algorithms to find and track the subject you have selected within the scene you are taking a picture in. To me, though, this isn’t really ‘AI’; its just tracking something you have told it to.
What I want to see is the camera itself knowing what I am taking a picture of, and it knows the parameters of the subject and then tracks it, this is more ‘AI’. Currently, on the A7rV you have to select ‘human’ for the camera to be able to tack a person, then you have to tell the camera to track ‘cars’ etc.. but what if you have a scene where you want the camera to follow a person, then a car and then a dog? by the time you have told the camera which subject to track, the subject will be long gone. Sony needs to implement ‘AI’ into the next A1, so the camera knows the subject as soon as you focus on a subject.
THE DIOPTER DIAL
You will see in some of the A1 images below that I tape the diopter dial on my Sony A1’s as I am forever catching and adjusting the diopter dial, meaning that when I look into the EVF, it is blurred and I have to adjust the dial again to make the EVF clear for my eyes. This needs sorting and to change the diopter, it needs to be done either via the menu of the system and the camera moves the dial (which will be in the camera) or the dial needs a way of locking it.
FULL FRAME & APSC - MAYBE MORE?
With the Sony A1 sensor being 50.1-megapixels in full resolution and 21-megapixel in APSC / crop mode, I’d love Sony to add a way where a user could ask for additional crop modes.
The APSC mode on the Sony A1 is a 1.5x crop, meaning a 50mm lens on a Sony A1 gives you a reach of 75mm lens but still generates a 21-megapixel file.
I’d love Sony to allow us to have a 1.75x crop mode or a 2x crop mode, which is assignable to a custom button. Imagine being able to jump from 50.1 megapixels, then to APSC mode and then into a custom crop.
The 50mm Sony F1.2 GM lens would be a 50mm lens, a 75mm lens and then a 90mm lens (maybe at 10 or 12 megapixels, I don’t know the maths!)
IN CAMERA RAW EDITING
I’d love to see Sony add in some sort of RAW photo editor into their cameras, giving us the option to edit a few RAWS on the go, Fujifilm has offered this for as long as I can remember, and yes, they do have a history of film; so they have recreated their in-camera simulations to emulate some of their old film styles, and yes, I know Sony doesn’t have any film history for stills. But, it would be great to have the ability to use some of Sony’s profiles or even be able to upload a photo LUT similar to my LR presets into the camera.
WHEN WILL SONY RELEASE THE NEXT A1 the A1ii?
The Sony A1 is a powerhouse of a camera, and it will take some time to release a newer version that does things the original A1 cannot do.
For me, the next Sony A1 will come in either late 2024 or early 2025; Sony needs to release a new A9 series camera (A9iii) and a new ‘S’ series camera before combining them into the new A1.
I think we will see an A9iii in late 2023, and a new ‘S’ series camera will probably come early in 2024, which leaves Sony space to release the A1ii in late 2024 or into 2025.
