Sony A1-2

[arbitrage]

The buffer is a second and a half or so shooting 120fps with .3 second precapture in lossless raw. Compressed raw I assume would extend that buffer a little bit and most jpeg file sizes are significantly longer.
However at 60 fps the buffer is similar to the a1 at 30 fps. The a9III at 20fps is essentially limitless.

Would you buy the A1II if it is "only" 30FPS but does have precapture? Or would you just stick with A1 and A9III combo?

 

[daran]

But if we look at the A9III it is able to do 24MP at 120FPS and can do that in all the RAW formats. Unlike A1 that can only do 30FPS in the smallest (Lossy) Compressed RAW mode.
A1 files are ~2x the size of A9III files. I don't see any reason the A1II couldn't do 60FPS. Even if that was limited to (Lossy) Compressed RAW I'm good with that. I've always had to shoot in Compressed as all my Sony cameras A9/A9II/A1 have needed Compressed to shoot the max FPS. A9III was the first to buck that trend.

When the A1 was new and everyone hungry for chip specs, the chip was reported to have a readout rate of 250fps@14bit, which is a bit inaccurate. And a frame rate (time for full capture plus unloading from chip) of 44fps. Which has me scratching my head whether 60fps isn't overly optimistic. The 120fps in video are a valid point, but are scanned and processed in a different way. And also use a much lower bit rate. And a lower readout rate, too, as measurable in the rate of shearing due to movement in resulting video which is much slower than for stills. So I'd guess something like 40fps for full IQ seems more likely than 60fps.

 

[sh1209]

If it can do video at 120fps already I don’t think the sensor is the hold up.

Videos, a different animal. You’re using an exponentially slower shutter speed, which gives it the ability to record in 120 friends per second

 

[sh1209]

If it can do video at 120fps already I don’t think the sensor is the hold up.

One other thing you’re not taking it into consideration either, is during video, you’re shooting basically JPEG‘s not raw full frame files. Another thing I can tell you with the A1 body being that small heat dissipation is also going to be an issue if you have the current A1 out in temperatures greater than 90°, especially on humid days, if you shoot 60 or 120 frames per second video it will not even in the max temperature setting go only 4 to 5 minutes without heating up and shutting down. Both A1 bodies I have owned performed exactly the same. I do a ton of video so I can’t imagine how hot the camera would get if you’re shooting 60 frames per second raw.

 

[DavidT]

Would you buy the A1II if it is "only" 30FPS but does have precapture? Or would you just stick with A1 and A9III combo?

I do plan on upgrading one a1 and keep the a9III when I want more speed. This is assuming the buffer or fps of the a1 is lower than 60FPS. I do plan on selling both a1’s and will be listing this week and just shoot the a9III until the new a1 ships. I use my a9III much more than my a1’s now. I pretty much only use the a1 when I need the higher MP. I’ve printed a9III files as big as my printer can do at 16x20 and they look fantastic!

 

[daran]

I do plan on upgrading one a1 and keep the a9III when I want more speed. This is assuming the buffer or fps of the a1 is lower than 60FPS. I do plan on selling both a1’s and will be listing this week and just shoot the a9III until the new a1 ships. I use my a9III much more than my a1’s now. I pretty much only use the a1 when I need the higher MP. I’ve printed a9III files as big as my printer can do at 16x20 and they look fantastic!

I usually print Din-A2, which is about the same size (16 13⁄24 × 23 3⁄8 in). I find that printing images all the way down to 16MP is apparently good enough for me. But that is after crop. It is rare that I fill the frame with BIF action. And even if could position myself that close, I usually can't track precise enough and would clip wings on most frames. Hence why I rather prefer to crop from 50MP. For 50MP I can crop away up to 43% of the image width, for 24MP that is only 18%.