On August 19, 2018, Sony officially launched their “Be Alpha” campaign. I was fortunate enough to attend the official launch event in Red Hook, Brooklyn and I’ll take this opportunity to report on the event and my experiences as there, as well as share my thoughts on the campaign.
First, the official campaign video:
On August 19, 2018, I joined a couple hundred photographers as guests of Sony. Sony went all out as hosts. The event was held at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn. For me, the trip was a simple train ride but people came from all over including Sony Artisans and Ambassadors. Catered food, free booze. Over a dozen models were provided for shooting, as well as set up scenes. Photowalks. Featured speakers including the artist CJ Hendry(@cj_hendry) and the Rolling Stone portrait photographer Mark Seliger (@markseliger). Free swag, including t-shirts and hats. The evening culminating in a New York City sunset cruise. All this for “Free.”
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Be Alpha -
Be Alpha Mark Seliger -
Be Alpha Photowalks
So what’s the catch? Why was Sony doing all this? Just a few years ago, Sony has almost no presence upon professional and very high end photographers. They have made major inroads. According to some reports, for this year thus far, they are actually the leader in full frame camera sales.
But things are about to change. In just a couple of days, Nikon is going to announce two major mirrorless cameras. Canon probably won’t be too far behind. Sony will no longer have the mirrorless playing field to themselves.
The timing of the “Be Alpha” Campaign is no coincidence. Like preparing a ship before a storm, Sony is trying to secure their brand awareness and brand loyalty knowing fierce competition is about to arrive.
My Experience at the Be Alpha Launch
I didn’t touch the beer and wine. I skipped the Ice Cream truck that they brought in for the event. I was interested in testing new gear and they had a massive stockpile of loaner gear. I kept my trusty Sony A7riii over one shoulder. Over the other shoulder, I borrowed the Sony A9 and Sony FE 70-200 f/2.8 GM lens. I was also given a Sony 64gb UHS-II memory card to keep. (More on that below). Over the next 5 hours, I amassed over a thousand shots with the A9. I joined Sony Alpha Collective member Manny Ortiz for a Photowalk. (Manny Ortiz has among the best portrait tutorials you will find on Youtube, he is a seriously talented photographer and was really a down to earth and nice guy). I got to shoot some very talented models and meet lots of fellow photographers.
Lesson 1:
Hang out with other more experienced photographers whenever possible. Watch how they work. See how they appreciate light. Watch the angles and perspectives they use, how they pose models, etc. It’s a fantastic learning experience.
Mini Gear Reviews
I am endeavoring to review every Sony FE lens but I expect I’ll never get around to the recently announced $11,000 behemoth, Sony FE 400mm F/2.8 GM lens. This is really a lens almost exclusively for the most advanced sports and wildlife professionals. So at least I got to feel out the lens a bit:
Fellow enthusiasts, you will never use this lens and therefore I won’t spend much time on it. But I will say the construction absolutely matches a precision tool. The weight is surprisingly low — You can handhold this lens. But most of us probably would not want to handhold it for more than a couple of minutes at a time.
Moving on to equipment that I actually did use extensively, I wanted to play with the Sony A9 and Sony 70-200 F/2.8 GM lens. I am shooting a large wedding in a few weeks and I intend to rent this combination for the wedding, in addition to using my Sony A7riii and other lenses. So this was an opportunity to do an extensive field test. (I’ll do a full review of the Sony 70-200mm F/2.8 only after I’ve had a couple of weeks of thorough testing with it.)
Lesson 2:
When using multiple camera bodies, match their custom settings. I was impatient and wanted to shoot with the A9 the moment it was handed to me. I quickly realized eye-AF wasn’t where I expected it to be. I went into the custom menus and assigned a few functions, but I still often got confused when switching between my A7riii and A9. I should have patiently sat down for 10 minutes, and programmed the A9 to perfectly match how my A7riii is set up.
Speaking of set-up:
Lesson 3:
Sony’s menus truly are a mess. In a room full of experienced photographers and Sony support staff, I kept witnessing people having difficulty with camera set up. Difficulty with what should be simple things, like finding face detect in the menus. Personally, I wanted to set the A9 for visual feedback when shooting silently and couldn’t find it anywhere in the menus before I gave up. I later learned it was under the setting “Shoot. Timing Disp.” Sure… that’s really intuitive…
Sony A9 and Eye-AF:
I’m mostly sold on the Sony A9. The body is nearly identical to the Sony A7riii but with an extra dial for setting drive mode and AF mode. I’m always a fan of more hard controls and less menu diving. The extra dial definitely makes the A9 an even easier camera to handle.
For those that don’t know, the Sony A9 offers shooting of up to 20 frames per second, silently, with a zero-blackout viewfinder. The blackout free viewfinder is truly surreal. It takes a moment to realize that you’re even shooting photos. Having no need for 20 frames per second, I kept the camera set at “low” 5 fps for portrait shooting. Continuous eye-af was quick and sure. Most of the time, it located the eye anywhere in the frame. Though there were some instances in more difficult lighting and with some individuals, where the eye-AF just seemed unable to locate an eye. But most of the time, eye-AF transforms the shooting experience. (My full article on eye-AF). No need to focus and re-compose, no need to manually move AF points. Just concentrate on composition and let the eye-AF function worry about focus.
Still, it’s not perfect. In narrow DOF situations, the eye-AF will front focus with some frequency, focusing on the eye-lashes instead of the iris. It’s subtle and not a big factor in real world shooting, it’s something you notice when you pixel peep:
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Sony A9 and 70-200 f/2.8, eye-AF slightly front focused -
Sony A9 and 70-200mm F/2.8 with perfect eye-AF -
Sony A9 with 70-200mm F/2.8 and eye-AF
Before I share additional images…..
Lesson 4:
If your camera body allows it, use the dual card slots and back-up your files! Given one memory card by Sony, I stuck it into the A9 and didn’t bother with a backup card. In 15 years of shooting digitally, I’ve never had a major card failure. I took 1000+ raw images with the A9. Everything seemed to be working perfectly. I transferred about 100 images over wifi to my phone, but just small 2mp files. When I got home and inserted the memory card…. it couldn’t be detected. Wouldn’t work in any camera or device. The memory card was totally dead. I’ve sent it to Sony and they are going to try to retrieve the files. But alas, I don’t have full resolution files from the A9 to share, nor do I have some of my best photos. But I do have some 2mp files I can share, as well as full resolution images from my Sony A7riii.
Sony 70-200mm f/2.8 mini review
I am sad to say: the Sony 70-200mm F/2.8 GM lens is brilliant and I want it now. At $2,600, I’ll have to decide just how badly I want it. The main reason I never seriously considered this lens was more the weight than the price. At 1480 grams, I didn’t think it was a lens I’d enjoy carrying. Yet, it balanced surprisingly well with the A9. I had it on my shoulder for over 5 hours and never felt overly burdened.
Focus was always fast and silent. I used the entire focal range from 70 to 200mm. As mentioned above, I lost the opportunity to pixel peep raw files, but everything seemed brilliantly sharp and contrasty, wide open at F2.8.
Some of my favorite images with the A9 and 70-200mm:
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Manny Ortiz shooting at Be Alpha event -
Sony A9 and 70-200mm F/2.8 portrait -
Sony A9 and 70-200mm F/2.8 portrait -
Sony A9 and 70-200mm F/2.8 portrait -
Sony A9 and 70-200mm F/2.8 portrait -
Sony A9 and 70-200mm F/2.8 portrait -
Sony A9 and 70-200mm F/2.8 portrait -
Sony A9 and 70-200mm F/2.8 portrait -
Sony A9 and 70-200mm F/2.8 portrait -
Sony A9 and 70-200mm F/2.8 portrait -
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The Sony A7riii and Rokinon 35mm F/1.4
Since I was covering the 70-200mm range with the Sony A9, I decided to go a bit wider on the Sony A7riii. Wider and faster — choosing my Rokinon/Samyang 35mm F/1.4 for my secondary shooting. I’ll review this lens in the future but I was pleasantly surprised at how sharp this lens is, even wide open. These images you can click and pixel peep… Shot at F1.4:
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Sony A7riii with Rokinon 35mm F/1.4 at F1.4 -
Sony A7riii with Rokinon 35mm F/1.4 at F1.4
Lesson 5:
42 megapixels, at least when paired with a properly focused sharp lens, really gives you a lot of cropping wiggle room.
35mm was too wide for a lot of my shooting but 70mm was too tight. Even with significant cropping, all that resolution practically turns the 35mm lens into a 35mm to 70mm lens, leaving plenty of resolution even after significant cropping:
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Sony A7riii and Samyang 35mm f/1.4 at f3.2, ISO 640 -
Same image, extensively cropped
Moving on, some of my favorite images from the combination of the Sony A7riii and the Rokinon/Samyang 35mm F/1.4:
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Sony A7riii with 35mm F/1.4 at F1.4 and ISO 100 -
Sony A7riii with Samyang/Rokinon 35mm F/1.4 at F3.2 -
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Sony A7riii with Rokinon 35mm f/1.4 at f2.8 -
Sony A7riii with Samyang 35mm F/1.4 at F3.2
So, Should You #BeAlpha ???
I’m not a fan of brand loyalty. Cameras and lenses are just tools. I don’t care whether Sony “beats” Canon or Nikon. At the same time, having invested time and money into Sony, I do root for its success — so that it continues to give me the best tools in the future.
The Be Alpha event was heavily focused on people shooting and this is indeed where Sony shines. With spectacular portrait lenses and eye-AF functionality, the Sony system is a natural fit for those who primarily shoot people, portraits and events.
Nikon will be launching their full frame cameras shortly. By the time you’re reading this post, they may have already launched. From rumor leaks, the Nikon models look like very worthy competitors of the Sony A7riii and Sony A7iii. For those of us who enjoy mirrorless shooting, it will be great to have more choices and more competition making everyone better. Maybe more pressure from Nikon will finally force Sony to really improve their menus!
But the Be Alpha event had another value for me, having nothing to do with showing off great gear. I saw excitement from both Sony and from hundreds of photographers. The fear for any photographer is that their brand will just fold, leaving them with depreciating gear and a future requirement to start a whole new system. The Be Alpha event showed me that Sony is truly dedicated to serving advanced enthusiast and professional photographers. In just a few years, they have built an excellent system and a growing following.
I couldn’t care less about Alpha logos. But playing with the gear and seeing the dedication from Sony makes me enthusiastic and excited about the new photography tools likely to come from Sony in the future. More top quality lenses. The blackout free viewfinder of the A9 making it’s way into the A7riv and A7iv in a couple of years.
Come next week, Sony may or may not still be offering the best full frame mirrorless cameras on the market. But I’m confident they will continue to provide a growing and improving assortment of tools for those who love photography.
The negative… I did kind of fall in love with the Sony A9 and Sony 70-200mm GM…. Alas, my budget has limits.
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