The Sony A9 meets the Kingdom of Bahrain and makes a few friends along the way
posted Tuesday, April 16, 2019 at 12:22 PM EST
A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to travel to the Kingdom of Bahrain and I had the pleasure of taking the Sony A9 along with me to document the trip. Knowing that this was probably a once in a lifetime experience, I knew that I wanted to take a camera with me that was going to be light and compact but still produce beautiful, professional images. With that in mind picking the Sony A9 to bring along with me wasn’t a hard choice.
Being a Canon DSLR user, I’ll admit I was a bit skeptical about the capabilities of a mirrorless camera in a “professional” capacity. That said though, having worked with a good number of mirrorless cameras in IR's lab, I knew that ultimately there wasn’t much I needed to worry about. I was excited to therefore to take my turn using a mirrorless camera out in the field and putting it through its paces.
Getting used to the A9’s EVF was a bit odd, having only ever used my DSLRs OVF and having heard and read about the dissimilarities between the two, given that you’re essentially just looking at a smaller version of the LCD screen. Though it was a bit of a change, it wasn’t the world-turned-on-it-head shift that I was expecting. Instead, it was more like I got a better sense of what my image would look like on my computer screen once I got home. It still wasn’t perfectly natural, but wasn’t at all unpleasant either.
This is one of my favorite shots. I was sitting in the lounge at the Four Seasons Bahrain
and I was struck by how beautiful the detailing on the table was.
(Love the shallow depth of field from the FE 55mm f/1.8!)
Arad, Al Muharraq, Bahrain (Bahrain Fort) overlooking the Kingdom of Bahrain.
A view out of a porthole of Arad, Al Muharraq, Bahrain (Bahrain Fort) overlooking the
Kingdom of Bahrain, a look into the future from a beacon of the past.
The Royal Camel Farm is a well known destination in the Kingdom of Bahrain
where His Majesty's camels are bred and well cared for.
The flight home was a sad but beautiful one.
The Sony A9 is a great camera for a traveling professional photographer who needs a light, compact, and relatively sturdy body with superb imaging capabilities, and with a user interface that (for me) is quite easy to navigate. Being a Canon user, a user-friendly interface is important to me, and I found the A9 just as easily navigable as my Canon, and soon became very comfortable behind the wheel, so to speak.
The A9 was a lot of fun to shoot, although I’ll admit I didn’t get to test nearly all of the bells and whistles given how short and hectic my trip was. Though what I was able to do with the camera was enough to leave me feeling that it would be a superb choice for the professional photographer looking to transition into the mirrorless world.
• Sony A9 Gallery •
