Sony creates a lot of industry “first” products.  But this one will change everything.  We overuse terms like “gamechanger” but this time, it may be so.  At the very least, it will create an entire category of full frame cameras.  Here’s why.

Early this year, I had to choice of purchasing cameras.  I am a sony boy so naturally I looked at all the offerings.  That included the new full frame EV1, the A7v, the A7sIII, the A7-1, etc.  I ended up getting the FX3.  Why?  These things called rolling shutters and banding.

I don’t care how good of a videographer or a photographer you are, if you do fast motions, rolling shutters create challenges.  Rolling shutter basically means fast camera motions cause image distortions.  Generally the image “sways.”  FX3 has a fast shutter speed that reduces this greatly.  

On normal cameras, electronic shutter mode is a great feature that allows you to shoot images without the traditional shutter sound.  That clicky sound you hear when taking a photo.  Most of these images have issues with artificial light.  It causes what’s called “banding.”  It creates thick lines where every other line is darker than the other.  All rolling shutters have some degree of this issue in a consumer level lineup.

IN COMES Sony’s Global Shutter for prosumer cameras.  Global shutters don’t have any of these issues.  And, according to Sony, you can shoot RAW at 120fps with these new sensors.  That is just plain bonkers!  The issue though is that global shutter tends to have noise and look darker than others.  But at Sony’s keynote presentation, they said “they had to overcome” the issue.  So what did they do to overcome these?  And how well do these actually perform?  That remains to be seen.

Either way, these A9 will force other camera companies to start implementing global shutters into their lineup.  But how much so is still a mystery.  Will they replace all of their lineup for this new concept in the future?  Or will they keep a lineup of rolling shutter models and create a separate line of products with Global shutters?