Can Sony’s sharpshooting A9 camera take on the big guns of Canon and Nikon?

CAN a camera small enough to slip inside a handbag really replace a professional rig?

And can it make sports photographers switch camps if it shoots fast enough?

These are the questions Sony is putting to Canon and Nikon users with its latest creation, a new type of image-maker with a full-frame sensor, silent shooting, and the ability to capture an eye-watering 20 full-size photos every second.

While the 24-megapixel camera in question is not cheap, it could change the way keen amateur and professional photographers look at mirrorless cameras … and record everything from Formula One races to weekend sports fixtures.

The small size of the Sony A9 is dwarfed by some larger sports lenses.Source:Supplied

Sony Electronics product specialist Sean Ellwood says the Sony A9 was designed for speed.

"It's a camera with a very special set of strengths," he says, channelling Liam Neeson.

"The A9 is not for everyone. This is really designed for sports photography and photojournalism."

While its body adds extra dials for drive and focus modes, plus a joystick, its biggest changes and advances lie inside.

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The A9 uses a stacked full-frame image sensor to capture 20 photos per second — six more images than Canon's top DSLR and eight more than the Nikon D5 — and it can do so silently.

Mirrorless cameras regularly make quiet shutter noises when you take a photo but the A9 can capture up to 362 photographs in quick succession without any sound.

This feature, which Ellwood calls the "deadly silent shutter", makes it easier to take photos surreptitiously.

Its vastly increased speed also addresses one of the early criticisms of Sony's mirrorless full-frame cameras, which burst on to the market in 2013 with the A7.

While the cameras have delivered crisp images and impressive lowlight performance, they were often not as quick to focus as their bigger rivals.

"We do a fair bit of market research and photographers are using our cameras to do editorial work, wedding and event photography, and we want to enter the area of sports photography," Ellwood says.

The Sony A9 full-frame camera is designed to capture fast-moving subjects.Source:Supplied

Rather than tinker with a huge, RAW image, he says, these photographers are more likely to capture thousands of shots of a race car zooming around a bend and choose the best one to share or publish.

As such, the A9 features two SD memory card slots to record as many images as possible, and a wired internet for sharing them quickly.

Other improvements include a battery with more than double the power of previous models — another frequent criticism of Sony's line-up — and five-axis image stabilisation that can help when using a long lens.

Sony also launched its longest lens for mirrorless full-frame cameras alongside the A9, a huge 100-400mm addition, extending its family of 20 E-mount full-frame lenses.

"We know we still have some work to do in terms of fast 400mm prime (lenses) which are often used in sport," Ellwood says.

"But with the exception of some, we have all the keys lenses professionals need."

The A9 arrives at a time of change in the camera market, with Sony having this year overtaken Nikon to become the second best-selling full-frame camera brand in the United States, according to the NPD Group.

It also recently held the Sony Alpha Awards in Australia with $48,000 in prizes, encouraging more users to switch camps.

Source: Can Sony's sharpshooting A9 camera take on the big guns of Canon and Nikon?