Yesterday I was shopping in Chengdu China with my wife and walked into a giant camera store - much to my surprise there was a A9 demo event. Despite not knowing anything being said from the Sony rep, everyone in the audience, or even being able to decipher the menus - it was awesome. The body improvements make it really feel good, more chunk in the grip, better control layout - and jeezus its fast. 20fps is not my thing, but the A9 is a beast. AF and tracking are next level for mirrorless - much better than anything I've seen from the EM1.2, A6500, A7rII or my twin XT2's.
Everyone in attendance shot stills, so when the rep reviewed images on a big 4k tv, I didn't see any video. If I had a spare card I would have shot some stills and tried to shoot video - they were letting people take away images. Very cool though as this was the first time I've seen a camera pre-release like this.
Funny side note - a guy was pairing the A9 with his phone to download images and he knocked over a cup of water sitting on the counter next to the camera and it splashed the A9 body and a a6500/18-110 cine lens combo sitting on the counter next to the A9. A shop staffer gave him major stink eye as he wiped water off the everything, but the weather sealing did its job, haha.
I'm traveling the world for a year with a XT2 kit after switching from the A7rII mainly because of the speed and lenses. If the lower models get many of the improvements sans the crazy FPS, I'll be really tempted to head back to Sony. They've fixed everything I hated about my A7rII.
Just rented a XT2 to compare to my a7rII and a6300 as a all-in-one stills/video machine for long terms travel. I liked i so much, I ordered the XT2 kit and have started selling my Sony gear. Will have a blog post comparison coming soon.
Histogram, zebras and aperture control - three things a FW update could really help make the XT2 a video powerhouse. I'd add focus peaking to the mix too and 1/48 as a SS option when shooting 24p. As it stands right now, its a great image that needs proper video exposure tools so we're not left guessing.
If the Magic Lantern guys figured it out on the 5d3, Fuji's engineers should be way ahead of them.
Trek of Joy got a reaction from frankinfuji in Has Steve Huff "Lost It"?
Trek of Joy got a reaction from mdelrossi in Fuji X-T2 video features wishlist