Sony a 9

[Jorge Arguello]

Hi,

The Sony a 9 will be here soon (May 2017).

https://youtu.be/HF2GOmsOr40

Some camera specification in this link.
https://youtu.be/6Q-nzcf8Pkw

[bitsnpieces]

I just saw it not long ago - super awesome. Just wish I had the money for one.

Just a quick list of specs:

Full frame
24MP
4K/30fps
20fps RAW with autofocus
~240 RAW/~360 JPEG buffer
2 memory card slots
Bigger battery (approx. twice the battery life of current models)
~93% screen coverage for autofocus (can't remember how many points)
Touchscreen + joystick
Australian price is probably close to the $6000 mark (this is just my guess)
5 axis IBIS

It's a huge improvement over previous models, but they have marketed it towards sport photographers. Nevertheless, I'm sure many other type of photographers can benefit from this also.

[MissionMan]

I just saw it not long ago - super awesome. Just wish I had the money for one.

Just a quick list of specs:

Full frame
24MP
4K/30fps
20fps RAW with autofocus
~240 RAW/~360 JPEG buffer
2 memory card slots
Bigger battery (approx. twice the battery life of current models)
~93% screen coverage for autofocus (can't remember how many points)
Touchscreen + joystick
Australian price is probably close to the $6000 mark (this is just my guess)
5 axis IBIS

It's a huge improvement over previous models, but they have marketed it towards sport photographers. Nevertheless, I'm sure many other type of photographers can benefit from this also.

I think this will cause a little bit of concern for Nikon and Canon. They don't have any long lenses but if they put a couple out, Canikon may be very scared.

[arthurking83]

....
~93% screen coverage for autofocus (can't remember how many points)
....

I think close to 6 million! (actually more like 600-700!!)

[Jorge Arguello]

I AM ... wondering what lens sports photographers wants.
The 100-400mm lens is not bad.
http://www.photoreview.com.au/news/s...100-400mm-lens

[Hamster]

Australian price is probably close to the $6000 mark (this is just my guess)

Gizmodo had it as $7k in Aus.

[mikew09]

This raises a lot of interest for me also. Have been a Canon fanatic for the past 5 yrs and cant say I am unhappy with my current kit, however, the Sony gear seems to be going ahead in leaps an bounds and I am not on my own here when I mention that at the end of the day, a 5D3 with 70-200 2.8 bolted on can get a tad arm weary :-). But albeit, very impressive, at the price suggested I am far from selling up my much loved Canon kit to move to Sony. I just keep remembering to put my blackrapid in my bag and use a tripod on static shoots :-)

[paulheath]

for you mirrorless fanatics..............................
Sony A9 rant
Everytime Sony brings out a new camera there mission statement is the same. Look out Canon and Nikon your going to lose so many pro users because of this new camera. I just pi$$ myself laughing at all the BS give it a month and like all the other Sony cameras you just don't here from them. For me to change over to Sony a couple of things need to happen and they must ask what the Sony a9 don't have that makes real pros don't switch! For me it's sooo simple. Weather sealing, damage resistants and battery life! The Sony cameras are world renowned for weather damage, god if the camera even looks at water you get error code E:91:0 or something even dropping the things they smash into a million tiny pieces. I have thrown my canon over 20m and it's survived. And I have dropped a Nikon off the roof of a car and it just bounced down the road.
And for pros to switch lol..
Pros are heavily invested in their gear and workflow. It's not that easy to switch. They need to relearn the old habits crafted so painfully for so many years. Other thing is, many people just hate Sony user experience and not much choice in affordable & quality glass. They need to build a 600,400,300mm at f2.8 and just maybe I will think about the switch all the non Sony glass you can get on the body's just don't work at 100 percent.
This is ridiculous. This camera (a9) doesn't have A SINGLE CROSS-TYPE phase-detection point; nor a double cross-type; nor a very sensitive one (lower than 0EV). Also it doesn't have an infra-red IR sensitive metering, to distinguish a sports ball from a human head; or a player from a volleyball court net. So it's pretty much POINTLESS. Sony creates these ridiculous "press events" with a single girl running on a straight line, stating the "tracking AF" is great on all of its cameras. I thinks it's atrocious to compare it to a Canon 1D-X or Nikon D5, when the A9 can't even compare to an EOS T6i double cross-type, high precision AF point; nor its IF+RGB metering. Brilliant marketing from Sony, fooling every internet noob with NUMBERS. I'm just getting angry now.

[MissionMan]

for you mirrorless fanatics..............................
Sony A9 rant
Everytime Sony brings out a new camera there mission statement is the same. Look out Canon and Nikon your going to lose so many pro users because of this new camera. I just pi$$ myself laughing at all the BS give it a month and like all the other Sony cameras you just don't here from them. For me to change over to Sony a couple of things need to happen and they must ask what the Sony a9 don't have that makes real pros don't switch! For me it's sooo simple. Weather sealing, damage resistants and battery life! The Sony cameras are world renowned for weather damage, god if the camera even looks at water you get error code E:91:0 or something even dropping the things they smash into a million tiny pieces. I have thrown my canon over 20m and it's survived. And I have dropped a Nikon off the roof of a car and it just bounced down the road.
And for pros to switch lol..
Pros are heavily invested in their gear and workflow. It's not that easy to switch. They need to relearn the old habits crafted so painfully for so many years. Other thing is, many people just hate Sony user experience and not much choice in affordable & quality glass. They need to build a 600,400,300mm at f2.8 and just maybe I will think about the switch all the non Sony glass you can get on the body's just don't work at 100 percent.
This is ridiculous. This camera (a9) doesn't have A SINGLE CROSS-TYPE phase-detection point; nor a double cross-type; nor a very sensitive one (lower than 0EV). Also it doesn't have an infra-red IR sensitive metering, to distinguish a sports ball from a human head; or a player from a volleyball court net. So it's pretty much POINTLESS. Sony creates these ridiculous "press events" with a single girl running on a straight line, stating the "tracking AF" is great on all of its cameras. I thinks it's atrocious to compare it to a Canon 1D-X or Nikon D5, when the A9 can't even compare to an EOS T6i double cross-type, high precision AF point; nor its IF+RGB metering. Brilliant marketing from Sony, fooling every internet noob with NUMBERS. I'm just getting angry now.

last time I checked mirrorless was still growing and DSLR was still declining and Sony knocked Nikon for the number two slot, even if it was only for a couple of months. That's the big impact and I think Canikon have every reason to be worried. This, if it actually works has the potential to take a lot of business. Even traditionally pro DSLR people have been impressed with the specs thus far.

As for the pros switching, Fuji has gained a fair amount of market share already in wedding photography where long lens like the 400 f/2.8 aren't required. How many pros need long lens? Wedding ohotographers? No. Portrait? No Studio? No. Landscape? no. It's only Wildlife and sports that require it.

[bitsnpieces]

I know I haven't listed every feature of the Sony a9, but I'm sure it has weather sealing / resistance.

Yes, it may not be like other competitors, but Jason Lanier is an example of how rough he treats his Sony a7 cameras, and they still shoot just fine. Though yes, there are those who may be unlucky and don't get the same rugged quality Jason somehow gets.
I used to have an a65, that has no weather sealing or anything, but I've used it in light rain, just very light rain, no problems.

Also, yes, it may not have 'cross points', it may not be world #1 for autofocus, but it's very close. And it does focus down to -3ev. Again, not DSLR, but for a mirrorless, for Sony, that's still something.
Here's a video comparing the a9 to a DSLR - it doesn't say it but according to Sony Alpha Rumors, it's the Canon 1DXII
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcIpuo_mJl8

And as mentioned, battery life is improved. Yes, no DSLR, but the a9 is a step in the right direction nonetheless.

[arthurking83]

People should really temper their enthusiasm for product hype over product reality before making great claims!(not referring to anyone here, but more generally in the net as a whole .. read some of the hyperbole and it hysterical).
Firstly! many claim that battery life is DSLR like. No way, nothing like it, never will be until they make the battery much bigger(and hence heavier) and body larger to suit.
Seen many claims that battery will last 600 exposures. Yeah right, that's one spec, and for a pro, 600 is only just pushing it .. so take many batteries just to be sure. Luckily they also introduced a multiple battery charger that suits this camera .. I reckon as a pro that accessory is a must have.
Read the actual specs and for a pro the expected battery life is barely consumer oriented compact comparable!! .. nothing like a DSLR. Battery life for a pro is one of the paramount specs they need to be mindful of.
With a DSLR, in general you don't need to worry about battery, you generally get between 800-1000 from most DSLRs at this level.
Hidden in the specs that I've yet not seen is that the A9 claims 600 exposures, but this is only if using the LCD screen, ie. not using the EVF!!
Apart from the odd hard to get image where the LCD is useful, what pro worth their reputation shoots with the LCD full time?
They all use the EVF, as the EVF is the drawcard for this type of camera, and Sony's spec says about 480 exposures when using the EVF!!!

480 exposures is not even comparable to a heavily used second hand Nikon D3300!!

In terms of professional tool, Sony really needed to work on that single factor.
On a shoot(any type, wedding, portrait, studio .. whatever) if you're always concerned about battery life and always keeping an eye on the battery indicator, you're not keeping you mind focused(pun intended) on the event at hand.
Having to change out 3 batteries in the time even a lowly consumer level DSLR won't need any change .. not really comparable to the 3000-ish exposures you'd get out of a single digit CaNikon.

last time I checked mirrorless was still growing and DSLR was still declining and Sony knocked Nikon for the number two slot, even if it was only for a couple of months. ....

Nah! I'm pretty sure they're all shrinking. DSLR shrinking faster than mirrorless, so the percentage factor for each company/body type changes continuously. You're reading that Sony's market share has increased .. not the same thing as their sales figures are higher than before. Just that by comparison to other manufacturers, they're not as dramatically low.

If you read Thoms blog he gives some decent reasoning as to what may have happened with the Sony/#2 posi.(marketing/promotional deals .. and currency of their latest products). Nikon's are all mainly older compared to Sony's.
If you carefully read the specific fine print, the marketing blurb about this specified that the position change was in terms of dollars .. ie. specifically not in units!
If it were measured in unit volume, they'd not have needed this fine print detail. Apparently what Sony does a lot is that they sell the A7's in kit form(as most folks buying won't/don't have a native lens) and then the kit sale is at an elevated price.
At that elevated price point, the Sony is registered as a full frame camera, but the $ value is still registered as the kit(because they don't separate the prices of the individual body and lens in the kit) ... this leads to 'greater value' products(where Nikon sell mainly D610s, D750s and D810s rather than in kit form). And Nikon's (US) promotional push was in Nov/Dec(for Christmas), whereas Sony's promotion deal season was in Jan/Feb.

As for the pros switching, Fuji has gained a fair amount of market share already in wedding photography where long lens like the 400 f/2.8 aren't required. How many pros need long lens? Wedding ohotographers? No. Portrait? No Studio? No. Landscape? no. It's only Wildlife and sports that require it.[/QUOTE]

This is true, but then again many of those types of photography could easily be done with any non 20fps camera body, and more specifically a higher res(say 42Mp) camera such as the A7Rii!
The photographer type that those specs are marketed towards seems to be more so those sports/wildlife types .. where they have no real competition in lens lineup, and would take many years of hard graft to catch up as well.
And then, as they don't have the history of those same lens types as per CaNikon do .. most of the lenses they do create at that end of the spectrum will all be super massively expensive by way of comparison too!
They should easily be able to get a 300/2.8 and 500/4 to market as they did buy into the brand that once was Minolta, and they have some background with respect to those lens types.
But they'd also need a 200/2, 200-400/4 and a trio of super capable teleconverters to suit all those lenses.

BUTT(a deliberate double butt here!) what would really be the point of that kind of exercise, other than to simply try and unseat the two established players in a small(but elite market segment) in some way?
When the lenses get that big, the advantage of that small body is diminished massively and the of the small compact lightweight body is redundant. In fact the ergonomics of cameras mounted onto on long lenses, are more favourable towards the larger camera bodies anyhow.
In terms of strength and durability, I can't imagine that the a9 will have the weatherproofing capability that a single digit CaNikon body will.

In reality this camera would appeal to D810/5DMkIV upgrade path types ... rather than the D1/1DX types.
And in this situation, the 20fps would basically be a redundant specification. The price is massively beyond both the CaNikon products (and astronomically beyond the Pentax K1) by comparison.

I think a few buyers will get into it early on, but only for the cache factor(ie. braggin rights, gear heads with more $'s than ȼ's .. etc).
As a long term product without the backup of the required accessories(ie. full lens list, GPS, etc) I can't see it as a commercial success(yet).

[Boo53]

Interesting. But I'm afraid, whilst I did have a little spanish, haven't used it for 10 years and certainly couldn't keep up with that chap

On waterproofness, I don't know how Canikons go but I can't really fault my A7's.

Have shot with both the A7II and A7r in heavy rain and had no problems. Even when one of Ken Duncan's minions dropped the A7r in a rock pool at Terrigal it kept working after I'd dried the card slot out with a hair drier. (no issue with the sense at all)

When it got dropped in the river at Katherine it kept working as well, and its been dropped from the roof rack of the Landcruiser on more than one occasion.

Horses for courses of course, but never entrants and mid level professionals seem to be attracted to the brand, at least

[MissionMan]

People should really temper their enthusiasm for product hype over product reality before making great claims!(not referring to anyone here, but more generally in the net as a whole .. read some of the hyperbole and it hysterical).
Firstly! many claim that battery life is DSLR like. No way, nothing like it, never will be until they make the battery much bigger(and hence heavier) and body larger to suit.
Seen many claims that battery will last 600 exposures. Yeah right, that's one spec, and for a pro, 600 is only just pushing it .. so take many batteries just to be sure. Luckily they also introduced a multiple battery charger that suits this camera .. I reckon as a pro that accessory is a must have.
Read the actual specs and for a pro the expected battery life is barely consumer oriented compact comparable!! .. nothing like a DSLR. Battery life for a pro is one of the paramount specs they need to be mindful of.
With a DSLR, in general you don't need to worry about battery, you generally get between 800-1000 from most DSLRs at this level.
Hidden in the specs that I've yet not seen is that the A9 claims 600 exposures, but this is only if using the LCD screen, ie. not using the EVF!!
Apart from the odd hard to get image where the LCD is useful, what pro worth their reputation shoots with the LCD full time?
They all use the EVF, as the EVF is the drawcard for this type of camera, and Sony's spec says about 480 exposures when using the EVF!!!

480 exposures is not even comparable to a heavily used second hand Nikon D3300!!

In terms of professional tool, Sony really needed to work on that single factor.
On a shoot(any type, wedding, portrait, studio .. whatever) if you're always concerned about battery life and always keeping an eye on the battery indicator, you're not keeping you mind focused(pun intended) on the event at hand.
Having to change out 3 batteries in the time even a lowly consumer level DSLR won't need any change .. not really comparable to the 3000-ish exposures you'd get out of a single digit CaNikon.




Nah! I'm pretty sure they're all shrinking. DSLR shrinking faster than mirrorless, so the percentage factor for each company/body type changes continuously. You're reading that Sony's market share has increased .. not the same thing as their sales figures are higher than before. Just that by comparison to other manufacturers, they're not as dramatically low.

If you read Thoms blog he gives some decent reasoning as to what may have happened with the Sony/#2 posi.(marketing/promotional deals .. and currency of their latest products). Nikon's are all mainly older compared to Sony's.
If you carefully read the specific fine print, the marketing blurb about this specified that the position change was in terms of dollars .. ie. specifically not in units!
If it were measured in unit volume, they'd not have needed this fine print detail. Apparently what Sony does a lot is that they sell the A7's in kit form(as most folks buying won't/don't have a native lens) and then the kit sale is at an elevated price.
At that elevated price point, the Sony is registered as a full frame camera, but the $ value is still registered as the kit(because they don't separate the prices of the individual body and lens in the kit) ... this leads to 'greater value' products(where Nikon sell mainly D610s, D750s and D810s rather than in kit form). And Nikon's (US) promotional push was in Nov/Dec(for Christmas), whereas Sony's promotion deal season was in Jan/Feb.

As for the pros switching, Fuji has gained a fair amount of market share already in wedding photography where long lens like the 400 f/2.8 aren't required. How many pros need long lens? Wedding ohotographers? No. Portrait? No Studio? No. Landscape? no. It's only Wildlife and sports that require it.

This is true, but then again many of those types of photography could easily be done with any non 20fps camera body, and more specifically a higher res(say 42Mp) camera such as the A7Rii!
The photographer type that those specs are marketed towards seems to be more so those sports/wildlife types .. where they have no real competition in lens lineup, and would take many years of hard graft to catch up as well.
And then, as they don't have the history of those same lens types as per CaNikon do .. most of the lenses they do create at that end of the spectrum will all be super massively expensive by way of comparison too!
They should easily be able to get a 300/2.8 and 500/4 to market as they did buy into the brand that once was Minolta, and they have some background with respect to those lens types.
But they'd also need a 200/2, 200-400/4 and a trio of super capable teleconverters to suit all those lenses.

BUTT(a deliberate double butt here!) what would really be the point of that kind of exercise, other than to simply try and unseat the two established players in a small(but elite market segment) in some way?
When the lenses get that big, the advantage of that small body is diminished massively and the of the small compact lightweight body is redundant. In fact the ergonomics of cameras mounted onto on long lenses, are more favourable towards the larger camera bodies anyhow.
In terms of strength and durability, I can't imagine that the a9 will have the weatherproofing capability that a single digit CaNikon body will.

In reality this camera would appeal to D810/5DMkIV upgrade path types ... rather than the D1/1DX types.
And in this situation, the 20fps would basically be a redundant specification. The price is massively beyond both the CaNikon products (and astronomically beyond the Pentax K1) by comparison.

I think a few buyers will get into it early on, but only for the cache factor(ie. braggin rights, gear heads with more $'s than ȼ's .. etc).
As a long term product without the backup of the required accessories(ie. full lens list, GPS, etc) I can't see it as a commercial success(yet).[/QUOTE]

I think the enthusiasm is valid, and this despite having no interest in Sony. I think this is the first range of mirrorless designed to compete with the high end DSLR market and I think it's a valid entry into the market. If Nikon produced this tomorrow, I think they would happy. I don't know if the AF is up to speed, I don't think anyone does, but if it's remotely close to the D5, then Canikon have a valid reason to be worried because you have a camera that shoots at 20fps with autofocus tracking and no mirror blackout. That's ground breaking no matter what way you swing it.

That said, I also think the dual sensor technology is a great innovation from Sony. We could well see this move into Nikon, Fuji etc so I think it's good for the entire market.

I think the battery concern with mirrorless is overblown to be honest. I have the XT2 which is supposed to run around the 300 frame mark with high performance mode. In reality it runs around the 450-600 mark. I've never used low performance. Did a model shoot with my battery grip (3 batteries in it - the battery grip was more for balance when I was using heavier glass), took 650 photos through the day and the first battery had only just (like 15 minutes early) gone flat when I finished up for the day. The reason is I no long chimp. I can see what the photo looks like, I can see the DOF through the EVF and I can see if the focus is there. If I'm shooting B&W I can see it in B&W. Now, if you take a photo, check it, take a photo, check it, then I have no doubt the battery life is worse, but I think mirrorless negates the requirement, and I think the way people test battery life probably doesn't consider these factors.

On the lens front, I would say the concern is no so much switchers, it's the new entries to the market. If I had a 400 f/2.8, I'd probably find it fairly hard to switch, and that's why we have seen minimal switches between Nikon and Canon to date, but if I was new to the market, I'd be hard pressed not to consider Sony as a viable option, because whilst I don't need the A9 now, I know that's what is available. The switchers are primarily entry full frame, some pro glass. In the past, that's one of the stopping points that mirrorless has had. Where do you grow to when you are a sports shooter starting out. Now, a sports shooter starting out would need to consider the A9, not because they need one now, but because that is their growth path and that has a roll on impact to the entry level of the market, just like the cancellation of the DL was a mistake for Nikon because it opens the door for Nikon users to buy X100's from Fuji would could result them moving to the system long term.

[agb]

I wonder if Sony will provide this stacked CMOS
sensor to Nikon as they have in the past or keep it to themselves?

- - - Updated - - -

http://www.markgaler.com/sonys-stack...electronic-age

[cupic]

As stated above @ 7K plus all those G lens price would suit only pro or ppl with deep pockets

[arthurking83]

As stated above @ 7K plus all those G lens price would suit only pro or ppl with deep pockets

Hence why I can't see it as a Canikon killing product in any way.

Yeah, it has cache and bragging rights power .. but in reality little else.
Thom Hogans recent article about this new 'record breaking' announcement from Sony is quite amusing too.
Record breaking, not for the cameras ability ... but for the number of footnotes Sony had to include for each of those newly announced tech specs!

[Jorge Arguello]

Hi,

For me is pointless to guess if other photographers are going to switch to a new camera, it doesn't matter how good the camera is. I have seen some youtube videos of photographers switching to Nikon, Sony, Fuji, Canon, Olympus, etc. They are professional photographers. I liked the explanation that MissionMan (Athol), from this site, shared.

This new Sony a9 camera is amazing, more in its tiny size.

Even it is amazing, it is not the camera for me. The first reason I have to say why it is not for me, is the price. I can list other reasons, but my mind set is to "no" so other reasons might not be objective.

But you are right, it is fun trying to do predictions on what others buyers are going to buy, specially related to camera gear. "Never says never..." because once we try a9 in our hands, we might say... "I love it, and I will get one for me". Anyway, in 6 months, or 1 year, new exiting camera will be out there waking up again predictions.

[MissionMan]

I think the key thing with this is we have never seen a mirrorless of this scale. It's the first venture of a mirrorless camera into the true pro level market. It could fail dismally, it could be what some photographers are looking for. There are some disillusioned Canikon users that this may allow to switch. The AF may also be a critical part. One of the dpreview reviewers who had some hands on testing has previously said that he disliked Sony's but this camera has blown him away.

https://www.dpreview.com/articles/49...ing-experience

The one thing is that switching is not a cheap experience, and I think someone who have to be pretty unhappy to switch. There was another article done on the costs which gives an indication that it's an expensive exercise. It doesn't take into account that some users may be on the verge of shifting to full frame and may not mind losing their investment but I think its realistic to say its not something that will result in a mass shift.

https://www.dpreview.com/articles/57...ony-from-canon

[arthurking83]

I think the key thing with this is we have never seen a mirrorless of this scale. It's the first venture of a mirrorless camera into the true pro level market. .....

That's not entirely accurate in many ways.

1. define pro market? Pro sports shooters market? If this is the defining genre, while the camera itself could be counted in this segment, without lenses to suit that market segment it's not in the running.
2. if the definition of pro market is wedding/portrait/landscape/macro type shooting, where lenses exist, then this camera body in itself doesn't really offer any advantage over an A7 of some model type.

So the A7 in essence is the first venture of a mirrorless into the "pro market", and even then the Fuji X1-Pro achieved that prior to the A7 too.

If the defining characteristic of 'pro market' is determined by high speed frame advance, then Nikon 1 series and Olympus OMD-EM1 ii both achieve 20fps and 18fps respectively.
It should be remembered that the definition of pro market doesn't equate to a 135 format sensor in any way. A professional photographer will shoot with a camera(format size) appropriate for the job, keeping in mind the performance specs as well.

About the only pro market where the A9 could effectively compete against the likes of Nikon/Canon could be in the wildlife arena, or the type of fast paced sports where a very fast tele lens isn't a requirement with the caveat that light is plentiful. With the new 100-400 lens, it can make sense to use the A9 and the slow aperture 100-400 lens for birding, car racing and such situations. And then in this market, the competition isn't restricted to just the CaNikon D5/1D series bodies, many shooters use 7D's and D500's and OMD-EM1's and even the teeny little Nikon1 V3.
The effect is, the one key market where this camera actually makes lots of sense(at the moment due to lens restrictions) is populated with many far cheaper options.

There is a line in the review(1st link) that kinda really doesn't make much sense:

For a professional wedding and event photographer who isn't spending hours in inclement weather, I'd say the Sony a9 is worth a look if you're used to Dx-series cameras from Nikon, and 1D-series models from Canon. With the a9, you'll save a ton of weight, have a higher frame rate (again, only relevant if you need it), and likely have an easier time following the action than with even the best DSLRs.

I can't really imagine any wedding photographer shooting above about 6-8fps. If they're really green I could understand the need for more(speed) .. but really the biggest issue will be what that reviewer described earlier in the review .. how many images will end up on the storage media, both in camera and then on the processing machine. High frame rates = massively increased numbers of images.
And as for saving a 'ton of weight' .. how many bodies do wedding photographers take on a job? Lens weight is where the problem is, and a full frame mirrorless isn't really going to help much in terms of lens weight carried.
Most wedding photographers I've seen and talked too, all prefer the body with the vertical grip .. whether built in or added on, so compare a D5/1D weight to an A9 + grip and two batteries, and your close to 1Kg of camera body(to keep it to the same physical ergonomic specs to a 1D/D5. D5 with battery = about 1400g(1.4kg). Saving 400g.
Most of the lenses vary in weight, and recent Sony lenses seem to weigh in more than the equivalent CaNikon types!
eg. Sony's 85/1.4 = 886g, Nikon's 85/1.4 = 595g.
Take out the 400g body weight saving of the A9+ grip and add back in the 250g weight saving of the respective 85/1.4 lens, and the big heavy Nikon D5 + 85/1.4 lens weighs a whopping 150g more.
Add into the mix the fact that you'll probably need 6x the number of A9 batteries for a given number of shots compared to a D5/1D .. so the 'ton of weight saving' in terms of bodies carried is nullified by the sheer weight of all those extra batteries needed

The fact that the A9 is a new step up in camera ability isn't in question. The new stacked sensor appears to have immense ability(proper reviews pending tho) .. which is really what the camera is all about.
But (I think) the marketing hyperbole currently doing the rounds doesn't equate in any logical sense to an intended market segment, without the appropriate ancillary gear to complement it and use those advantages.

[MissionMan]

That's not entirely accurate in many ways.

Let's go back to the basics. Its a 24MP full frame camera with IBIS that shoots at 20fps with no mirror blackout and 693 AF points for A$2K cheaper than a D5 and with full frame coverage of the AF points and eye detection.

I'm sorry, if Nikon released a D5S with this spec people would be doing their nut about how incredible that is. Like it or not, that is pretty damn impressive and if that isn't pro, what the hell is? on top of that, knowing Sony it will also be a damn good sensor.