We've been hearing a lot of nervous talk among our A7R IV shelves about a new king arriving in 2021. The R series has long been the ruler of the roost around Sonylandia, but there have been rumors of a champion coming forth to take its rightful place among the flagship cameras of the world. Well, that day has come at last with the arrival of the Alpha 1 body. It's right there in the name. Alpha. One. They might as well have named it supreme leader (actually, we take that back...that might have some negative connotations).

We have to say it...the wait sure seems like it is worth it. The specs on this body are insane, and give all of you visual artists out there something to drool over. It truly is a tool for pure photographers, pure videographers, and anyone on the spectrum in between the two.

Honestly it's hard to know where to start with this machine since there is so much new and improved. So let's start with the heart: that is, the sensor. It's a new back-illuminated 50.1 megapixel CMOS monster (Cmonster?) that provides incredible resolution for still photos as well as full-frame 8.6K oversampling for gorgeous 8K footage. Also, Sony says you get 15 stops of dynamic range out of it.

The heart ties into the new brain, which is a BIONX XR processor. This improves speed in nearly every aspect of the camera such as 30fps burst rate at full resolution, incredibly fast AF/AE tracking, 4K video at 120fps.

Next up are some body-related improvements. The first is an electronic shutter that doesn't suffer from the flickering issues often seen while in artificial lights such as fluorescent bulbs. Next is 5-axis in-body stabilization which provides 5.5 stops of shake correction (including an "active" mode while shooting video). Finally, you get a viewfinder that updates at 240 fps for blackout free image making.

Looking for improved autofocus? Yep, the alpha 1 has that too. You get a 759 point full-area phase detection system that is incredibly good at tracking moving subjects. Also new to this body is real-time eye AF bird mode. Sony already had human and animal based eye AF, but they decided to include our feathered friends. That mode works whether the bird is in flight or still, and can even track when that startled starling suddenly takes flight.

Specific to you video shooters out there, this camera provides bit rates up to 600 Mbps as well as S-Log3 and 10-bit HLG. You can also select S-Gamut3 or S-Gamut3.Cine color gamut settings to match that tasty footage coming off your Venice cameras like the FX9 or FX6. Oh, and this thing will output 16-bit RAW files at 4.3K via its HDMI port.

Flagship indeed. Hail to the king, baby.

Included with your rental:

• Sony Alpha 1 mirrorless camera body
• Sony NP-FZ100 battery
• Sony BC-QZ1 battery charger
• Sony ALC-B1EM body cap
• Shoulder strap

User Manual

Sony Alpha 1 User manual (pdf download)