Sony AI ||

Gareth Bevan wonders whether new AF tech is a sufficient upgrade

- Gareth Bevan

Price: £6,299/$6,498

Website: sony.co.uk

Sony's AI II is the latest flagship camera from Sony, succeeding the original AI released three years earlier - and the first Alpha camera released in over a year. Take a look at its spec sheet and you'll see a hugely impressive camera that continues the AI brand of being a camera that is really good at everything. However, on the whole, it's also a fairly predictable update.

The AI II maintains many killer features from its predecessor, including the excellent 50.1MP sensor, and adds a few new ones but lacks a little pizzazz in terms of showstopping new features. The majority of its most significant updates, while undeniably amazing technologies, have already been seen in other Sony models - most notably last year's Sony a9 III - apart from one big new feature that is.

The Sony AI II does have one standout feature that is set to be a game-changer for Sony autofocus going forward - and that is the world's first full-frame auto-subject detection. While this tech first appeared on the APS-C Fujifilm X-S20, for the first time this enables simultaneous identification of multiple subjects on a full-frame camera without manual selection. Just spotted an elusive creature? Forget having to waste valuable seconds changing to animal autofocus, simply point and shoot instead.