In 2016, I reviewed the Sony a99 II — and I really fell in love with the camera. It was the last good use of the Minolta A-Mount and it really felt like something special at the time. Packed with just enough technology to really give photographers what they needed to make great photographs, it helped Sony step on Canon and Nikon like the conquered victims of the Goddess Kali. To this day, it’s probably the only Sony camera besides the Rx1 series that has really held its value.
And I’m not just saying that. The Sony a99 II still goes for a lot of money on eBay.
If you manage to have a good, working model or find one in great condition, there’s a major chance that it’s still a really solid camera even today. How so? Well, there are lots of reasons.
- Sony’s 135mm f1.8 in A mount is still considered to be a much more beloved lens than the G Master.
- The camera isn’t plagued with a lot of the AI hardware inside that majorly drains battery power. It also is much less likely to make decision for you even though there’s the great eye-detection feature.
- It boasts a 42.4MP full frame sensor — which brands are still using a variant of 10 years later
- 12 fps shooting is more than enough. If you really can’t get the shot in 12 frames you were probably never really going to get it
- IBIS, which is great for those of us who don’t know how to hold cameras properly or control their breathing
- There was a top LCD screen — which is a really incredible feature to have. Once you’ve got one, you never want to let it go
- The form factor is from a time when Sony cameras felt big and brawny
- It uses the latest Sony hot shoe for flash work
However, it may be really tough to ensure that you get a good unit. Sony’s weather sealing can’t hold up to Canon and Nikon — and that means that the longevity of the product, even if it hasn’t gone out into the rain at all, probably won’t hold up.
So beyond this, I went into my review and looked at a bunch of images I made back then.
I don’t know many photographers who can look back at images that they’ve made in the past with fondness — but I honor the work that past Chris has made pretty much no matter the camera that I’ve used. And even today, I still think that the images that I made are great.
To that end, I’ve got four cameras in my office with similar megapixel counts: the Canon EOS R5, Panasonic S1R II, Nikon D850, and the Sony a7r III. The Sony a7r III is the most natural evolution of the Sony a99 II and perhaps that’s why I loved it so much. It’s still, to me, one of the best cameras Sony made but has surely been surpassed by the Sony a1 II.
But don’t ever claim that it can’t still help you make great images. If you took the Sony a7r III and removed the scene detection modes, it would be mostly the same camera as the a99 II.