I have been watching and reading lots of content about the new Sony A1 II.

I own two A1 and I have been evaluating if an upgrade was worth it. My interest as an hybrid shooter taking photos and video is to have the most versatile camera on the market however I have so far decided not to move forward.

There is a very interesting video from Marc Galer

Look at timestamp 11:17 or for your convenience this the table of the features that according to Marc are worth the upgrade. I have then analysed if they are relevant to underwater shooters.

Feature	Underwater Relevant	Comment
Improved Subject Recognition	No	Insect can see a nudibranch but it is not better than just tracking
Precapture, Speedboost	No	Burst rate required are low
Improved steadyshot	No	No long exposures, flash freezes motion
Multi angle monitor	No	housing does not allow movement
Still movie dial	No	Irrelevant
Ability to change drive mode from dial or menu	No
Improved AWB and High ISO noise reduction	No
Dynamic active steady shot for movies	Yes	Video only

As you can see there is really no benefit in the upgrade from this point of view.

Additional considerations

1. the A1 II has the same identical sensor of the original A1 there is no image quality improvement
2. Sony has a tendency to boast on their stabilisation rating a test of the A9III conducted by optyczne reveals an improvement of 1 stop over the A1.
3. The body shape is the same of the A9III and you need a new housing.

Let’s talk about money I will refer to USD prices differences in other countries will be higher due to sales tax.

Sony A1 Camera	5498
Sony A1 II Camera	6498
Difference	1000

The arrival of the new mkII has meant a price drop for the A1 and there are also some trade in bonus options making it more attractive.

Housing A1	4657
Housing A1 II	4920
Delta	263

The new housing is more expensive than the previous unclear for which motivation but here we are.

In summary to get a new A1 II you need $1,263 more compared to an A1.

Here are some ideas of what to do with that money

Total Difference	1263
Sony 90mm Macro	1098
Sony 28-60mm	498
Sony 16-25	1198
Canon 8-15	1249

I suppose there are many other ways to spend the difference,

If I was a sport photographer I would definitely be tempted by precapture however I am not. I do have two bodies that I bought for resilience and backup so perhaps I would swap one for the mark II but I need some proper review to see if the steadyshot has already improved as that is the reason why I kept a Panasonic GH7. Telelens video without a tripod is not a possibility with the original A1.

Hope you found this useful if you decided to save $1,263 and want to buy me a drink click the donate button.