aSevenArr

It looks like a dried in splodge of some fluid (eg. spit) ... I'd wipe and wipe again until it lifts. A Sony rep told me this is exactly what they do. Use a proper sensor swab and some Eclipse fluid. ...

The A9 (v1) has never failed me ... I have photographed swallows in flight and gotten amazingly sharp results. If you know how fast they move you'll know how much this impressed me. For these ...

It's more of a tradition that you get a strap along with a new camera. I don't know anyone who actually uses it. At least not the one from the OEM box.

If you think you own a lens that isn't (at least very slightly) decentered you're just not looking closely enough. Of course this is a critical requirement for shooting images for a wallpaper ...

Do you shoot real estate interiors? If not I'd save my money and simply stitch 16mm images when you need wider. My pennies. Very specialized type of lens and not worth it to me personally. The ...

Watch some landscape photographer videos on YouTube - wider is not always better. And ultra wide glass ends up with nearly all your shots either full of sky or foreground... with the majestic ...

I own the same 50 GM lens. But ... IMHO the tip of the nose and the hair and ears out of focus is not really a flattering look so I'm rarely shooting close in at f1.2 these days (tempting as it is ...

They don't want you buying one in a January sale ;) Or... perhaps it's just a year since they last did it? Or ... people buy new cameras for summer trips? My favorite theory is #3

If money was no issue I'd probably get one myself. As it stands I decided that I simply couldn't justify ~$7K for any perceived advantage. I do not need any more megapixels over my current A9's ...

I'd do a comparison between compressed and uncompressed first. I certainly couldn't see any real difference (and it's even less likely that your target audience will).

What happens when you look at them on the camera and zoom into that edge? Still visible?

You'll see and appreciate the compression that you get with the longer FL's ... and also look at how the background changes. A wide lens up close is not the same thing as a long lens far away ... ...

IMHO it's lot more interesting if you get closer so the flower is the same size in each image. That's when the more important difference with the different FL's will become obvious ;)

Yes indeed... I reckon that clay pigeon shooting would be easy by comparison ;)

Yes, again that's really very interesting ... makes me glad I passed on the A9ii. It has yet to disappoint me. Still a great camera even today.

Interesting .... certainly I do love my own A9's performance in low light. And I dabble in astro pics myself sometimes and I have had some excellent results. I hope that any A9iii (when it arrives) ...

So in fact the answer is "yes" ;)

The bad cards that I have had have been completely unreadable.

This looks like a software issue to me. I would expect a bad memory card to lose your images entirely. If a bunch of them look exactly like this as you say I'd do a factory reset of the camera and ...

NASA seems to think so, the multi-billion dollar James Webb telescope uses 4 megapixel sensors.