I have spent the last twelve days in Córdoba, Spain shooting the launch of Kawasaki’s new Ninja 1000SX bike for Kawasaki and the European Press.

Over the winter months I trialled the new Sony a9ii camera bodies along with a selection of their lenses and found the results outstanding. So much so, that on the 17^th January I completely swapped over to the Sony system. Bearing in mind this was a week before the Kawasaki launch this illustrates what confidence I had in their system.

The layout of the cameras is well thought out and extremely tactile. I have used Canon since 2000 and yet found the Sony bodies very easy to adapt to.

I was slightly sceptical about all the custom function buttons, but now that I have tweaked them to suit my taste, I am finding them invaluable. To be able to change settings without removing your eye from the viewfinder and go into sub menus means you are less likely to miss a shot. Similarly, to review images in the view finder, particularly in bright sunlight, gives you the confidence to quickly check on exposures and carry on shooting.

The built-in communications, whether it be to phone or laptop are simple and easy to set up and I found them invaluable when shooting statics of the bikes to check exposure and composition.

Another deciding factor for me personally, was the weight saving of the kit. With all the travelling and lumping cameras and lenses around a race track all day it is some consideration without wanting to compromise on quality. The Sony a9ii and 400mm f2.8 is getting on for 1.5kg lighter than my Canon equivalent!

At the moment Sony seems to have the lead over both Canon and Nikon in the mirrorless range with a professional spec camera and range of lenses, which produce stunning images.

I have attached a small selection of images shot on Sony a9ii bodies with Sony FE 12-24mm F4 G, FE 24-70mm F2.8 GM, and FE 70-200mm F2.8 GM OSS.

A massive thank you to Ross Burridge and all the Kawasaki staff for being so accommodating and of course Graeme Brown (GeeBee) for his invaluable experience and co-shooting.

Ninja1000SX_Sony_18 Ninja1000SX_Sony_03 Ninja1000SX_Sony_05 Ninja1000SX_Sony_04 Ninja1000SX_Sony_07 Ninja1000SX_Sony_06 Ninja1000SX_Sony_02 Ninja1000SX_Sony_09 Ninja1000SX_Sony_01 Ninja1000SX_Sony_12 Ninja1000SX_Sony_08 Ninja1000SX_Sony_10 Ninja1000SX_Sony_13 Ninja1000SX_Sony_11 Ninja1000SX_Sony_14 Ninja1000SX_Sony_15 Ninja1000SX_Sony_16 Ninja1000SX_Sony_17 Ninja1000SX_Sony_20 Ninja1000SX_Sony_19 Ninja1000SX_Sony_21 Ninja1000SX_Sony_22