How The Sony A9 Camera Is Made

How do you make a modern high-end mirrorless camera such as the Sony A9? well it seems to involve a lot more work than you might think and the good people at Photo Gear News in the U.K. recently had a chance to visit the factory where the A9 is manufactured and take a look.

The Sony A9 is made in Sony’s factory located in Chonburi, Thailand. Richard Sibley from Photo Gear News visited Chonburi and had a chance to look at (some) of the manufacturing and assembly process of the A9.

What seems quite amazing is the way the camera is made using somewhere between 30 and 40 workers – each having a very specific part and all standing in a single straight line. We really have to ask ourselves if this manufacturing method is the right way to go for 2018 (after all several other manufacturers including Canon have started moving significant part of their production to a full or almost full robotic process which at least in theory is more accurate, can work 24/7, does not require breaks, go on strikes and demand increase in pay and benefits and can – at least in the long run reduce a lot of the costs of production).

Nevertheless, it is still impressive to see how meticulous this work is and it certainly clear why Sony is charging over $4000 for each A9 camera.

In the past we covered many other videos showing you how different manufacturers develop, build and test camera equipment (typically photographic lenses). We covered Nikon’s glass development video on “Nikon Lens Craftsmanship“, “How does the Glass for Nikon Lenses is Made”, “How Does Panasonic Manufacture Lenses at the Yamagata Plant“, “How Does Sigma Manufacture Lenses (part 1 and part 2)”, “Carl Zeiss – Manufacturing the new Touit lenses“, and finally “How Leica Lenses are Made“.

You can find many more videos showing the manufacturing process of photography equipment on our dedicated “how do they make it” section here on LensVid.

Iddo Genuth

Iddo Genuth is the founder and chief editor of LensVid.com. He has been a technology reporter working for international publications since the late 1990's and covering photography since 2009. Iddo is also a co-founder of a production company specializing in commercial food and product visual content.