Sony 24-70mm Review

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This is not a super-inexpensive lens, but it is certainly great. To see more information about the Sony A7r or read other lens reviews, see Trey’s Gear and Tools.

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Sony A7r Review

Be sure to visit the full-on Sony a7R Review here on the site to read more about it and the other lenses I use!

Sony 24-70mm Review

The full name for this lens is the Sony SEL2470Z Vario-Tessar T* FE 24-70mm F4 ZA OSS Lens. Who the H E Double Hockey Stick knows what hell that means? Do Japanese guys sit around and come up with wacky stuff while they are blasted out on sake? How is any normal human supposed to understand that stuff?

Well, welcome to Trey’s Lens Review, where I won’t spend any time on that BS lens-nerd stuff and we’ll just talk about the awesome stuff. I Only Review Lenses That I Use. Life is too short for me to talk about lenses I don’t use. If I use it, then you know I Like It. In fact, let’s just say I Love It. I’ll go one more step, I LOLCats Lurve It.

One might say this review is very short of actual substance, and one would be right. But that will change forthwith (a bit).

Sample Photos

Nothing sells a lens like photos. Look at this one. Boom shakalaka. Remember you can click to zoom in to the full-rez version on SmugMug that is over 7,000 pixels across. Sweet sweet 36mp… riding the megapixel pony!

Post-Processing

So, I do post-process my photos. I do this unapologetically! 🙂 If you like what you see and want to know more, check out the full HDR Tutorial here on the site.

The Sony FE 24-70mm Lens

What I love about this is the extreme flexibility. I’m shocked how many portrait and landscape photos I take in this range.

I’d say I use this lens for 50% of my landscape photos now. The other 50% are with the NEX 10-18mm, although that will change when Sony releases an FE wide-angle lens. You can read more about this on my Sony A7r Review.

If you’re getting your first full-frame camera with the Sony A7 series, you’ll be surprised how wide 24mm really is. Naturally, when you aim the camera above or below the horizon, you’ll get some vertical lines bending in or out, but that comes with the territory. I think you’re gonna have a great time with this lens!

It’s also very light. Tiny and light. It doesn’t even compare to the giant lenses of the same range I had for my Nikon. Night and day. This is so svelte and nifty… like a fine lady’s pistol.

As I continue to release more photos for this (and other) lenses, just watch the Sony A7r Category on the blog! 🙂

Shortcomings

A shortcoming for some people (not me) may be that the aperture does not get any lower than F/4. People that do low-light, handheld shots may not find the F/4 to be fast enough to get enough light into the photo. This may result in a higher ISO and more noise, but that sometimes is minimized by having a full-frame camera. Similarly, if you are using another one of the A7 series, then you may be able to wrestle enough clarity out of the F/4 alone.

Personally, I do all low-light stuff with the Leica lenses. See my Leica Lens Buying Guide here on the site for more! When I take landscape photos, F/4 is often fine for me since depth of field is not an issue. I can also use nice, long shutter speeds since I am using a tripod. Anyway, that’s all a long way of saying the F/4 is not a problem for me.

More about Sony and Me

Sony doesn’t sponsor me or anything. They got me an early camera to test, but I also bought one. I also bought a bunch of Sony NEX-7’s and NEX-6’s when I switched away from Nikon last year. Nikon didn’t sponsor me either… I wrote a full story about switching from the Nikon to the Sony