Sony just announced a brand new full-frame lens, the FE 20-70mm F4Gcombines ultra-wide focal length with standard zoom.
I was lucky enough to get my hands on this lens in the weeks leading up to the announcement, and to be honest, I wasn’t really too excited about it. While the extra 4mm on the wide edge of the lens would be nice, I don’t really think it’s worth giving up f/2.8 for something like Sony FE 24-70mm GM Glass. And while this may still be true in some cases, I find myself reaching for this lens more often than I thought.
While I don’t want to turn this into an article where I just list the specs of the lens, I think it’s important to at least list some of the things that make this lens so special. separate. And for me, the standout features are size and weight combined with speed and accuracy. This zoom lens is not much bigger or heavier than my zoom lens FE 24mm f.1.4 GM. And despite sacrificing a smaller maximum aperture, you get more range, which makes this lens extremely useful in situations where I don’t need f/1.4 — things like portraits studio, outdoor portraits, running and -gun pictures of my family and landscape style pictures.
From here, the show is a joy to work with. Autofocus is fast and accurate, even when using it for basketball shots in the low-light of a second-grade gym. And this performance also comes down to the video side of things, with things like reduced focused breathing and linear motors designed for quieter operation for use while filming.
One thing I don’t like about the lens is the barrel extension during zooming, although I understand this is a necessity, especially when trying to reduce size and weight. But it’s nice to have a zoom lens that has all the functions wrapped up in a constant-sized package.
Another aspect that I love about this lens is the built-in aperture ring. I hope that this remains the case with all future Sony lenses as this is really a nice feature to have, especially when using multiple lenses. It’s always hard for me to shoot on me Sony FE 85 f/1.8 now because it’s the only lens I have that doesn’t have an aperture ring. So always need a little more mental bandwidth to use.
The last thing I really like is the published price. Priced at $1,099.99, this lens is less than half the price of the larger FE lens 24-70mm f/2.8 GM II. Now, you obviously have to sacrifice aperture and some of GM’s good optics, but for the price, it’s still a big deal.
But, is this lens for you? While I don’t see myself using this for wedding photography, you absolutely can, until the light is low, but even then you can always add your own light to compensate. But for me, I find this a great everyday lens, one that offers a lot of functionality without adding weight, size or cost. This would be an amazing upgrade from a kit lens as well as a great lens for landscape photography on the go. This also makes for a great studio lens if, like me, you want to combine some dirty frames to show more than just the background.
Lighting from the combination of Elinchrom YEAR and Elinchrom ELB 500TTL against a Jeremy Ellsworth hand drawn backdrop.
What I like
- Dimensions and weight
- Fast and accurate AF
- Super-wide focal length added to standard zoom range
- Price
Things I don’t like
- f/4 aperture can be limiting for my type of work
- Enlarge bin while zooming
At the end of the day, I think almost any type of shooter can find a good reason to add Sony FE 20-70mm f/4 G . zoom lens into their pocket. The added 4mm may not seem like much, but it really does help widen the angle of view quite a bit. And while the f/4 aperture isn’t ideal, it’s not too restrictive either, and I don’t find myself wanting more when using this lens in situations where it has to.
