FS7: 18-110 18-105 18-35 50-300 35-105

P

Publimix

Veteran
I got my hands on the Sony 18-110 F4 Lens, 'the lens that fits them all'
I get it next week.
This new lens is a bit expensive, so I'm thinking of selling some other lenses. To keep my bank account in balance.


Should I sell my Sony 18-105, my canon 35-105 ED f3.5, the Sigma Art 18-35 and
my beloved but mostly unused Nikkor 50-300 ED F4.5?

I found out that the lens I use most is the 18-105.

Your thoughts are welcome. Sell an regret later? or sell and never look back?
 
My vote is for selling your Sony 18-105. Your new lens will be the most immediate replacement for the 18-105. Only way the 18-105 would be better is in size/weight.

I sold my 18-105 a long, long time ago and haven't missed it one bit. The guy who bought it uses it on a Sony a6300 on a gimbal and loves it, however. Just depends what you might use it for.
 
I didn't want the 18-105 (it was part of a kit) but I've found it surprisingly useful. Super lightweight and small with a decent range. Ideal for:

Location scouting
A backup lens that lives in your camera bag
If you just occasionally need a servo

I'd sell the 'beloved and unused' lens. I've never missed a lens I didn't use.
 
Keep the Sigma for when you're in low light or need a wide shot with shallower DOF
If the 50-300 is your only lens longer than 110mm than you may want to keep it. If you also have a 70-200 (or 80-200) then you probably won't need the 50-300.
Ask yourself whether you would ever really switch to either of the other two lenses if the 18-110 is already on the camera?? (probably not... so you won't miss them)
 
Before you do anything with the 18-110 check it for being par focal. A lot of them are not and they should be. My friend just bought a new one and it was not. he has to return it.
I had a lot of trouble even getting Sony repair to fix one . They couldn't do it, but that was a year ago. I have no idea what their problem was because the lens was par focal when it went down to them for a different issue.

The best way to check it is by using your viewfinder on 4xs or 8xs and using the colored peaking and focusing it on something with a lot of resolution.

Send it back if its not right. Plenty of them are fine also.

Re the other lenses . I would dump the 35-105 and replace the 50-300 with a 70-200 f2.8 with a speed booster. That's an incredibly valuable lens for interviews.
 
I think you should keep the sigma art 18-35, keep the new 18-110 f4, and I agree with Lenny, a 70-200 would really round out the kit with a beautiful telephoto interview lens.
 
Just saw my second recently purchased 18-110 that is not parfocal - What the heck is going on over there in Japan???
 
Personally, I'm a lens hoarder. I've yet to sell a lens.

As a result my collection, my addiction, all for one Fs7, has grown to 27 lenses. ( just bought a 55mm Otus to go with my 85mm! )

For as little as you will get for the 18-105mm, I'd keep it. There may be times when you need the small size and weight. Sell it if you need what $ you can get for it. But if not, let it hang around, I say.
 
If you've got an FS camera, the 18-110 is worth all the extra dosh/weight/etc for it's handling characteristics and long-throw manual focus etc. You'll simply get more actuality in focus than any stills lens and the manual zoom lever will get you framed more quickly, too.

Not a "sexy" lens - but it was the lens I used most on my FS7, which I sold last summer. It's an unsung hero - and I think it would have been much more popular if Sony hadn't cocked up by first releasing a FF 28-135 zoom with an S35 system. The 18-110 is definitely superior to the 28-135, with it's proper manual controls.

As for par-focal abilities, it's not something that raised it's head for me - and one of the reasons I went for the 18-110 was it's ability to do an old-skool zoom in, focus and pull out again. I never felt it wasn't delivering that.

After selling my 18-110 to the local camera shop, I returned and bought it back, in the hope that Sony might finally pull their fingers out and release the A7Siii.

Doesn't look like that will happen before my next doc shoot in the Arctic, so I'm sticking with my new GH5/S system.

If anyone in the UK is looking g for a pristine 18-110, PM me, as I can't justify holding on to it any longer.
 
I’d keep the 50-300. It’s not super fast, but that’s a great range for sit-downs. Medium to really tight.
 
LennyLevy said:
Just saw my second recently purchased 18-110 that is not parfocal - What the heck is going on over there in Japan???
Click to expand...

We've got a guy on our crew that has an 18-110 that is far from acting parfocal...almost like the backfocus needs to be adjusted (without the ability to adjust of course.) Not sure if it's the electronics of the lens not compensating properly, or if it's an issue with the glass.

He's reached out to Sony numerous times and they will not respond to him. Not a good sign for QC and service from Sony.
 
Today I got my 18-110, and it is parfocal. Except ... when use manual zoom and zoom in very fast you can see the lens focusing a tiny bit. But when focusing with the servo zoom it can keep up.

And no more distortion, which is nice!


And now I have a very cool camera setup, the lens looks great with this nice sun hood, I think people will treat me with a lot more respect. No more 'camera guy but a cinematographer!' It is a shame the new 'pro look of tomorrow' is more of a rigged Panasonic S1H. (I am not serious here).
 
Nothing personal out there but i find most people are lazy about lenses and especially about checking whether that lens is really par focal. I doubt whether many people do. You cannot see it unless you zoom you EVF in to 4x's and 8x's and use colored peaking and look at something that has detail in it. I use a 4x3 test chart i had printed up at a copy place.. You will not see it in a 17" monitor because at 18mm and f4 there's just too much slop in the lens. But it will show up on a big screen .

I can testify that many of these lenses are correctly par focal - I own one and have seen 3 others, so the technology does work. However a lot are not and I don't think Sony is showing repair people how to adjust them correctly. It is an electronic adjustment not a true back focus adjustment. If Sony repair is ignoring you on this don't accept that. Sony repair in LA failed to adjust mine after throwing it out of adjustment in the first place. However they acknowledged their error and eventually sent me 2 copies of the lens to choose from (oddly from "Borrow Lenses) both of which were fine. I kept one and Sony took back mine.

I have 2 friends dealing with this now. One can just send it back to B&H but the other has to deal with Sony . Will keep you apprised here.

Re fast zooming. That is a limitation of the lens design. it won't hold focus on a crash zoom.
 
LennyLevy said:
Nothing personal out there but i find most people are lazy about lenses and especially about checking whether that lens is really par focal. I doubt whether many people do. You cannot see it unless you zoom you EVF in to 4x's and 8x's and use colored peaking and look at something that has detail in it. I use a 4x3 test chart i had printed up at a copy place.. You will not see it in a 17" monitor because at 18mm and f4 there's just too much slop in the lens. But it will show up on a big screen .

I can testify that many of these lenses are correctly par focal - I own one and have seen 3 others, so the technology does work. However a lot are not and I don't think Sony is showing repair people how to adjust them correctly. It is an electronic adjustment not a true back focus adjustment. If Sony repair is ignoring you on this don't accept that. Sony repair in LA failed to adjust mine after throwing it out of adjustment in the first place. However they acknowledged their error and eventually sent me 2 copies of the lens to choose from (oddly from "Borrow Lenses) both of which were fine. I kept one and Sony took back mine.

I have 2 friends dealing with this now. One can just send it back to B&H but the other has to deal with Sony . Will keep you apprised here.

Re fast zooming. That is a limitation of the lens design. it won't hold focus on a crash zoom.
Click to expand...

I can't say that I've gone to the lengths you have to check my lenses (kudos btw...I'm impressed), but I will say in the limited benchtesting and fairly extensive in-field use, the copy I own, while not 100% perfect, is really close. The one on our crew that is having issues isn't even close. I'll update with more info as I receive it.
 
I don't understand what you mean by "lengths". Sure I've gone to the great length of taking a commonly available pdf lens chart on the web and went to kinkos to have it blown up. Cost about $5 plus a piece of foam core. But that's hardly necessary. Open the iris to f4, point the lens at a bookcase or anything flat with a little detail and press the 4x's & 8x's button on the EVF. If you add the color peaking its immediately obvious whether your lens is par focal. Takes about a minute. Not doing it is nuts in my mind.

Maybe part of the problem is the younger generation didn't grow up with traditional B4 cameras. Every time we put a lens on 2/3" camera we had to adjust the back focus so its a built in reaction . If anything not having a back focus adjustment makes most of us suspicious - for good reason I might add. Not having an adjustment on FS7 and FX9 bothers me. The F3 did and the F5 and F55 do. However in my experience the 18-110 issues are lens related not camera, because i've always seen a known good lens work on every body I've tested.

There's a lot of DOF slop at 18mm f4 , so my method won't give you a precise reading but it gets you close enough. It certainly will show you if you are way off.
 
I doubt it. I have one of the first lenses that came out and it was fine as well as some others I've seen. Its not a camera issue either. My understanding is there is an electronic method for calibrating the lens and for reasons that elude me it either doesn't always work implying some lenses are defective, or far more likely a lot of people at Sony don't know how ot use it. This is a big problem that Somny does not seem to have addressed. My friend just got a note from Sony telling her that the lens was not supposed to be parfocal and she wasn't using it right. That is clearly incorrect. Mine works fine.
 
Last edited:
LennyLevy said:
I don't understand what you mean by "lengths". Sure I've gone to the great length of taking a commonly available pdf lens chart on the web and went to kinkos to have it blown up. Cost about $5 plus a piece of foam core. But that's hardly necessary. Open the iris to f4, point the lens at a bookcase or anything flat with a little detail and press the 4x's & 8x's button on the EVF. If you add the color peaking its immediately obvious whether your lens is par focal. Takes about a minute. Not doing it is nuts in my mind.

Maybe part of the problem is the younger generation didn't grow up with traditional B4 cameras. Every time we put a lens on 2/3" camera we had to adjust the back focus so its a built in reaction . If anything not having a back focus adjustment makes most of us suspicious - for good reason I might add. Not having an adjustment on FS7 and FX9 bothers me. The F3 did and the F5 and F55 do. However in my experience the 18-110 issues are lens related not camera, because i've always seen a known good lens work on every body I've tested.

There's a lot of DOF slop at 18mm f4 , so my method won't give you a precise reading but it gets you close enough. It certainly will show you if you are way off.
Click to expand...

It's funny, us old timers from the ENG world just expect a zoom lens to have this and know how to 'back focus' a lens in our sleep. Tom Fletcher from Fuji said the cine guys freaked out with the original Premiere Zooms, because they had a back focus adjustment on them. They wanted shims. Yeah what's easier, a built-in adjustment that can be tweaked in literally no time with the lens in place or to have to pull the back of the lens apart and place physical shims in there?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top