A7S with 28-70 kit lens, or 24-70 Zeiss for OIS and occasional AF?

J

joker454

Well-known member
Hey guys I'm about to start filming for a new website and will be using my A7s for this one. I've done a bunch of testing with the Sony 28-70mm kit lens and it's not bad for my 1080p video use, but was wondering if it's worth splurging for the 24-70mm Zeiss. The focal length difference doesn't matter to me since I'll mostly be filming between 35mm and 60mm anyways, and since this is purely for 1080p video I don't expect to see much difference in clarity as far as video use goes. Constant f4 would be nice but that alone isn't enough to push me to get the 24-70 Zeiss. What I would like to know though from anyone here that has used both is are there any major differences in the OIS and auto focus abilities of each lens when paired with the A7s or are they more or less about the same? OIS is the big one because I'll be filming this handheld, so if the Zeiss lens has better OIS then that alone would be worth it's price to me. Auto focus is also important in that even though I'll mostly be filming in full manual, I will use the AF focus toggle button on the A7s to be able to change position and refocus quickly on the fly without having to break the action. The kit lens does this fairly well using a medium size center focus point that lets me aim/focus/reframe on the fly when filming, but I was wondering if maybe the Zeiss did this better.
 
I'll answer my own question here in case anyone else had the same question as me. I ended up just buying a Zeiss 24-70mm myself to compare to the Sony 28-70mm kit lens, and on my tests I didn't really see much difference in OIS and AF when using it on the Sony A7s, so I ended up returning the Zeiss 24-70mm.
 
Yeah I did. I know many reviews go on and on about how much better the Zeiss is for quality, contrast and so on compared to the kit lens but to be honest on my video only tests I'll be damned if I could see any quality difference at all when used with my Sony A7s. My guess is maybe those that prefer the Zeiss were using it for photography on the A7r and blowing up the corners 500% or something like that, not sure. To me quality wise in real world 1080p 30fps XAVC-S video use they were mostly indistinguishable.
 
Ok, thanks!
need to pick up a full frame lens for the A7s. Mostly to be able to take stills in full resolution as well. Maybe I'll just pick up the kit lens second hand at some point and forget about the Zeiss ;)
 
I can also vouch for the 28-70.Great lens for the price. If the 24-70 had been a 2.8 and had OIS I might have been tempted, but then again size would have been the issue. The way I see it, the 28-70 is the perfect low profile solution and the 28-135 is the winner for versatility.
 
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