FS700 with new 28-135 power zoom?

D

dmitrizigany

Veteran
Has anyone used this combination?
I'm thinking of renting one for shooting a live performance this Monday.

I have the 3.10 firmware upgrade on my FS700R, but want to make sure there's no surprises.
alternatively, I'll use it on the A7s and have the FS700 as static wide shot.
 
dmitrizigany said:
Has anyone used this combination?
I'm thinking of renting one for shooting a live performance this Monday.

I have the 3.10 firmware upgrade on my FS700R, but want to make sure there's no surprises.
alternatively, I'll use it on the A7s and have the FS700 as static wide shot.
Click to expand...
Did you end up renting this lens? I have been watching this thread, hoping someone would chime in with some input. I am VERY interested in the lens for use on my FS700.

PS I have the FS700RH with the latest firmware installed.

Thank you,
Robert Pfeifer
www.pifemaster.com
 
Robert,

I did indeed end up renting the lens.
It worked pretty much as expected. Seems light for it's size but as I had to shoot from a balcony (pointing downwards) it was a bit heavy any way in that circumstance. My prefered method for shooting live performances is to be in manual focus but have face detection on and occasionally hit the "Push Auto Focus" button. Worked very well with the 18-200 power zoom, and seemed to work equally well with this lens. I miss the range of the 18-200 though and also liked the slower zoom of that one. Maybe there's a way to make the 28-135 to zoom slower but I didn't have time to try that out.
I'm used to film in venues with bad light where my old 18-200 often was too slow, but now I filmed in a very nice variety theatre (Wintergarten, Berlin) and was at 0dB gain (a luxury to me!) thanks to being able to stay at f4 all the time. But since the light was good, I think that the 18-200 would have been a better choice at this particular shoot thanks to it's longer reach.

For me, powered zooms are only useful when shooting live events, and they rarely pay enough to justify a €2500 lens. I guess I will try to pick up the 18-200 again (sold mine along with my old EA50) for use at live shows complemented by a 18-105.

For image quality? At live shows, I'm not sure it's leaps and bounds better than the 18-200, usually you have smoke, weird light etc nullifying tiny differences.
I only have this picture for now, it's a frame frome the video but it's been slightly processed in Photoshop (reduced size and tiny bit of unsharp mask). So not useful for judging the quality maybe. I might be able to grab some more unprocessed ones later.

TheTrip1.jpg
(seems this board adds extra compression to pics as well)
 
dmitrizigany,

Thank you very much for the detailed response. I have had my eye on this lens for some time now. Here in the US, it will not be available for about another week (B&H Photo lists availability as Feb 17th).

I use my FS700 100% of the time at weddings. My problem with the 18-200 has always been that it is too slow when zoomed in, so the constant F4 would be a welcome addition. I also rely heavily on auto focus and this is the reason I prefer to stay with a true Sony E mount lens with auto focus.

I was never aware that you could have face detection on while in manual focus mode. I will have to check that out.

For my use, I do not need to zoom beyond 135mm and in reality, I would prefer a little more range at the wide end.

I think I will end up ordering one to give it a try.

Thank you,
Robert Pfeifer
www.pifemaster.com
 
Yeah, it's a shame the 18-200 is so slow. But since I now have the A7s as well, maybe it could work fine.
I intend to pick up the 18-105 f4 as it's got enough reach for most of the smaller venues I film at.

Yeah, face detection can be on and when you press Push Auto it activates.
 
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