If you could only buy one lens for an A7Rii what would you get?

Chris Johnston

Chris Johnston

Veteran
Considering purchase but not sure about glass. I have lots of NON FF Sony glass but then why buy a FF cam if you don't have FF glass...
 
Assuming it's for video, I'd get the Sony 28-135.

I don't have it myself, because I already have a large collection of Canon lenses. However there is not a single one of those which I would be happy to have as my only lens. My 24-105 f/4L is the closest thing I've got to a FF all-purpose lens, but it still feels a bit short on the long end, and the barrel distortion is horrible at times.
 
I have to say the lens I use most often, my walk-around lens and go to for anything other than zooms, is the Batis 25mm 2.0, the image is stunning and really stands out when it shows up on screen in one of my videos...IMHO...
 
The "just one lens" limit never made any sense to me. There are lenses that cost $150 and lenses that cost $60,000. The only case in which the number of lenses is important is if you are going to the jungle or the desert and definitely don't want to be changing lenses. For every other case, setting a budget limit makes more sense.

If you can afford the Sony 28-135, you can also afford both Batis lenses (a great choice if you want AF), or a full set of Samyang primes (14mm f/2.8, 24mm f/1.4, 35mm f/1.4, 50mm f/1.4, 85mm f/1.4, 135mm f/2.0) (a great choice if you want fully manual lenses).
 
The reason I say "one lens" is it's a government purchase. I have to buy a Roland av mixer to replace an old pany model. ($8K) and the money left over I can use to upgrade/expand cam gear.

I do about 90% of my stuff in studio with good lighting so my FS100's and lone FS700 work fine under those circumstances. I don't usually care about keeping up with the tech end of things because I can only purchase so often. When the time to purchase comes up, that's when I try to get up to speed to see what will work for my shooting. The only reasons I have for considering an A7rii is it will work fine with my ronin stabilizer when I need that, and also my old Canon d60 is getting near end of life (although it still works fine when I have to do stills work.) The AF mode (face detect) videos I've seen show the AF works fairly well, (that is VERY important to me as I shoot a LOT of multicam/ single operator stuff. I frequently do 3 cam shoots by myself)

I have bounced back and forth on getting an A7rii and a lens. or an FS7 body only. I just find it kind of hard to buy an A7rii which is full frame, and then be limited to only using it in crop mode because all I have is s35 sony glass.
 
The A7r2's highest quality video is only available in APC crop mode so your Sony lenses will be fine. Stills is another story.
 
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