Would you recommend Sony 24-70 mm F/4.0 OSS FE for A7S?

F

Frank VM

Member
I just recently purchased A7S and so far I have used only Canon glass with commlite adapter. It works well, but due to the nature of my work I would like to add image stabilization and ability to have continuos auto focus and focus peaking at the same time. I'm planing to use this combination mainly to film wedding ceremonies and receptions.
I was reading some "generic" reviews online about Sony 24-70 but I could not find anything from someone who is using this combination for work on daily bases. My main concern is "focus hunting" when in autofocus mode, some reviews said that it produces unusable footage and others didn't even mention it.
Feel free to recommend any other lens that you think might work for my needs. Ultimately I would like to get Sony 28-135mm but, at the moment I just can't afford it unless I start selling some of my Canon gear.

P.S. I'm new to this forum so if this subject was already covered in detail I apologize in advance. I did try to search for a thread talking about this specific lens, but I could not find anything.
 
I am using this combination very often for filming and I am satiesfied so far. Its advantage compared with the 28-135mm is in my opinion the weight. The 24-70 is small and fast and inconspicuous. Its sharp and has good colours. Disadvantage: a little distorsion which you can handle if you will use the Playmemories app, and its "only" 4 and not 2,8 .
If you will use it with the A7s in APS-C mode you can change the focal length to 36-105mm and this will give you more flexibility without any loss of quality.
Benn
 
benn,

sony native lenses should be automatically corrected for distortions by the A7(r/s) series...no?
 
I have this lens for the A7S and it's okay. As others have mentioned the size combo can't be beat. The IS is decent and in crop mode you can get additional reach with the camera. I own a number of Sony lenses and this one doesn't seem to hunt any worse than the others. The biggest liability of the Sony lenses is the fly by wire nature of the focus, which means no hard focus stops. Probably doesn't matter as much for live event shooting where you are using peaking anyway. You should expect far better performance than you are getting with your adaptors and Canon lenses. The 28-135 is a great lens. I don't own it but I've seen it and played with it. It is a BIG lens, as big at the 70-200. The lens is F4 versus F2.8 like the Canons but on the A7s this isn't such a big liability. I used to own a 5D Mark III and a Mark 1 24-70 F.28 EF lens. I far prefer the A7S and the FE 24-70. Much more portable and discrete for shooting video.
 
This FE 24-70's reputation is far worse than in actual use IMO. As long as your copy isn't decentered, its a good standard zoom - especially between about 28-60mm. Its not quite as good on either end of the range - its still sharp in the middle but edges aren't as great and there's distortion which shouldn't be an issue shooting anything other than raw stills thanks to in camera corrections, and there are profiles to correct the raws. If you're on either end of the range, just keep your subject in the sharper parts of the frame and you're good to go.

I think a lot of people look at it compared to the 28-70 which you can find new out of kits under $300, compared to the $1100 of the 24-70, no its not 4x as good, but its still better in every respect compared to the 28-70. I've seen used 24-70's in the $750 range, and to me its a far better than the kit, so at that price point I think its fine.

If you're shooting weddings, given how dark receptions are, f/4 will be far more limiting than the lens itself. If you have an electronic adapter, the Tamron 24-70/2.8 has IS and is sharper across the frame than the Sony, but its much larger/heavier. I would use that one over any of the Canon 24-70's because of stabilization and f/2.8

If you don't need the extra stop, I'd just go with the FE because you'll have better AF in any scenario.
 
Focus hunting depends on how difficult the scenes are, it will hunt if the background is brighter and have more contrast than the foreground, so it is the camera focusing ability and not the lens, I use it on my gimbal just for the auto focus and I would say I have about 75% good footage. Picture quality to me is better than what reviewers thought, they all think it stinks, I just wish that it is F2.8 and not F4, btw you will not have peaking and continuous auto focus at the same time while it is recording, if you stop recording you will have peaking but once you press record, peaking will goes away.
 
Distortion with Sony native lenses. Normally you can adjust it in the settings, if it shouild be done automatically, but on my A7s the point "distortion" is only grey and doesnt work neither with this lense nor with the 1,8/55 Sony.
Benn
 
In my tests the 24-70 f4 was actually less sharp than my 28-70 kit lens however I kept the Zeiss because the build is so much better, and it actually has a nice look to the image it puts out as well as the massive bonus of the constant aperture for videos.
i only use auto focus for stills, where it's been fine.
 
the lens has a little bit of a bad reputation because it is a little bla....f4 which is not great, AF is soso (which should be a lot better with the new A7II and A7IIr) and in general performance just isn't great, i guess at least people expect great performance from a f4 zeiss zoom....it's not cheap either and it does not have a great "look/character" either, but which zoom does?
it really isn't a bad lens at all but it really could or should be better all around....the kit 28-70 lens is a lot cheaper and really (other then fixed f stop) does everything the zeiss does....
 
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