Question on Sony FE 24-70mm F2.8 GM II Lens

[John Wang]

HI, Gurus,

Newbie here wants to get into photography😀 and need to get some advise from experts.

I saved some money over time and want to take great pictures for my travel, kids, instead of start with cheap camera, lens. I want to buy the professional equipment from the beginning because I know I will use those for a long time to come, that way I don't need to throw or resell the cheap ones a few month later.

I am going to buy Sony A7 IV, looking at my lens options, I don't have any lens right now, I would like to start with one wide angle lens, one regular lens for normal photo. I looked at Sony - FE 16-35mm F2.8 GM Wide-Angle Zoom , it has a very good review, 16mm is good but it is still not as good as 12mm

So I am looking at the following:

Sony FE 12-24mm f/2.8 GM Lens

Sony FE 24-70mm F2.8 GM Lens

If I buy the above two lens, they are back to back, covering everything from  12mm-70mm, would that be better than buying 16mm-35mm and another middle range lens( but still doesn't' cover 12-15mm ). Will the above two lens combine range  16mm-35mm) is just as good as single 16mm-35mm lens in turns picture quality(I assume so but just want to make sure)?

Is any better option than buy the two :Sony FE 12-24mm f/2.8 GM Lens, Sony FE 24-70mm F2.8 GM Lens to do what I wanted? I know there are cheaper lens but what I want is a best lens I can afford(those two are in my budget)

Do I still need any other lens to get myself started?

Please advise.

Thank you in advance.

John

 

[Pieter]

Some questions back to you to hopefully help you determine where your priorities are:

1. The title of this topic is 'Question on Sony FE 24-70 F2.8 GM II Lens', but nowhere in your post do you ask a question about this lens. What exactly is your question? You only speak of the GM (mk I?). If your budget allows, get the mk II: better in every regard except price.

2. Do you think you'll use the 12-15mm range? If yes then the answer is simple: 16-35 won't be an option. 12-15 is quite a specialty range though and you'll likely only use it for artistic expression with a certain perspective/composition in mind. Advantage of overlapping 24-35 range is that the odds of missing a shot due to wrong lens on the camera is smaller. Keep in mind the 16-35 F2.8 GM mk II will likely be announced within weeks so you might wanna wait for that.

3. Do you really need F2.8 aperture? If heavy, bulky lenses are not a problem for you and budget allows, go ahead and buy the F2.8 lenses. If the bulkiness of your setup might keep you from hauling your stuff around then a lighter kit certainly has benefits. The 12-24 F2.8 really is a bulky beast. A single lens setup, e.g. with the new 20-70 F4, might be an interesting option to consider.

4. Do you have experience with focal lengths and what they mean to you? If you're new to photography, I'd try a standard zoom (24-70 range) for a while and see where you feel that lens is lacking: at the wide end, at the long end, at minimum focus distance, at maximum aperture... Only once you know where your priorities lie can you decide on what other lens you might need. It's impossible for us to properly give you advise on this.

Edited February 27, 2023 by Pieter

[John Wang]

HI, Pieter,

1. Yes, I am going to get GM II 

2. I guess I don't need 12-15mm right now, but I RV out almost every month and I will like to have the option of shooting good landscape pictures, my questions is if I have 12mm-24mm, and 24mm-70mm, do I still need 16mm-35mm? (since the two lens already covered from 16mm-35mm)

3) I mostly travel with Jeep Wrangler & RV, I don't do a lot of hike, so the weight doesn't affection that much.

4) No idea, trying to learn, but I know that I definitely want to take a lot of good landscape picture (for myself only) when I am camping in the wildness.

Thanks a lot for your advise.

[Pieter]

1. Ok, no question then.

2. I doubt you'll have much use for the 16-35 if you already have the 12-24 and 24-70. Optically the 12-24 GM and 24-70 GM mk II are equal if not better than the 16-35 GM in the overlapping ranges. Compare MTF tests by Opticallimits for example:

16-35 GM vs 24-70 GM II

Only reasons to consider the 16-35 if you already have the other two:

 - Lightweight kit as only lens on a hike where you expect the 16-35 range will cover all your needs (doesn't seem to apply to you)

 - If you want to use front filters in the 16-24 mm range (the 12-24 doesn't take front filters due to the bulbous front element).

3. Ok, heavy bulky stuff not a problem then.

4. I expect the 12-16 mm range will be too wide for most landscape stuff: scenes often become boring and distant if shot too wide, unless you place an interesting subject in the close foreground or use the extreme perspective distortion in an artistic way. But in general I'd say some 24-70 zoom and a separate wide angle lens will cover most landscape stuff. Could be that you find out that you want to shoot 'compressed' landscapes with a longer lens than your 24-70mm provides. But that's what I ment with trying your standard zoom for a bit: if you often find 70mm too short, you can always add something longer later on. If you shoot a lot of starry nightscapes, you might want to add a faster lens. For macro shots, add a macro lens. Horses for courses, but only you know what kinda courses you wanna explore (and most likely, you'll only find out along the ride).

[John Wang]

4. So if 12-16 is too wide for most of landscape stuff, I am still missing 16mm-24mm range if I only have 24mm-70mm.does that means I need  buy another prime lens at 18mm or 20mm? or from 16mm-23(24)mm?

 

Thx again.

[Pieter]

I think the 12-24 GM is a marvel and it'll serve you well, but I feel it'll be overkill on the wide end. To make an interesting photo, you need to fill the frame with interesting stuff. Shooting that wide, it'll be really hard to fill the frame with interesting stuff, and the interesting stuff becomes really really small. Unless you put something interesting in the foreground and blow it out of proportion with your ultrawide, or find some crazy shooting angle.

Prime vs zoom is a totally personal tradeoff. I have an 18mm prime, which I find too wide most of the time but is nicely different from the zoom starting at 24mm. This is why I feel the new 20-70mm F4 is such an interesting option. For daytime landscapes you don't need F2.8 aperture: you need a lens with tack sharpness around F5.6-F8.

Since it seems you want to go for the best possible lenses, your only GM prime options are the 14mm F1.8 and 24mm F1.4. In my opinion these are either too wide or too narrow. The 20mm F1.8 G is highly regarded as well and may be an interesting option. Choices... If you really have no reference of what to expect from a certain focal length, maybe rent a 12-24 for a weekend trip. Some rental stores will refund the rent if you buy it afterwards. You'll find that at the wide end, a few mm difference in focal length means a world of difference to the resulting image.

[John Wang]

Thank you! I went to the store yesterday and tried the camera and different lens, but one thing really surprised me was how heavy the camera + lens, even with 24-70mm GM II, feels very heavy! guess I haven't ever use such a heavy camera + lens. I don't go to gym and haven't practice my muscle for ages but I am very active and health, after a few minutes using the camera, my arms starts feel tired, just can't image need to use the camera for more than 20 minutes.

With 70mm-200mm even heavier!

Guess I need practice my muscle strength ::)

Another thing I notices is Even with 12mm, when I took the pictures of the store it doesn't feel the angle is that wide! maybe because I was inside?

[Pieter]

5 hours ago, John Wang said:

one thing really surprised me was how heavy the camera + lens, even with 24-70mm GM II, feels very heavy!

This is exactly why I asked:

On 2/27/2023 at 10:15 AM, Pieter said:

3. Do you really need F2.8 aperture?

The 12-24 F4 weighs over 30% less than the F2.8 version. For landscape, you'll likely use apertures in the range of F5.6-F11. There's no added benefit in this use case for an F2.8 lens over an F4 one.

Camera stuff has come a long way since the DSLR era, with each new generation of lenses being smaller, lighter and optically better than the previous. But it's a law of optics that larger aperture (= faster) lenses need more glass and are consequently heavier than their slower counterparts.

As for using ultrawides indoors: yes they can be of benefit in cramped spaces if you want to fit everything in, but only once there is a person in the edge of the frame can you really see the extreme warping due to perspective distortion going on. This warping causes small rooms to look very big in the photo, objects close to the camera will look far away. When used without caution, this ultrawide look will dissociate your viewer from the subject. Can be a part of creative expression, but photos taken at 12mm will look very surreal.

Edited March 1, 2023 by Pieter

[John Wang]

Hi, Pieter,

Thank you for the expert advise here!  I just purchased the camera (Sony a7 IV) & lens (Sony F2.8 24mm-70mm GM II and Sony F2.8 70mm-200mm GM II) I will hold off buying 12mm-24mm base.

One unexpected episode when in the process of buying the equipment in Pasadena CA, After I paid, I opened the lens to make sure the lens was inside the box and it was the right now, after I opened the 24-70mm box, checked the lens, there was NO II mark on the lens, only FE 2.8 24-70 GM, I asked the clerk, he told me that they don't have II on it, but it was II ! I check the box, there was no II, He gave me the GM I instead of II!!!!!

It would be very hard or impossible to dispute this had I taken this lens home and come back!
 

[Pieter]

What a shenanigan, there most certainly is a II marking on the lens:

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