Sony Alpha BlogSony FE 24-105 F4 G OSS1 Presentation2 Optical performances Performances optiques3 Samples of Photos Exemples de Photos4 Video5 Conclusion5 Conclusion

Содержание

Field-Testing The Sony FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS
Sony FE 24-105 f4 G OSS Introduction
Ease of Use

Field-Testing The Sony FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS

The versatility of this lens, especially on landscape shoots, is hard to beat. When shooting the buttes of Sedona from a helicopter, I often would go from shooting a wide-angle vista to zooming in on a cave dwelling on the side of a cliff, something that would ordinarily require a lens change—something that’s frowned upon in a helicopter with no doors on. The stabilization (combined with that in the camera) allowed me to handhold the lens even at 105mm with no image blur. The side of the lens has a programmable focus hold button, as well as switches for the focus and the stabilization, and the body is dust- and moisture-resistant, as well.

Internally, the lens has two Advanced Aspherical elements, plus Sony’s Nano AR coating to “eliminate flare and ghosting” (according to their literature). Flare wasn’t eliminated in our tests, though it was much less present than in other super-zoom lenses I’ve tried. I had to shoot nearly directly into the sun to trigger lens flare.

Sharpness seems to be just slightly softer than the company’s G Master lenses, or something like a Sigma ART lens, though at this price point that’s to be expected. The lens was sharp enough that any subject sharpness issues could be easily tweaked in software, and in-camera JPEGs looked much sharper by default. It’s hard to tell in the landscape shots exactly how much of the sharpness was lost due to atmospheric haze (and a nearby forest fire) and how much was the lens, but portraits of close subjects were tack-sharp and, again, landscapes just needed a little tweaking.

I could easily go from landscapes to portraits to astrophotography without having to change lenses, and that makes this a great travel lens. Pros using it as a primary lens would still be wise to couple it with a prime that’s ƒ/2.8 or faster, for those situations where background defocus is key to a shot. I’d probably couple this lens with a 50mm or an 85mm lens when on the road.

It’s also a great lens for the videographer, as the Direct Drive SSM motor allows for silent focusing. It was impossible to hear this lens in action, and none of our video tests have any focus motor noise from this lens.

The Sony FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS is priced at $1,300, and it happens to be one of the rare lenses that not only is good for the enthusiast but also for the pro. The lens is a particularly great choice for the photographer getting started with the Sony system. It’s versatile, fast, sharp and, thanks to the fixed ƒ/4 across the whole range, able to create great images with good background blur for most subjects, and it’s a great lens for the videographer, thanks to the variety of available focal lengths and the smooth focus.

Sony FE 24-105 f4 G OSS Introduction

An In-Depth Review of the Sony FE 16-35 f4 OSS Wide Angle Lens

The Sony FE 24-105 f/4 G OSS is a wide-angle to short-telephoto zoom lens for the Sony full-frame E-mount compact system camera range. It can be also used with APS-C sensor cameras, such as the Sony A6500, where it provides a 36-157.5mm equivalent focal range. It features 17 elements in 14 groups including four aspherical elements, two of which are advanced aspherical elements, and three extra-low dispersion elements. It has a near-circular 9 blade diaphragm which creates an attractive blur to the out-of-focus areas of the image, Sony’s Nano AR Coating to reduce flare and ghosting, 0.38m minimum focusing distance, and it’s also dust and moisture resistant. The Sony FE 24-105 f/4 G OSS lens is available for £1199 / $1299 in the UK and the US, respectively.

Ease of Use

Sony E 16-50mm f3.5-5.6 OSS PZ

Weighing in at 663g and measuring just over 11cm in length, the aluminium alloy bodied Sony FE 24-105 f/4 G OSS is some 225g lighter and 2cms shorter than the faster Sony FE 24-70mm f/2.8 GM lens. so if you’d need such a fast maximum aperture, the f/4 24-105mm is a lot more compact. Note that it does extend further by almost 4.5cms, though, when it’s set to the 105mm focal length.

Build quality is excellent. The Sony FE 24-105 f/4 G OSS has a sealed dust and moisture resistant design and a fluorine-coated front element, which makes it well-suited to life in both the field and the studio. The lens has a metal lens mount. It accepts 77mm filters via metal threads.

The Sony FE 24-105 f/4 G OSS lens mounted on a Sony A7R III

The Sony FE 24-105 f/4 G OSS lens alongside a Sony A7R III

The Sony FE 24-105 f/4 G OSS has a round Focus Hold Button which keeps the lens locked to the current focusing distance, useful if you’re auto-focusing and don’t want the lens to try and find focus again. The preview function can also be assigned to this button through the camera’s custom settings.

The Sony FE 24-105 f/4 G OSS has a fairly narrow, ridged focus ring. Manual focusing is possible by using the dedicated AF/MF switch to toggle between AF and MF. There are hard stops at both ends of the focal range, making it easier to set focus at infinity. Polariser users should be pleased that the 77mm filter thread doesn’t rotate on focus.

Side of the Sony FE 24-105 f/4 G OSS lens

Side of the Sony FE 24-105 f/4 G OSS lens, extended to 105mm

The Sony FE 24-105 f/4 G OSS zoom lens utilizes a Direct Drive Super Sonic wave AF motor for smooth auto-focusing. It’s a very quick performer on the Sony A7R III that we tested it with, taking about 0.2 seconds to lock onto the subject. We hardly experienced any «hunting», either in good or bad light, with the lens accurately focusing almost all of the time. It is also a virtually silent lens when auto-focusing, making it perfect for movie shooting or for more candid use.

Side of the Sony FE 24-105 f/4 G OSS lens

Side of the Sony FE 24-105 f/4 G OSS lens, extended to 105mm

The Sony FE 24-105 f/4 G OSS features optical image stabilisation via a switch on the side of the lens barrel, and it can also pair up with the camera body’s own built-in stabilisation system to even greater effect.

The Sony FE 24-105 f/4 G OSS lens is commendably supplied with both a soft case and a good quality plastic round lens hood (ALC-SH152), although that wasn’t supplied with our review sample, so we’re unable to comment on its effectiveness.

Front of the Sony FE 24-105 f/4 G OSS lens

Rear of the Sony FE 24-105 f/4 G OSS lens

The Sony FE 24-105 f/4 G OSS lens in-hand

Focal Range

At the 24mm focal length the angle of view is 84 degrees.

Field of view at 24mm

At the 105mm focal length the angle of view is 23 degrees.

Field of view at 105mm

Chromatic Aberrations

Chromatic aberrations, typically seen as blue or purple fringes along contrasty edges, were not very apparent in our test shots, only appearing in very high contrast areas.

Light Fall-off and Distortion

With the lens set to its maximum aperture of f/4, there is some obvious light fall-off in the corners, requiring you to stop down by at least 2 f-stops to prevent it.

There’s very little barrel distortion and virtually no pin-cushion distortion evident.

24mm

105mm

Macro

The Sony FE 24-105 f/4 G OSS offers a minimum focusing distance of 38cm, with a maximum magnification of 0.31x. The following example demonstrates how close you can get to your subject, in this case a Compact Flash memory card.

Bokeh

Bokeh is a word used for the out-of-focus areas of a photograph, and is usually described in qualitative terms, such as smooth / creamy / harsh etc. In the Sony FE 24-105 f/4 G OSS lens, Sony employed an iris diaphragm with 9 rounded blades, which has resulted in very appealing bokeh. We do realise, however, that bokeh evaluation is subjective, so we’ve included several 100% crops for your perusal.