Zeiss 24-70 F4 Lens

[Peter Rush]

Anyone using this Zeiss 24-70 F4 lens with the A7s?

Vario-Tessar T* FE 24-70mm F4 ZA OSS - SEL2470Z Review - Sony US

I'm thinking of ditching my EA50 in favour of the my A7s for my 'all day' camera for wedding shoots. I have various manual lenses but do need one with autofocus for certain parts of the day. I just need to test (I'll do it with my Canon F4 Lens) that F4 is going to be fast enough for dark churches, but i think mounted on the A7s it should be.

Now I've read poor reviews for this lens about softness at both ends of the zoom and sluggish autofocus, but I've been using the EA50 kit lens (Sony 18-200 F3.5/6.3) on my A7s and it's not particularly soft at zoom extents and the autofocus is actually quite snappy - I find it hard to believe a Zeiss lens costing more than twice as much would be worse!

Any thoughts would be appreciated - and please don't suggest the 18-135 Cine lens - my budget is not up to that.

Pete

[Jem Moore]

Hi Pete,

I've been using this lens, and the 70-200mm Zeiss, for a few months now with great results. The only downside, as usual with e-mounts, is the lack of hard stop and direct correlation for focusing. If you don't mind Sony's 'focus-by-wire' feel, then I heartily recommend this lens. I often use the AF button on the back to get close, then manually focus that last little bit with the 'magnification' feature, and seem to get good results. If you're interested, here's some samples:

Kyoto, Japan - YouTube

Chinese New Year's trip 2015 - YouTube

and for a real look, here's a link to a short I just shot using the A7s, the first scenes in the train and station, then walking down the alley, and then inside the hospital are all shot with the 24-70 Zeiss zoom, but please don't share, it's not done yet and I'm applying to festivals for this one starting next week:

Private Video on Vimeo

password: maloney

If you have any other questions, please feel free to pm or email me...good luck!

Jem

[Simon Denny]

I have the Sony 18-200 F3.5/6.3 and love this lens, I find I'm shooting everything with this.

Here's a quick sample of me making Pizza.

YouTube (Short URL)

[Roger Martin]

Originally Posted by Peter Rush

Anyone using this Zeiss 24-70 F4 lens with the A7s?

Vario-Tessar T* FE 24-70mm F4 ZA OSS - SEL2470Z Review - Sony US

I'm thinking of ditching my EA50 in favour of the my A7s for my 'all day' camera for wedding shoots. I have various manual lenses but do need one with autofocus for certain parts of the day. I just need to test (I'll do it with my Canon F4 Lens) that F4 is going to be fast enough for dark churches, but i think mounted on the A7s it should be.

Now I've read poor reviews for this lens about softness at both ends of the zoom and sluggish autofocus, but I've been using the EA50 kit lens (Sony 18-200 F3.5/6.3) on my A7s and it's not particularly soft at zoom extents and the autofocus is actually quite snappy - I find it hard to believe a Zeiss lens costing more than twice as much would be worse!

Any thoughts would be appreciated - and please don't suggest the 18-135 Cine lens - my budget is not up to that.

Pete

My mint 24-70 is for sale now that I bought the 28-135 Cine.
The 24-70 has the advantage of fixed aperture over your 18-200 and is FullFrame.
It AutoFocus about as well as the Cine but is not parfocal nor does it have the controls.

I usually shoot at f8 and 6400 ISO in my poorly lit Church.
The videos are very clean but part of that is because my 7Q+ DownRes 4k to 1080P30.

[Peter Rush]

Well I used this lens at at my most recent wedding and am a little underwhemed - I like the fact that it's light but the image is not quite as crisp as my Tamron SP 24-70 (which weighs about twice as much and has no AF) What I don't like about it is the focus ring - it's too sensitive and really easy to accidentally move - it needs to be separated from the zoom ring by a little space at least, and really needs a little more torque.

It will do for my purposes for the moment but if asked to describe it in one word I'd have to say overpriced - I expected more from a name like Zeiss and what I've got is something that actually is not as good as my cheaper Canon lenses - I do need the AF however so I'll be keeping it for now.

Pete

[Matt Bigwood]

I've go a similar set-up to you Peter, an EA50, A7s and occasionally use an A6000. I tend to keep coming back to three lenses, the 18-200 power zoom (came with EA50) the 18-105 F4 power zoom and the Sony E mount 50mm f1.8 - really good for defocussing the background at wide apertures.
The 18-105 has a couple of advantages over the 18-200, mainly the constant f4 aperture, and also the start/stop of the power zoom is less jerky than the 18-200.

[Ade Towell]

the sony 28-70mm kit lens is a much cheaper and lighter alternative to the 24-70 with similar results

[Peter Rush]

Originally Posted by Matt Bigwood

I've go a similar set-up to you Peter, an EA50, A7s and occasionally use an A6000. I tend to keep coming back to three lenses, the 18-200 power zoom (came with EA50) the 18-105 F4 power zoom and the Sony E mount 50mm f1.8 - really good for defocussing the background at wide apertures.
The 18-105 has a couple of advantages over the 18-200, mainly the constant f4 aperture, and also the start/stop of the power zoom is less jerky than the 18-200.

We do have a similar setup Matt although the EA50 stays in the boot for now until I'm 100% happy with the A7s - so far so good! I shoot weddings and need to respond in a fast paced environment very quickly and the A7 makes me that much more agile - I like the 24-70 Zeiss for it's constant F4 and as it's full frame I get the max low light ability from the camera so for the early part of the day where I can be in bright sunlight one minute and a dark church the next it does it's job, plus the AF for guests arriving and the bridal car arriving etc is a plus. For a lot of the outdoor stuff at the reception however I've been using the 18-200 kit lens for the extra reach and I'm not a full frame obsessive so APS-C mode is fine for me for outdoor work. I found at last week's shoot however that at the evening reception the F4 did not cut it and had to put on my Tamron 24-70 2.8 - I also have the Sony 50mm (The silver one) so I'll dig that out and give it a whirl.