Samples from the new Sony 85 1.4 GM and 24-70 2.8 GM lenses!

February 3, 2016 First Looks, Sony 45

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Samples from the new Sony 85 1.4 GM and 24-70 2.8 GM lenses!

As posted earlier, Sony held an event today to announce and show off their new uber high-end lenses for the Sony FE (A7)  cameras. These are all no compromise lenses that are the best Sony has ever created, and the price reflect this. They are not cheap, but I think the 85 1.4 will be an amazing lens and huge seller. That is a perfect portrait lens for the A7 series, even though it is larger, it has a no compromise quality according to Sony. I had Amy Medina in NY today to check out the lenses and the new A6300 but for now I wanted to share a few images she shot with the new 85 1.4 GM and the 24-70 f/2.8 GM lens:

All are shot with the Sony A7RII and the new 85 1.4 GM, all images by Amy Medina

CLICK THEM TO SEE THEM CORRECTLY! JPEGS…

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And one from the new 24-70 f/2.8 GM…

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So far these two lenses are looking mighty nice. I will of course be reviewing them IN FULL VERY SOON.

To pre-order these new lenses, see the links below:

Sony 24-70 2.8 GM – B&H Photo

Sony 85 1.4 GM – B&H Photo 

Sony 70-200 f/2.8 GM – B&H Photo

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45 Comments

  3. Obviously the photographs came from a set up with actors, models and real musicians. Still, Amy Medina made some very nice images. My favorites are 3, 4, 5, and the last. Well done.

  4. I’m disappointed that the samples don’t really show off what are supposed to be key accomplishments of the lens. Rather than featureless backgrounds why aren’t there details (e.g. leaves, flowers, points of light, etc.) in both in front of and behind the plane of focus, so we can see the bokeh quality, the suppression of onion rings, edge transitions, LOCA, etc?

  5. Steve, I know you love the SL Leica 24-90mm (as do I); interested to see how this 24-70 stacks up. As always, eagerly anticipating your review…

  6. No question about it, they look really good. Do they look better than the shots I get from my Sony/Zeiss 85mm f/1.4 on my A7Rii mounted with an LA-EA3 adapter? Impossible to say without a side by side comparison. But I bet it would be pretty darn close.

    • The ZA85 is an exceptional lens, however the difference between this and that on LA-EA3 is this has AF, but not only that it is silent and works across the entire frame and works with eye AF etc. So the usability of one over the other is very different.

      I had the ZA and the Sigma HSM, I kept the Sigma for its much better AF with the A7R II, not that there is a native lens I may have to get it. The ZA is better in IQ than the Sigma, but the usability of the Sigma was better.

  7. The images look very good; a comparison with its direct competition would be useful though. Also, I find that at these camera to subject distances you can’t, even at full bore, really judge the “quality” of the bokeh and the unsharp to sharp to unsharp transitions. I would have come in closer, and would have used more challenging lighting.

    • Indeed exactly what I thought. And I would like to see a comparison with the Milvus which would also be delicious on my FM2n.

  8. I think I will wait for Steve’s review images before forming an opinion. I can’t say I’m that impressed with the images from Sony. #1 & 9 in this series are okay. The others, including those at Flikr, . . . .

    PaulB

    • Her pics are excellent! I watched the Tony Northup video, none of his pics were in focus LOL

  11. Canon has some great quality lenses at much cheaper prices that can be adapted to Sony. Sony like Apple seems to be able to comand big prices for technology that isn’t that much better. Clients don’t pull out a giant magnifying glass to look at their pictures.So we need to ask ourselves how far do we go in terms of equipment cost and quality.

    • These lenses will be state of the art, according to Sony, with practically no CA, excellent bokeh, and high resolution. The Sony release indicates the 50 lp/mm curve will be above 50%. How does this translate to resolution? Probably about 500 lp/mm at the sensor. The existing lenses equal or exceed the requirements of the 42 MP sensor, which is 208 pixels/mm. In order to resolve an object one pixel wide, you need a lens with 2 or 3 times that resolution.

    • The only Nikon lens I’ve found with enough resolution to meet 42 MP standards is an ancient 55/2.8 Micro-Nikkor. The Sony 70-200 f/4 is up to the task too, as are the Zeiss Loxia and Batis. My Nikon f/2.8 zooms aren’t in the same ball park, probably not the same county.

  12. Look at all that chromatic aberration in the the hair of the lady singing into the microphone! lol … These look great. Zeiss, not being able to meet demand for the Batis 85, probably lost a few of those months-long back-order sales today. Both lens will probably be great but it’s going to be interesting to see how the Sony preforms in the market against the Zeiss at that price point.

    • Once the lens profile comes out you should be able to clean that up in post. 🙂 Looks to me Sony is going right after the biggest complaint with the Batis; donut ring bokeh.

      • I haven’t taken a look at examples of donut ring bokeh issues on the Batis yet but I don’t doubt it… I’m one of those who have been waiting for months for the 85mm and 25mm to ship but I think I will cancel the Batis 85mm go for this Sony even though it’s significantly more expensive. I’m as much of a Zeiss fan as anyone but given some of the early reported focus issues of the Batis (and I’m still disgruntled a little over the coma issues with the Loxia), I will give this Sony a try. I will probably still pick up a Batis 25mm. (Unless Sony brings out a FE version of their Alpha 24mm…)

      • A mere play on how people usually find fault with new product announcements… It was just a joke.

      • I think the technical term is: Chromatic Afro. But seriously now that there are two 85mm primes, we really need you to do a shootout between the 85mm Batis and G Master so that some of us can make an informed buying decision. Thanks in advance!

        • You would have thought the ‘lol’ might have been a clue, but apparently not.
          Now that I think of it, I am not sure the photography enthusiasts I know don’t have an under-developed sense of humour. Lol.

  13. Great lenses, we need to wait and see how they compare. They are much heavier, when you look at the 85mm and compare it to the Batis 85mm which is a lot cheaper and lighter. On the positive side a pro quality lens will be heavy it needs to be robust to take the day in day out abuse a professional will dish out
    This is a positive step in the right direction and should be applauded.

    • I remember the Planar 85/1.4 and the Sonnar 85/2.8 for C/Y mount. I actually preferred the Sonnar for portraits. It was a lot lighter and smaller too.

  16. Steve: Can you answer this for me/for us? It is not clear from the earliest marketing material…but will all the new G series lenses permit the user to engage the auto eye-focus feature which is part of the programming of the A7rII… but which requires specialty lenses to permit the feature to work? I find the idea of locking in to a subject’s eyes.. and then keeping this focus crystal sharp no matter where the subject turns or twists to be a sensational feature.. but it doesn’t work with any of the six FE lenses (Zeiss, Sony etc.) which I own. Can you find out for us if the new G series lenses enable this feature to work?

      • Does Zeiss manufacture the GM lenses for Sony? I am looking forward to your comparison to the Batis lenses!

    • Eye AF on A7R II works (both AF-S and AF-C) with all native mount AF lenses. I got FE 16-35/4 OSS, 35/2.8, 55/1.8, Batis 85/1.8, 90/2.8 and 70-200/4 OSS and Eye-AF works just fine with all of them. It is not something you “turn on”. You need to configure it to a soft button and keep that button pressed when you want to use Eye AF.

      • This is something that needs to be addressed in a firmware update. If you want a face in focus, critically you want the eyes in focus. So really face detect and eye detect should automatically worl together without having to press an assigned button.

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