ed here with the digital digest and today i wanted to share a first look at the sony f 2.8 70 to 200 millimeter g master mark ii now this full frame piece of glass is sony’s latest addition to the gm family it retails for a little under 2 800 us dollars i’ll include a link in the description and what makes it unique one of the reasons or actually three of them that i’ve been waiting to get my hands on it since it was announced last year is that it is lighter faster and sharper than the previous generation it also has better weather sealing better finite controls we have a new lens hood that did away with the pedal design and you can see we have control through the hood to get to any filters you may be using so all i think solid improvements but again faster lighter sharper the autofocus system is per sony four times faster than the previous generation we have an iris lock which is ideal for video in the event you know you’re using the zoom ring you want to make sure you don’t accidentally change your aperture i think that was very smart three different modes of stabilization of course an optical stabilization switch we have our control of autofocus from infinite uh or rather full autofocus to infinite to three meters we have the ability to of course switch autofocus on and off and then that full time dmf switch as well so really a nice suite of switches on board control the traditional uh three buttons that you can customize for hold i mean the fact at least for me the two most important things i mean the three are you know the sharper lighter and faster of course but to me that four times uh the autofocus speed of the previous generation is really impressive and it probably just scratches the
surface of what future g master glass is going to have to offer in order to complement bodies like the a1 which is still the pinnacle right now of digital imaging and the beauty of this is that it really is an ideal or should be i haven’t used it yet let’s not get ahead of ourselves right it should be ideal again for hybrid shooting which is my favorite closer focus distance on this than the previous generation i mean everything has been improved so if you’re wondering what i will be testing this with first and foremost it’ll be the a7 mark iv which i have for review right now as well and this should be the primary uh pairing but fear not i will also uh be testing this if i can mount the lens i’ve got confused by the lens rental barcode i’ll be testing this with my a7r mark iv that you can see right here because you know a full review would really not be uh complete if you didn’t test it with something with a really high megapixel count i mean granted the new a7 mark iv does give us more megapixels than the previous generation and that is a good thing but i still consider it fairly modest when compared with something like the r series i mean even if i stepped back to the a7r ii that i have uh you
know defocused there in the background that is still uh roughly nearly 10 megapixels more than what we get from the brand new a7 uh mark iv so food for thought i’m really excited to test this out again its potential is i won’t say limitless but even if you’re shooting with cinema cameras from sony the fx3 the fx6 the fx9 which by the way i am filming on an fx3 so i potentially will test it on it as well even though this isn’t ideal for my studio use if you are a wedding photographer videographer this probably is going to be your favorite piece of glass to accomplish just about every shot just like the generation before it so so much potential i could see this being a favorite lens also for travel because again that balance of its weight overall performance i don’t know where else you can find that in sony’s lineup yes the older uh previous generation 70 to 200 gm is an excellent piece of glass but when improvements like this show up anyone who really invests in this equipment is going to be intrigued myself included right now my other
telephoto lenses are for those of you that don’t know you can see them in the background there the g master one to 400 mil and the g series two to six which don’t really compare to this in terms of overall performance no f 2.8 over there but they do pretty much cover the range that i potentially use the majority of time especially since i have other lenses to supplement anything under 100 millimeters but i could see reassuming this after all i happily used the 70-200 f4 for many years before i finally parted ways with it so an exciting lens again i’ve got some back problems so the lightweight is also really well received by me because anything much heavier than this like my other two lenses there in the background or even three if you include the pz28 to 135 because it’s a pretty big one as well it starts to you know break the back quite literally in a full capacity of shooting if you’re really going to go for any long period of time but i’m excited again to get shooting with this it feels good i mean what else would you expect from a g master and if performance is anything like what i have read from a lot of different well-respected reviewers in the industry as well as users like many of you that are watching this possibly if you already own it then i already know i’m going to possibly be in love and hopefully not fall too deeply in
love because i really don’t need it even though i might want it so again for me the promise really lies in what the future holds from sony’s lens manufacturing business with this new twin motor system so much less glass than the previous gen and the ability to just hopefully meet the autofocus of sony’s brand new latest and greatest full frame bodies now i don’t have an a1 to test this with but again you already heard the a74 is no slouch and of course myfx3 no slouch either the mard a7r4 doesn’t have that autofocus prowess but we are going to get a really good idea of how it pairs up with slightly older cameras that i’ll bring into focus um i may even test it on the a7r too we’ll see because i’m sure some of you are still enjoying that camera and probably wondering is this the right investment rather than a new body because at this price you could be buying a new a7 uh new a74 of course which is definitely uh got some parity with that a7r ii but that rounds things out just excited to finally have this in my possession don’t have that much time with it but i will do my best to give full impressions beyond what i’ve encapsulated here today in a first look any questions or comments please feel free to post them hit that like button and as usual please feel free to subscribe and please stay safe later
