Sony 24-70mm f/4 Vario-Tessar T FE OSS Interchangeable Full Frame Zoom Lens

Ive had this lens for almost a year now. Its a mixed bag, but as long as you understand its strengths and weaknesses, and use it accordingly, then its a great general purpose walk around lens. Heres the deal. Its sharp in the center at all apertures (except f22) and focal lengths, and between 30-60, its sharp corner to corner and edge to edge, at all apertures (except f22) and focal lengths. So, when Im shooting scenery, or people, and I know I want it sharp all across the frame, I try to keep it those middle focal lengths. At 24mm, its still a great lens, and I shoot at that focal length a LOT, but I know that corners will have a bit of softness. Same thing at 70mm, a bit of corner softness. But its makes up for it by being able to focus fairly close at 70mm, giving me the ability to do some nice close up work. I think the biggest problem that folks have with this lens is the price. Most feel that for $1200 it should be a bit better in the corners at 24mm and 70mm. I got mine used, so I feel like I got what I paid for. Its been an outstanding lens, and I much prefer it to using a bag full of prime lenses. Happy shooting!~

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Excellent lens with beautiful color rendition, excellent contrast and handling of flare, near perfect stabilization and very good center sharpness. Nice bokeh in my opinion - some disagree. Can be a bit smudgy in the corners but only a problem if wife open at f4. I use a speed light so I don’t often need to shoot at f4 except for when I’m trying to get separation and bokehlicious portraits - 70mm at f5.6 works fine too. Most people ding this lens because, for the price, you expect excellent corner sharpness. I kind of agree - I just don’t really care: I would if I were a professional who depended on this for my income. I don’t miss the f2.8 because 1) once I hit 50mm or longer, f4 is just fine to produce bokeh and separation 2) I tend to forget to change settings and I’ve had many a beautiful group shot with family and friends destroyed by f1.8 rendering half the group out of focus. Less likely to happen with f4. 3) f4 is just one stop less than f2.8. With in camera stabilization and lens stabilization, the smaller aperture doesn’t matter as much unless you’re shooting a fast moving subject. All in all, this is a great lens - I’ve sold all my other lens so it’s the only lens for my AIII. Recommended.

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Package arrived promptly. Lens works beautifully, smooth zoom and focus seems fine. I am dealing with one problem, however. Focus went soft on one series of tests, but when I removed the Hoya UV filter I bought for the lens the focus sharpened. Ive never encountered that before. So Im checking the filter on other lenses for my annoy camera as well as on lenses Used on my Nikon DSLR. To repeat, the lens focuses and zooms well, weight is quite low for a zoom lens. Works well.

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It was tough not giving this 5 stars because Zeiss hardly ever fails to deliver. I scrapped one star because corners are not sharp at 24 mm. I dont know if I got a bad copy or if this is the norm with this particular lens.

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Received the lens on Monday, just worked with is a couple of days now and its working just fine. Little down side but that was known it feels like plastic. Image quailty is very good, same distortion on the cornerrs but that can be fixed in Photoshop/Lightroom. Overall a good lens for everyday use.

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Soft at the edges. Need to be careful of f-stop to get best resolution. Test the lens to find out where it gives best sharpness. Other than that, a great travel lens.

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