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Sony FE Lenses: The honest Guide for the A7/A9/A1 Series

February 22, 2023 The Team 265 Comments

Choose the right lens for your Sony Alpha with the help of our independent knowledge gained by writing many in-depth reviews.

We are a team of five photographers who all use the FE system and this blog is focused on lens reviews. So we have an in-depth knowledge of these lenses not only because we use them all the time but also because we have reviewed many of them in detail. We are also independent from any lens manufacturer and when you check our reviews you will see that we do not hesitate to name any shortcomings of a lens.
We will also talk about lens aberrations, if you don’t know too much about these terms maybe have a look at our article Lens aberrations explained first.

In this article we mainly list lenses which have electronic contacts to communicate aperture and focal length to the camera. There are also quite a few lenses which have an E-mount but no electronic contacts. Most of these are SLR-lenses with a modified mount and we decided against covering these because we think that most of them are not very attractive lenses. We do however cover some of the attractive ones that have been specifically designed for E-mount.

We do also have guides for:
9-18mm ultra wideangle FE lenses
20-28mm wide angle lenses
35mm FE lenses
50mm FE lenses
85-135mm FE portrait lenses
Macro lenses for the FE system
That may contain some adapted/exotic options not listed here.

If we have left any question unanswered please leave a comment or contact us on social media and we will do our best to answer it.

Last update: June 2023, Sigma 14mm 1.4,7Artisans 15mm 4.0, Viltrox 16mm 1.8, Sigma 17mm 4.0 and Laowa 28mm 1.2 added

Continue reading Sony FE Lenses: The honest Guide for the A7/A9/A1 Series →

Comparison, Guides, lenses

Guide to Ultra Wideangle lenses for the Sony A7/A9/A1 Series

January 12, 2023 The Team 167 Comments

We summarize our experience with all the native E-mount and a few manual legacy lenses in the 9-18mm bracket to give you a compact and independent resource for choosing the right super- to ultra-wide-angle lens for your Sony A7 cameras. In this summary we also included some adapted lenses we think are worth mentioning.

We also have a general guide to FE lenses, guide to 20-28mm lenses as well as a guide to 35mm lenses, 50mm lenses and 85-135mm portrait lenses.

We have no association with any lens manufacturer apart from occasionally loaning a lens for a review. Before any short introduction we tell you how long we have used a lens and if we have borrowed it from a manufacturer. But in most cases we have bought the lenses new from retail stores or on the used market.

Many of these lenses are manual focus only (MF) whereas some of them feature auto focus (AF). There is also a noticeable amount of lenses listed here that do not feature electronic contacts to communicate with the camera (no Exif).

If we have left any question unanswered please leave a comment or contact us on social media and we will do our best to answer it.

Last update: November 2023, 7Artisans/Brightin Star 9mm 5.6 added, Sony FE 16-35mm 2.8 GM II added, Sony FE 12-24mm 2.8 GM and Sony FE 14mm 1.8 GM updated

Continue reading Guide to Ultra Wideangle lenses for the Sony A7/A9/A1 Series →

Guides, Sony Alpha 7

Guide to best Sony E-Mount 35mm Lenses for A7/A9/A1 series

January 8, 2023 The Team 104 Comments

review sharpness 42mp high resolution sample test vergleich comparison bokeh handling build quality a7riii autofocus af close macro

35mm is a very popular focal length with a wide range of applications ranging from landscape over astrophotography to environmental portraiture and many consider it the best choice when only using one prime lens. We decided to summarize our experience with all the native E-mount and a few legacy 35mm lenses for the Sony A7 series to give you a compact and independent resource for choosing the best 35mm lens for your needs.

We also have a general guide to FE-lenses, 9-18mm ultra wide angle lenses, guide to 20-28mm wide angle lenses, 50mm lenses, 85-135mm portrait lenses and macro lenses.

Unlike most other review sites we have no association with any lens manufacturer apart from occasionally loaning a lens for a review. We prefer independence over fancy trips and nice meals.

Before any short introduction we tell you how long we have used a lens and if we have borrowed it from a manufacturer. But in most cases we have bought the lenses new from retail stores or on the used market. If you want to support our independent reviews please consider using one of the affiliate links. It doesn’t cost you anything and helps us a lot.

If we have left any question unanswered please leave a comment or contact us on social media and we will do our best to answer it.

Last update: November 2023

Continue reading Guide to best Sony E-Mount 35mm Lenses for A7/A9/A1 series →

The Team’s Kit – January 2022 Edition

January 4, 2022 The Team 45 Comments

A photographers kit tells a lot about his interests and preferred subject matter so we thought it might be interesting to give you an overview of the team’s current kit(s).

In the past we wrote several “The Team’s favourite lenses articles which might be interesting to you, if you would like to track the development of our interests.

Phillip’s kit

Lens	Number of Pictures	Share
Voigtländer 1.2/40	631	36%
Sigma 100-400mm F5-6.3 DG DN	429	24%
Sigma 35mm F2 Dg Dn	292	17%
Zeiss Loxia 2.4/25	105	6%
Voigtländer APO Macro 2.5/110	99	6%
TTArtisans 1.4/50	87	5%
Samyang 1.8/75 AF	58	3%
Sony FE 4/16-35 ZA	34	2%
Voigtländer 3.5/21	23	1%

Breakdown of my three star images taken in 2021 by lens used

Voigtländer 1.2/40 (most used lens by some margin)

It has been my most used lens for years now. It got some competition by the Sigma 2/35 and TTA 1.4/50 but it at least outcompeted the Sigma for me.

In early 2021 my daughter was born and that has of course changed my life and with it my photography. Maybe 50% of the images I take are of her and here the compact Voigtländer again showed its versatility. For portraits the bokeh is almost always very smooth. If I focus very close I sometimes like the softer look caused by much increased SA and when I don’t I stop down to f/1.7 to get rid of it.

Before my daughter was born and when she was very young and sleeping a lot, I did many photo rides. Most often with the 1.2/40 and the Sigma 100-400 in my sling bag. I would like to bring my Loxia 2.4/25 as well but that doesn’t fit in the bag so I am happy to stitch when the 40mm are too narrow.

Continue reading The Team’s Kit – January 2022 Edition →

Review, Sony E-mount, Tamron

Review: Tamron 70-180mm f/2.8 Di III VXD

January 13, 2021 The Team 39 Comments

Introduction

tamron 70-180mm f/2.8 2.8 review comparsion sharpness resolution contrast 42mp 61mp test sony a7rIII a7rII a7riv distortion sunstars starburst — Tamron 70-180mm 2.8 on Sony A7rII

With the 70-180mm 2.8 Tamron completed its “Reasonable Trinity” in 2020. Before the announcement I expected a 75-150mm 2.8 but we got an even bigger zoom range instead. Will there be more surprises? Let us find out in this review!
Update: a new version of this lens has been released in late 2023, you can find its review here.