Having a state of the art 70-200mm 2.8 zoom is something very important for the camera manufacturers, as these are extremely popular lenses – especially among the professional customers. Sadly, Sony’s first generation for the FE system wasn’t exactly a stellar performer and fell noticeably behind Nikon’s and Canon’s offerings. I said it before: Sony is very much aware of what the duds in the lineup are, so also here they released an improved version, the Sony FE 70-200mm 2.8 GM OSS II. Is this finally the 70-200mm 2.8 telezoom Sony customers deserve? Let’s find out in this review.
Sample Images
Nikon Zf | Megadap ETZ21pro | Sony FE 70-200mm 2.8 GM OSS II | 145mm | f/2.8Nikon Zf | Megadap ETZ21pro | Sony FE 70-200mm 2.8 GM OSS II | 200mm | f/2.8Nikon Zf | Megadap ETZ21pro | Sony FE 70-200mm 2.8 GM OSS II | 70mm | f/2.8Nikon Zf | Megadap ETZ21pro | Sony FE 70-200mm 2.8 GM OSS II | 170mm | f/2.8Nikon Zf | Megadap ETZ21pro | Sony FE 70-200mm 2.8 GM OSS II | 70mm | f/4.0Nikon Zf | Megadap ETZ21pro | Sony FE 70-200mm 2.8 GM OSS II | 70mm | f/4.0Nikon Zf | Megadap ETZ21pro | Sony FE 70-200mm 2.8 GM OSS II | 150mm | f/2.8
We summarize our experience with all the native E-mount and a few legacy lenses in the 85-200mm bracket for the Sony A7/A9/A1 series to give you a compact and independent resource for choosing the best portrait lens for your needs.
Unlike most other review sites we have no association with any lens manufacturer apart from occasionally loaning a lens for a review. No fancy trips and 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 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.
If you purchase the lens through one of the affiliate-links in this article we get a small compensation with no additional cost to you.
Last update: March 2025, several lenses added, cleaned up
The Sony FE 85mm 1.4 GM is my favorite portrait lens out of the almost 300 lenses I have used so far. Being one of the first GM lenses, it features a comparably slow autofocus and some of the recent competitors offer higher contrast and resolution at f/1.4, so Sony decided to update this lens. Does it still have the bokeh qualities of the first generation 85mm 1.4 while making it smaller and sharper? Let’s find out in this review.
Sample Images
Nikon Zf | Megadap ETZ21Pro | Sony FE 85mm 1.4 GM II | f/1.4 | Ai DenoiseNikon Zf | Megadap ETZ21Pro | Sony FE 85mm 1.4 GM II | f/1.4 | Ai DenoiseSony A7III | Sony FE 85mm 1.4 GM II | f/1.4Nikon Zf | Megadap ETZ21Pro | Sony FE 85mm 1.4 GM II | f/1.4Nikon Zf | Megadap ETZ21Pro | Sony FE 85mm 1.4 GM II | f/1.4Nikon Zf | Megadap ETZ21Pro | Sony FE 85mm 1.4 GM II | f/1.4 | Ai Denoise
We summarize our experience with all the native E-mount and a few manual legacy lenses in the 20-28mm bracket to give you a compact and independent resource for choosing the right wide-angle lens for your Sony A7/A9/A1 camera. In this summary we also included some adapted lenses we think are worth mentioning. We didn’t include any zoom lenses, you can find those in our general guide to FE lenses as well as the guide to 9-18mm ultra wide angle lenses.
Some of these lenses are manual focus only (MF) whereas others 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).
We have no association with any 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 on the 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: March 2025, Voigtländer 28mm 1.5E Nokton, Viltrox 28mm 4.5 AF added
I wasn’t a big fan of most of Samyang’s earlier lenses, especially not their early autofocus lenses. Their latest lenses have shown significant improvements over the earlier ones though and this Samyang 135mm 1.8 AF FE even features a unique selling point: it is the lightest 135mm 1.8 lens ever made. And not only that, it is currently also the cheapest option. Do cheap and lightweight go together with good here? Let’s find out in this review.
Sample Images
Sony A7III | Samyang 135mm 1.8 AF | f/1.8Sony A7III | Samyang 135mm 1.8 AF | f/1.8Sony A7III | Samyang 135mm 1.8 AF | f/1.8Sony A7III | Samyang 135mm 1.8 AF | f/1.8Sony A7III | Samyang 135mm 1.8 AF FE | f/1.8Sony A7III | Samyang 135mm 1.8 AF FE | f/1.8
Sony α | Leica M | Nikon F/Z New article every week
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