Introduction
When it comes to standard zoom lenses, Sony offers a lot of interesting options. For those most interested in a wide zoom range the Sony FE 20-70mm 4.0 G might be the most appealing option, but if f/4.0 doesn’t cut it and the 24-70mm 2.8 GM lenses are too big and/or too expensive, Sony also has a solution: this Sony FE 24-50mm 2.8 G. Can its optical performance keep up with the GM zooms? Let’s find out in this review!
Sample Images
You can find most of the sample pictures in full resolution here.
Contents
Specifications
This Sony FE 24-50mm 2.8 G has the following specifications:
- Diameter: 75 mm
- Field of view: 47° to 84° (diagonally)
- Length: 92 mm (at 24 mm setting)
- Weight: 440g (without hood and caps)
- Filter Diameter: 67 mm
- Number of Aperture Blades: 11 (rounded)
- Elements/Groups: 16/13
- Close Focusing Distance: 0.18 m at 24mm to 0.29 m at 50mm
- Maximum Magnification: 1:3.4 at 24mm to 1:7.0 at 50mm (measured)
- Mount: E-mount
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Disclosure
A reader lend me this lens for a few weeks to write this review. Thanks a lot!
Focal Lengths
Handling / Build Quality
Generally this Sony FE 24-50mm 2.8 G handles and feels very similar to the other recent G/GM primes and zooms – like the Sony FE 20-70mm 4.0 G I already reviewed. We are getting an AF-MF switch, aperture ring, focus hold buttons and linear manual focus.
The rubberized focus ring has decent damping and it takes a little less than 180° from the minimum focus distance to infinity – no matter how fast you turn it, as the coupling is linear.
When you turn your camera off, the lens will remember the last focus position and will still be there when you turn the camera on again.
The zoom is mechanically coupled and there was no zoom creep. This is something that may still develop over time though.
The zoom ring is situated closer to the camera and has markings for 50, 35, 28 and 24 mm. This is not a parfocal zoom, if you change the focal length, focus needs to be adjusted. Unlike the Sony FE 20-70mm 4.0 G this lens does not feature an “iris lock”, for locking the aperture ring.
At the bottom of the lens also a de-click lever can be found, maybe something of interest for the videographers among you.
The lens comes with a plastic bayonet-style tulip-shaped lens hood that can also be attached reversed.
The zoom design is very untypical as this lens is shortest at the 50mm setting and longest at the 24mm setting. This actually took some getting used to.
This lens is almost exactly the same size as the Sony FE 20-70mm 4.0 G and noticeably smaller than Sony’s two 24-70mm 2.8 GM lenses.
Autofocus
I am not shooting sports or fast moving animals/humans so if you want to know if the lens is fast enough for this, or how it compares to other lenses in this segment, you may have to look for a different review with a more detailed assessment of this aspect.
The AF was always fast and accurate and it is also completely silent. The Sony FE 24-70mm 2.8 GM II features even more linear motors, so it is possible it focuses even faster.
Vignetting
| 24mm | 28mm | 35mm | 50mm | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| f/2.8 | 2.7 EV | 2.2 EV | 2.1 EV | 2.1 EV |
| f/4.0 | 2.0 EV | 1.7 EV | 1.6 EV | 1.4 EV |
| f/5.6 | 1.3 EV | 1.5 EV | 1.3 EV | 1.1 EV |
| f/8.0 | 0.9 EV | 1.2 EV | 1.1 EV | 0.7 EV |
As I already did for the Sony FE 20-70mm 4.0G I am showing you the vignetting figures after distortion correction. This lens heavily relies on the digital correction of distortion and without that correction the lens creates pitch black corners at the 24mm end.
The vignetting figures after correction are actually similar to other f/2.8 standard zooms, even much bigger ones. Almost 3 EV at the 24mm end are of course still noticeable and in many of the sample pictures I used the correction profiles in Lightroom to correct this.
It is recommended to have a look at this article first to get an idea how this brightness graph works.
Sharpness
infinity (42mp Sony A7rII)
Because the lens is pretty much unusable without distortion correction at the wide end we will again be looking at files where the distortion correction has been applied.
As was already the case for the Sony FE 20-70mm 4.0 G the wide end is the weak spot if you are picky about corner resolution. I guess the strong distortion correction needed might be the reason for that. The corners actually do look god at f/2.8, but they never look amazing – again similar to the Sony FE 20-70mm 4.0 G. That being said, for actual pictures in the field I was always happy with the performance at f/2.8 at 24mm.
At the 28mm setting stopping down a bit is a good idea for better corner performance, but also here the corners never look amazing.
At 35 and 50mm the lens shows the most even performance already from f/2.8 and stopped down it hardly leaves something to be desired here.
The performance at the wide end strongly reminds me of the Sony FE 20-70mm 4.0 G. The 24-70mm 2.8 GM lenses seem to show a slightly more even performance at infinity, whether that matters for you depends a bit on what you want to use this lens for.
In the field I couldn’t complain about the performance of this 24-50mm 2.8 G for infinity shooting at all, but if you are using a high resolution camera and you always zoom in on the corners you might not be perfectly happy with it.
Keep in mind there is more variance with these zoom lenses compared to primes, so your sample of this lens might behave slightly different.
close (42mp Sony A7rII)
24mm
50mm
As was already the case for the Tamron 28-75mm 2.8, also this Sony 24-50mm 2.8 G focuses closer at the wide end, offering a maximum magnification of 1:3.4 (compared to 1:7.0 at the 50mm setting).
Interestingly the performance is also better at 24mm here. For really crisp results it can make sense to stop down to f/4.0 at 24mm and f/5.6 at 50mm though.
The Sony FE 20-70mm 4.0 G does offer a more impressive maximum magnification of 1:2.6 at the 70mm end (which I generally find more useful), but it also showed very high field curvature as shown in my review. This 24-50mm 2.8 G does not show as high field curvature luckily.
Flare resistance
Generally, if you try hard and long enough, you can make almost any lens look bad in this category. Zoom lenses are often more prone to issues here, due to many air-glass surfaces and plenty of moving parts inside.
At the 24mm setting with the lens stopped down it is possible to create a ring flare with the sun in the dead center of the frame.
At the long end it is hard to create any artefacts at all, as you can see from the many pictures above: I sure tried.
A very good performance here.
Coma correction
24mm
50mm
The coma correction is actually pretty good. We can see some minor artefacts at f/2.8, especially at the 24mm end, but hardly anything that will be ruinous to your pictures.
Distortion
Standard zooms often have barrel distortion at the wide end that turns into pincushion distortion at the long end. This is not the case here. The Sony FE 24-50mm 2.8 G shows barrel distortion throughout the complete zoom range which is – unsurprisingly – strongest at the 24mm end.
As you can also easily see here: it is really strong distortion at the 24mm end. Compared to the Sony FE 20-70mm 4.0 G there is one benefit though: the distortion is mostly uniform and therefore easier to correct. I took many architecture pictures with this lens and here the correction does a really good job. I corrected the distortion for most of the pictures you see in this review in Lightroom with the supplied profile.
Sunstars
24mm
50mm
Interestingly this Sony FE 24-50mm 2.8 G features an aperture diaphragm made of 11 blades, like most of the GM lenses. What is interesting about that, is that the Sony FE 20-70mm 4.0 G features a diaphragm made of only 9 blades.
As is typical for Sony’s recent lenses the alignment of the blades is pretty good, so we see well defined sunstars between f/11 and f/22.
As this is a highly subjective topic may have a look at this article to see which kind of sunstars you prefer.
Bokeh
With this lens, bokeh is something you will mainly encounter at close focus distances. At longer focus distances – especially with the wider focal length settings – there will only be a very subtle amount of it.
The bokeh is actually not bad, but this is really not a lens you should buy if you are after shallow depth of field photography. The 24-70mm 2.8 and the 28-75mm 2.8 lenses do have an advantage in this category, as their long end has a bigger entrance pupil leading to a bit stronger blur.
Chromatic aberrations
Lateral
With Sony’s AF lenses lateral CA are automatically corrected and those corrections are also automatically applied in Lightroom and cannot be turned off. Long story short: unless you are using a more obscure raw developer you won’t be seeing any lateral CA in your pictures.
Longitudinal
We can see a small amount of bokeh fringing at f/2.8, not something to worry about.
Purple fringing is corrected very well. In the sample above sunlight was hitting the chrome parts directly and we do not see any kind of discoloring.
Conclusion
good
|
average
|
not good
|
I am not sure after the “ZA” era I came across a dud among Sony’s new releases and as is easily visible from the table above, also this Sony FE 24-50mm 2.8 G is a well crafted lens without any outstanding flaws.
I do wonder a bit though, who is the target audience for this lens. If you are looking for a cheaper alternative to Sony’s 24-70mm 2.8 GM lenses, I think Sigma’s 24-70mm 2.8 DG DN Art lenses (especially the MK I version) make a bit more sense.
This leaves those looking for a more compact and lightweight f/2.8 zoom option. Here we also have the Sigma 28-70mm 2.8 DG DN C, which is pretty much the same weight and offers the 50-70mm instead of the 24-28mm range. Tamron’s 28-75mm 2.8 lenses are also only slightly heavier.
And then there is the Sony FE 20-70mm 4.0 G. Same size, same price and same entrance pupil at the long end. For me personally, the 20-70mm would be the more appealing option when deciding between those two.
The Sony FE 24-50mm 2.8 G is still a very good lens by itself though, so if the combination of fast f/2.8 aperture, somewhat restricted zoom range but starting at 24mm and small size are what you are looking for, I am sure you will be happy with it.
As said in my reviews of the Sony FE 40mm 2.5 G and 50mm 2.5 G I also think it is a great alternative to a set of those smaller G primes.
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Alternatives
I think I already talked about the most obvious alternatives in the conclusion above. You can find many more of the recent E-mount standard zoom lenses discussed in our Sony FE Guide.
Sample images
You can find most of the sample pictures in full resolution here.
Further Reading
- All Lens Reviews
- Review: Sony FE 12-24mm 2.8 GM
- Review: Sigma 35mm 1.2 Art DG DN
- Review: Sony FE 50mm 1.2 GM
- Discuss this review with our Discord community
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Hi BastianK. Thanks for the review. I do want to mention that the Tamron 20-40 f/2.8 is also a close competitor of this lens but even more compact and lightweight. I currently own this one and am super happy with it (especially the 20mm starting point).
I also want to add my endorsement of the Tamron 20-40mm f2.8, came down here to comment about it. Absolutely lovely lens, I carried it for 2300 miles (3700km) on the PCT this summer capturing astrophotography, portraits, and landscapes and it was fantastic for both video and photo work. If it can survive 5 months of outdoor walking, it’s got my confidence.
This 24-50 seems odd since I’d much rather have the versatility of the 20 mm on the wide end then the slightly better reach on the long.
I think this is the most versatile compact lens for E-mount and especially for A7C/R.
20-70 is f4, one fast prime is must.
28-70 f2.8 lenses start from 28mm and difference between 28 and 24 is substantial, especially indoors. I vote for that 4mm at wide and compared 20mm at tele range with current high resolution cameras.
As only lens you are safe to go anywhere. You got some speed (f2.8), good wide angle, portrait zone 50mm, in a really compact form that I can’t exactly tell about 24-70 f2.8 lenses.
Thank you for reviewing my favorite lens of this year. I’ve been using my copy for months now and couldn’t be happier with the ease of use, image quality and small form factor. I really didn’t expect it to give me so much joy, but it really has.
I don’t miss my 24-70 at all.
It seems to take nice pictures, but a pretty boring focal length. I’ve heard that this lens was targeting videographers mostly?
If it was targeted at videographers it should be parfocal which it isn’t.
So no idea who came up with that idea, but I see no reason why it would be.
Thank you for the review, for me it was interesting to read it rather than helpful, because I already have the lens (on A7CII). But for the undecided it will be very helpful to refer to your review. I swapped my 20-70 for this 24-50 and I am also happy, because I value the bigger aperture more than 20mm. I wish I had also a wider aperture along the way but more in the realm of 13-14 mm, something I value on my Pixel phone. I never felt that I am missing 70mm, but this is something subjective I suppose. One just gets accustomed to things.
It will sure be interesting for other readers to read that you made the switch from the 20-70mm 4.0 and you ended up being happy with it.
I had also the 40mm F2.5 along the 20-70 and thought I could have the three small G lenses 24, 40 and 50 in one and have just one lens instead. My primary photography objects are the members of my family, kids, pets, wife so I appreciate the wider aperture. And yes, the lower ISO too.
And then the A7CII + 24-50 takes comfortably place in my smallest bag (3 L Peak Design) so that there ist no practical difference between carrying this set or the one with the 40 F2.5.
After using this lens for almost a year now I have no regrets swapping the 20-70 + 40 G2.5 for it.
It’s interesting to read these user experiences.
I’ve no real interest in the 24-50/2,8 because I tend to use the 70mm of my 20-70/4 a lot and 20-24mm sometimes.
For faster I’ve primes. I can sort of see the appeal of f/2,8, it is a nice compromise for several things, but ending at 50mm seems a bit meh and I would certainly miss occasionally going rather wide without changing lenses.
I find that it isn’t awkward on the A7C II and the combo fits in my smallest bag.
I hate this reversed zooming from tele to wide:/
This is not only an excellent review, as always with Bastian, in this case it’s also especially interesting to read the comments. Personally I am not much interested in a zoom with this range (if I only need 24 to 50mm, I grab two primes or even just one) and wondered what other people would think about this lens. As several readers report that they are very satisifed with this lens and its focal range, the lens makes sense and Sony seems to have done (almost) everything right. Fine!
hello,
hope you enjoyed France!
nice pictures! i know these places but failed to get same pictures, thanks for teaching us!
best
Well, you also need a bit luck with the weather 🙂