Tag Archives: E-Mount

Guides, lenses

Best budget lenses under $499 for Sony a7/a7II/a7III

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dsc07315

You can easily spend a fortune on lenses for your Sony E-mount camera but you don’t have to. These lenses all cost less than $499 and give you great image quality on your a7/a7II/a7III/a7rII-series camera.

For each lens we have summarized the defining strengths and weaknesses. We hope this will make it easier to decide for yourself, if the lens could fit your needs. Please make sure to check out our in-depth reviews for a much more detailed discussion of each lens.

There are certainly other lenses which would deserve a spot in this list but we only include lenses we have used ourselves, so please don’t take it personal if we haven’t included your favorite lens.
Last Update: November 2019

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

Voigtlander 5.6/12 M39

Compared to the DSLR lenses (like the Samyang 14mm 2.8) this lens is ridiculously small. This is a lens that will always easily fit into your bag, which is great if you not intend to shoot this wide on a regular basis. With the filter adapter it is even possible to use standard 77mm filters.

You should be aware of: The corners never reach excellent levels, huge vignetting, slow, not a good match for A7r.

175g + adapter | ~$450 | full Review | aperture series | sample images

buy from ebay | Sony E-mount adapters (affiliate links)

dancing houses prag prague praha gehry sony a7s voigtlander 12mm 5.6

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lenses, Review, Sony E-mount

Sony FE Standard Zoom Shootout – Sony 2.8/24-70 GM vs. Sony 4/24-105 G OSS vs. Tamron 2.8/28-75 Di III RXD – Part 2: Macro capabilities

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Sony A7iii | Tamron 2.8/28-75 | 70mm | f2.8

After analyzing the infinity sharpness of the candidates in Part 1 of this series, we are looking at the opposite direction of the focus ring. For a versatile do-it-all standard zoom lens, the macro capability is an important factor of the overall performance. Details in documentation-, wedding-, product-, nature- or food photography are typical applications for a standard zoom as a pseudo-macro. In photographic history, the macro feature of zoom lenses was often a shameful marketing trick without any serious usefulness. Let’s check out the performance of the of the Sony FE 2.8/24-70 GM, Tamron 2.8/28-75 Di III RXD and the Sony FE 4/24-105 G OSS.

Continue reading Sony FE Standard Zoom Shootout – Sony 2.8/24-70 GM vs. Sony 4/24-105 G OSS vs. Tamron 2.8/28-75 Di III RXD – Part 2: Macro capabilities →

lenses, Review, Sony E-mount

Sony FE Standard Zoom Shootout – Sony 2.8/24-70 GM vs. Sony 4/24-105 G OSS vs. Tamron 2.8/28-75 Di III RXD – Part 1: Sharpness testing

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Standard zooms are the swiss knifes for photographers who need flexibility, can’t change lenses or prefer exact framing over prime qualities.

The Sony FE standard zoom palette has grown in the past years. In the beginning, we were cought between a rock (Sony FE 3.5-5.6/28-70) and a hard place (Sony FE 4/24-70 ZA OSS). We were trying to get around this lens type as good as we could.

In 2019, three great options are available and the situation is the other way around. Not only I have a hard time to decide which of the three highly regarded lenses suits me best, so let’s find out together which lens is the best choice for whom.

This article will be split into three seperate posts due to the sheer amount of information. I will start with a sharpness shootout (infinity) between the Sony 2.8/24-70 GM, the Tamron 2.8/28-75 Di III RXD and the Sony 4/24-105 G OSS.

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lenses, Review, Sony E-mount

Long Term Review: Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 Di III RXD

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Introduction

The Tamron 2.8/28-75 Di III RXD is the first third party E-Mount autofocus zoom lens. I am excited about this lens because it defines a milestone for the E-Mount system: until now, we only had a choice between Sony’s budget line, Samyang and the other (super-)expensive Sony/Zeiss options. The three classic third party manufacturers (Sigma, Tamron, Tokina) have been very tentative in their commitment to the E-mount system, and this lens is the first one that really changes this situation. The specs of the lens look spectacular on the paper, so let’s find out about its performance in the field.

In this review I will check the performance of my own copy that I used for several months now.

Sample Images

Tamron 2.8/28-75 | Sony A7iii | 36mm | f/10 | full size
Tamron 2.8/28-75 | Sony A7iii | 28mm | f/2.8 | full size
Tamron 2.8/28-75 | Sony A7iii | 75mm | f/3.5 | full size

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