for a long time i've been looking for a perfect all-in-one lens that
i could just take one lens with me everywhere and not have to worry about
carrying any other lenses and i think i finally found it in the sony 24-105
all right we're here looks like it's going to be a nice day it's cold right now but you know it's
almost winter so time to get the bag packed and then we're going to see what sort of stuff we
can do with this lens which i'm excited about this is going to be a really great location
we'll see how far we can go along the shore tides going out
low tides in about a half an hour so this is our best chance to walk on the shore
we'll have to come back to the woods on our way home today
that also means we got to go down there so
well that didn't last long but now we're just going to keep hiking through the woods
find the path or maybe just follow the shoreline
so the reason i got this lens and a reason you might want to consider this lens it's a really
great all-in-one lens and anytime i can take just one lens means i save a little weight and this
lens being that has optical image stabilization built in a few other things a nice amount of reach
24 to 105 makes it really an ideal all-in-one lens to hike around to take with you if you only want
to have one lens for me that's a big deal because of weather because of weight it's just nice i'm
curious to see how the optical image stabilization will work and how the image quality is
24 millimeters is a little tight to be able to handhold and vlog like this but it's not
bad and if you put it on a little tripod like i am right now then you can get away
with it no problem but a big reason you should consider this is optical image stabilization
when paired with active stabilization in the sony bodies or ibis if your body has that
it's fantastic because you can get away with handheld walking shots like this
and not really worry about whether or not your shots are going to come off usable
so in checking out some of the photos so far i'm pretty impressed the image quality is great it
definitely improves a tiny bit when you stop down 5.6 to f8 in there but not much even wide
open at f4 at 24 millimeters they even just look great they're sharp all the way out tiny bit of
vignetting but not bad at all the cool thing is too you can get a pretty close focus distance with
this too which gives you a little bit of a macro capability now it's not like some of the lenses
that tamron's been putting out but it is very good and can give you some really nice results but one
of the main reasons that i'm excited for this lens and i've been excited to try it out and why
i spent 1200 of my own money on it is to be able to get that extra zoom range up to 105 millimeters
so i'm in places like this sometimes you want to crop in just a little bit or zoom in a little
bit and get a little tighter shot of some of the mountains or some of the surrounding area
and there's another reason i wanted a little extra zoom when i'm doing these sorts of things talking
to you and filming myself i like to be able to put myself at about 35 to 50 millimeters
on the camera and what that does is it compresses the background a little bit and gives you a much
more realistic true-to-life representation of the size and the scale of the landscape that i'm
generally out filming and testing these pieces of equipment in so for example this is 24 millimeters
nice i'm about two feet away uh two and a half feet away from the camera able to talk to you
the microphone the shotgun mic on top is able to pick you up pick me up really clearly but
notice the background the mountain seam a little further away because i'm right up in the forefront
so we're gonna put it down to about 40 something something-ish millimeters
now the difference is i'm about three and a half maybe four feet away from the camera
but as you can see the mountains got a lot bigger in the background compared to me now i could stand
even further away but i'd have to use a different microphone it is really nice to be able to do this
and get a little bit more compressed background which you know brings the more true to life
of what you see when you're standing in these places and it just i feel like gives a little
bit better experience overall so let's check out the difference between 24 millimeters up
to 105 millimeters and what you can do with it as a telephoto lens for photos and video work
there's some pretty good subject matter around here to take pictures of
so
so while this lens is a little heavier than other lenses on the market the fact that you can only
take you only have to take one lens with you to places like this really makes a big difference
and the fact that it has optical steady shot to assist the obvious in the camera and the active
steady shot in the camera makes a huge difference especially when you're shooting handheld which i
do a lot because of places that i go i don't want to carry a lot of stuff with me and that
little bit of extra stabilization makes a big difference both for video and photo mode as you
can see here i was able to handheld shots and take it all the way down to a fifth of a second
which is pretty slow and plenty to be able to slow down water and make waterfalls look like what
you've seen but not only that when i'm filming a handheld running gun type stuff it really helps
to smooth out everything that i do with my hands any movements i make especially when i'm on uneven
ground and the big difference is when i'm shooting in 4k 120 which the a7s3 can do really well
it gives me just that little bit of extra stabilization when active steady shot is
not available in 4k 120. now if you're shooting 4k 60 you get the added benefit of active stud
shot steady shot which gives you a whole lot more smooth footage but it just the optical steady shot
really does make a difference in your handheld footage which it makes this a great lens to pick
if you're going to be out just with one lens and running around another reason i picked this lens
up is because when i'm out doing stuff like this in not great weather it is weather sealed and so
having an all-in-one lens that is weather sealed with a weather steel body like the a7s3 means i
don't have to take a lens off out when it's really really cold when it's raining when it's snowing or
in dusty locations anything like that it keeps the camera body safer it keeps the lens safer because
i'm not switching out those lenses occasionally i probably will have to take a couple of other
lenses with me especially when i start doing more astrophotography stuff here in just a little bit
but for now this lens has been excellent and even with the aperture at f4 i can use it in
pretty low light situations because the sony's have such great low light performance now one
thing that's fantastic about this lens if you pair it especially with the newer sony bodies
is the autofocus system it grabs your face grabs your eye and the autofocus motors work really well
to track you right through a scene regardless of what's going on around you you get great solid
autofocus that's very fast and very accurate a nice thing about this lens is it does have the
auto focus manual focus switch built on the lens as well as turning steady shot on or off so you
can turn off any sort of stabilization on or off really easily and it has a programmable button one
thing a lot of times we think about at f4 is that we can't really blow out the background get out
of focus background or get that depth but with 105 millimeters which is what the lens is at right now
you actually can it depends more on how close your subject is to the camera as opposed to how far
away the background is from you and i found that f4 actually i really like f4 it's kind of a sweet
spot for really good image quality really nice sharpness but also to give you just a good amount
of separation of your subject from the background now obviously the closer i get to the lens at 105
the more blown out the background is going to get this is a little tight and maybe a little
uncomfortable so let's go back to a regular view this lens gives you some really good control over
your depth of field and another really big thing that i've noticed about this lens as opposed to
say my 24 millimeter g master which i love and it's a fantastic astrophotography lens but there's
a lot of focus breathing on the g master lenses this lens has very very little focus breathing
actually almost none which makes it excellent for be able to do some focus pull some rack
focusing and it just gives you a lot more options for what you can do and as a running gun lens
that makes it really nice especially if you're shooting yourself like i am now where you don't
want to have to have somebody checking everything out for you now fourteen hundred dollars this is
not a cheap lens you can find it on sale for 1200 maybe 1100 depending on the sale but it isn't a
cheap lens but if you're going to just buy one lens to put on your camera you want it to be good
quality to shoot everything and to be very durable now on my way out hiking i did slip and fall on
the camera on the lens nothing was damaged thank god everything still works but it is a testament
to the build quality of the lens it's built well and will handle a lot of abuse and certainly a lot
of weather situations because it's weather sealed from sony and of course if you want to pick up
this lens there are links in the description but i would recommend you wait until it's on
sale for 11 or 1200 which it does frequently do throughout the year now if you want to see other
lenses that are fantastic for sony full-frame cameras click or tap right there i'll see you
in that video as always if you have questions ask me in the comments below or join my live stream
wednesday nights at 4 pm alaska time 8 pm eastern i'll see you again soon in the next video cheers