this is the new sony 16-35 f4 power zoom lens
is it worth it and how does it compare to the tamron 17-28 that's we're going to find out
hey my name is jake and i create content to help solo creators on the go so i test and review lots
of drones cameras lenses in places like this in alaska and i give you tips and tutorials on
how to use them so you can tell better stories today we're testing and talking about the sony
power zoom 1635 f4 g lens which i just bought and i gotta say it has been a really fun lens
to work with i'm glad i bought it but if you already have a camera on 17 to 28 it may not
be the right lens for you okay i need to back up a little bit i bought this lens the day was
released and then i've taken with me everywhere ever since so about two months i've been using
this lens because i wanted to test it in as many different situations and as many different ways
as i could before putting this video together so i've taken this with me to chicago i've taken it
with me on helicopters in glacier ice caves all kinds of things you're going to see a ton of photo
and video examples shot with this lens but to start off with this is 16 to 35 which is a great
focal length for running on stuff it's f4 we'll jump into f4 versus f 2.8 here in just a second
overall i love what sony is doing with the aperture ring the fact that you now have
the aperture ring and you can select uh either clicked or de-clicked aperture right on the lens
and be able to do that i really like that now you can also lock it in a mode and then lock the
aperture ring so you don't accidentally change it and then you control it with your camera of course
you also have a zoom forward or toward and wide and then a programmable button uh as well as auto
focus manual on off basically switch then you've got a zoom ring so if you like more the manual
feel of a zoom ring you can still do that and it's very responsive the way it responds and then you
have a focus ring out here on the very end so having lots of manual control on this lens is
and has been really nice now it's internal zooming so it'll work great on gimbals you don't have to
worry about changing the weight and balance of your gimbal and because it's a power zoom
you can put it on a gimbal and some gimbals will give you the opportunity to be able to control the
zoom from the gimbal so you don't have to touch your camera and you can get things like a dolly
zoom effect which is actually pretty cool i don't use it that often but if it's something you want
to do or if you want to be able to zoom without touching the camera it actually is very handy
to have that the other thing i love about this switch being able to push in pull out is you can
get some really fantastically smooth zooms without having to make sure you're turning the zoom ring
very consistently because you this is uh what would you say it's it's sensitive
to how far you push it so you can get a fast or slow zoom and it does respond really well
but because this is an f4 i was curious to see how well it would do compared to f 2.8
so losing that extra stop of light makes a big difference when you're in places like
this or you're doing astro photography things like that that's why i feel like the tamron
17-28 still pulls ahead of this lens we'll talk a little bit more about that later but for now
i mean this ice cave is pretty epic the biggest downside of this lens is the f4 which is not bad
by any means i did lots of low-light photography when i was down in chicago and in that area i've
done some low-light photography here today in the ice cave and and even now this is pretty low light
so it's not the end of the world because sony does do really well at high isos but there are
cases where you would want the f 2.8 of the either g master or the tamron 17-28 which i'll throw up
some comparisons here in a little bit between this lens and the 17 and 28 because they're
you know a similar price bracket but they're also similar size and similar weight so while the f4
is limiting in what you can do in low light especially when it comes to video it's not
as limiting as you might think it does also limit what you can do for boca or out of focus areas but
you can easily correct that or you can easily change that by making sure you and the camera
are closer to the subject and the background that you kind of want to get rid of is a little further
away but reality is any wide angle lens you're not going to get really fantastic bokeh because of
just the nature of really wide angle lenses it does a great job for architecture a great job
for real estate anything like that this would be a fantastic lens for any of those sorts of things
because it keeps the line straight you don't get a lot of bowing even all the way wide open at f4
which is what a bunch of these were shot at you don't get like weird shaped buildings or anything
like that the one caveat is this isn't a tilt shift lens so you'll have to do some correction
in post if you're trying to shoot with the camera at an up angle say for really tall buildings or a
really tall room or anything like that you'll just have to correct to get those angles straightened
out in post in lightroom but it's not that big a deal as far as sharpness goes this lens is a
massive improvement over the old f4 version i used that lens a few times and i hated it
because it just wasn't as sharp as i really wanted it to be and especially when i got the tamron
the tamron was much sharper this lens really has fixed a lot of those problems this lens is
incredibly sharp all the way edge to edge even wide open and it gets even a little bit sharper
as you stop down into the f-56 range and up it does really great very little distortion
this has been a great photo taking lens pretty much most of the photos you've seen or all
the photos you've seen in this video all the video you've seen in this video i've shot with
the either the a74 or the sony alpha one the a1 which is you know great 50 megapixel camera
so you're really going to test out what that lens can handle and what it's capable of on a
higher resolution sensor like that and while 16 isn't quite wide enough to do things like
inside of the cockpit of a helicopter for that you really need something more like 10 or 12
just because everything's pretty tight quarters it is wide enough to do a lot of stuff with and
that is fantastic but for right now we're going to jump back in the helicopter and
go to another location to get ready for what hopefully is going to be a pretty nice sunset
so the one thing about this lens is that there's no built-in stabilization
no lens based stabilization but the nice thing is that with the newer sony cameras
especially the ones the last few generations that have active stabilization and because the
lens is so wide you really can still get plenty usable footage even if you're running around
let's face it walking in a place like this so now that you've seen what the 16 to 35 is
capable of and certainly produces some fantastic results how's it compared to the tamaron 17-28
of course one of the big differences between these two lenses is the focal length you have
17 to 28 which is what you're seeing here this is 17 on the tamaron this is 28 and then you have 16
to 35 on the sony now i'm not counting clear image zoom that sony does on some of their camera bodies
that have the ability to crop in one and a half times and still keep full resolution 4k but as you
can see here side by side the sony does give you a fair bit wider field of view at 16 millimeters
and you can also punch in quite a bit more at 35 millimeters now couple that with the extra one
and a half times zoom in aps-c mode and you get actually a very versatile lens with either one
of these but if you're going for the maximum field of view the sony definitely wins out on that and
of course there is the size comparison difference which here you can see the tamron's a bit taller
they're about the same distance around but the tamron's definitely taller now both of these are
internal zooming so that won't change at all based on zoom but you do definitely get a little smaller
package weight wise they're about the same but the smallest package is the sony for sure there is a
little bit of image quality difference i feel like the sony is just a tad sharper and a tad better
overall but again you get the extra stops of light with this now in these photos i did stop down to
the same they're both pretty sharp at the same aperture i was shooting at f9 if i remember right
or f4 and they were both very good but where the sony really differentiates itself
and makes it worth i think the few hundred extra dollars if you're not doing lots
of nighttime photography or astrophotography which i've done with the tamron and it does
and produces spectacular results but the sony has all of the physical controls you can switch manual
focus autofocus on or off you can d-click or click the aperture ring you can lock the aperture ring
and then you have the control for being able to power zoom as well as the aperture ring which i
love the fact that sony's putting on aperture rings on all of their lenses now because it just
gives you a much more tactile control over the settings which i really enjoy and it frees up one
of the dials on your camera to be able to adjust something else or other things if you want to so
to me both of these lenses are fantastic they're excellent it mostly depends on what you're doing
with them if you need more low-light performance the tamron wins if you need a lot more versatility
in what you can do with it i feel like the sony wins a little bit and for me this is the lens
that i'll be traveling with most of the time now because it's just simply fantastic the size
the weight and what you can do and get out of this lens even in fairly low light situations
is absolutely excellent when it comes to flare control both of these lenses do well with flare
control definitely not as the higher end glass like the g master glasses but they do fairly
decently and when it comes to sun stars i actually feel like the tamron wins out a little bit i can
get a little better sunstars than i have been able to get with the 16 to 35. if you want to know some
fantastic budget lens options for sony cameras you need to watch this video right here i'll see
you over there 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 when i'm not standing on a glacier cheers