Let's talk about the Sony 24mm 1.4 GM series lens
and how this thing is a complete beast, especially for something
like video.
I had the chance to work with this lens for two weeks.
I was working on client projects where I was filming outside and inside.
I had a collaboration with a fellow YouTuber, Noah Kagan, as well as using it to create
my own content. Before even getting into the specifics of this review.
If you're a Sony shooter, I would highly suggest at least renting this lens once,
it's that good. In the beginning of this video, I'm going to start off by explaining the
physical attributes of the lens itself.
And then I'm going to move on to my personal experience, working with the lens on all
those different projects. If you want to bounce around to a specific part, everything's
going to be labeled on the timeline, in the description, in the first comment.
And there's a link to the lens and the description below.
And let's begin with the physical attributes on the lens.
The first ring closest to you allows you to step through the aperture on the lens itself.
If you don't want it to adjust in increments, you can actually do it smoothly by
turning the click off right here and go all the way to F16 in
a smooth manner. When you take the aperture and you click it over to A.
I thought this meant auto, which it could be if you set it up that way.
But what that really means is it treats your lens as if this ring isn't there
and you can adjust it on your camera. I'm not used to having an aperture during.
So when I would go to switch my aperture just in my muscle memory, I would have it
right here. And as you can see, it's not adjusting on the camera.
And I would have to remind myself, like, oh, the aperture is on the actual lens itself.
But after overcoming that learning curve, I actually like to keep the aperture on the
lens itself more than in the A position.
We do have the infinite focus ring here.
So you can go as long or as short as you want to and just keep going for
all the time. On this side of the lens, we have the focus hold button, which I just
recorded a whole video about what this button does because I didn't really know
what it did until recently. In your menu system, if you go to Custom Key
and on the very last page, it actually shows you right here on the lens its focus hold.
So if I were to click that you have twenty five different pages of whatever you want
to customize this button to, another great feature of these higher end GM series lenses
is the switch for autofocus and manual focus on the lens itself.
If I had to do that in camera, I would be recording something and then I would have to
hit my focus mode button, scroll down to manual focus, get my shot and then
hit my focus button again, scroll up to continuous auto focus and then do everything that
I needed to from there. So having it on the lens itself really
helps out the lens cap on this one does come with a locking mechanism which took a
little getting used to even now. So that's locked in there.
It's not going anywhere. The lens itself is compact.
It's I mean, it's not a pancake lens. But if you've seen any of, like Canon or Sigmas,
24 millimeter prime lenses, those things are pretty big.
This one's light and it's short in comparison to those other lenses.
The one point four is a double edged sword. It's a pro and sometimes a con.
And let me explain. First of all, you can definitely get caught up in too much
Bokah. I am so guilty of this that when I first got this lens, all
I wanted to do was just like have this thing taped or glued to one point four because
why would I ever shoot anything else?
Well, turns out if you're trying to shoot during the daytime, you're probably going to
need to shoot at something other than one point four because it's just too fast.
Which leads me to my next point, that if you are shooting with this
lens outside, I think you should tack on the price of an ND filter.
This one takes the sixty seven right here for my video gigs where I was shooting outside.
I would just have to crank the shutter in order to get the kind of exposure that I needed
to film the shots, but it would've been awesome to have an ND filter to really
accentuate the one point four with the proper motion going
on on camera, but highly, highly suggest getting an ND filter with this
thing. Now, when I was shooting inside and I had control over the light, I would have to
readjust every single light that I set up and turn them down whenever I pulled out
this lens because it was just too much like getting into the lens.
Another weird thing that may happen is that there's so much
Crispy Bokah going on that it may look like you're on a green screen.
So if you have too much separation between you in the background and it's like only a
solid wall or there's not anything really between you and the
background to give you the viewer a proper representation of what the field of
view is. What ends up happening is it looks like you're on a green screen because
you're so crisp in the foreground.
It looks cool, but it also looks fake.
Sometimes when I was filming, I had to actually adjust it up to a higher aperture
because I didn't want it to look like I was filming on a green screen.
When I was there in whatever place it was.
Now when I was on set, I had the choice between a 24-70 2.8
G master lens, the 16 to 35 f4
And this 24mm 1.4.
So in all honesty, I had three different versions of the
24mm focal range on those lenses combined in every single time
I came to getting a shot when I was initially setting up.
I just went to grab this lens because it's almost the perfect
focal lens for a master shot.
And if I needed to get any close ups or inserts for this type of shoot, we had the time
to take everything at a master angle.
That was wider. And then I would take this lens and get a little bit closer.
Now I will say it has a certain esthetic when you do shoot like that.
And I feel like if you watch a lot of B roll YouTuber videos,
this is the kind of lens that you'll see doing the [SFX] type of transitions
with the [SFX].
Because it has that crisp, shallow depth of field.
Right when I put this thing on, it just seemed like I was shooting one of those B roll
YouTube videos. It was nice to get those kind of shots, but you may need to
vary it up with another kind of lens to get a different kind of compression.
So for those instances, I would go in, get some insert shots with
my 24mm at that really shallow depth of field.
But sometimes you're just filling the frame with something that's normally not like that
huge in real life. So I would get out my 24-70 and maybe punch
in. So there was a little bit more compression on my shots instead of having this
all up in the grill of whatever I was shooting.
That being said, this thing was on my camera probably 95% of the time
when I was doing my commercial work.
It was perfect for everything in terms of let me get
my master wide shot of whoever's talking on camera and whatever actions
they're doing. Twenty four is perfect for that.
And plus, with the one point four, I had the ability to really stop down
and isolate whoever it was in focus while blurring out the background.
Or I could switch it to a different focal length and then get
as much as I needed to in the focal plane.
But because this lens is designed not to really have distortion
on the sides and have an even crisp throughout the lens
from the corners to the middle, it does a great job of that.
In terms of autofocus.
This thing does a phenomenal job, especially if you have time to setup the shot and
you maybe set up a specific zone.
I didn't really have any trouble with it, trying to find whatever it needed to within
those specific zones. So if you know what you're doing with your autofocus, it will do
its job the way that it's supposed to.
You just have to be super careful if you are on the fly
shooting or if you don't have time to set up a shot and you just kind of put it on a
stand and you start filming.
Like, if you're a vlogger and you're at 1.4, if you're at wide autofocus,
sometimes if it's going to focus on something else because it's at 1.4
It's really going to focus on something else.
And it's not forgiving for your viewer.
If you are super out of focus, I was on camera with Noah Kagan
and halfway through our talking head.
The thing pulled focus to the microphone in front of us as opposed to pulling focus to
us. And I wish I would have seen it earlier.
So we had a whole, like, talking bit where I was out of focus.
I could have alleviated that issue if I would have pulled focus with the zone to one of
our faces. But I was on the fly and I didn't really know what we were going to be doing.
So I just like let it do its thing. So I highly have to caution you that
it's great at pulling focus.
If you have time to set it up and if you don't maybe error on the side of not shooting
1.4, or if you do if you're a vlogger, maybe put it on center focus and
then always try and stay center frame. So it does pick you up perfectly.
When looking at the minimum focusing distance.
You can see right here that the lens gets about half a hand away from
the water bottle to just about a whole fist.
And right here, I'm doing a test walking directly towards the camera with the autofocus
in wide mode.
Does it work? Does it not work? Should I walk backwards?
Just going to walk backwards.
You can tell that it does a pretty good job of picking up my face throughout the whole
clip and not getting confused by the contrast of the trees in the background,
because it is 1.4.
It's amazing at night. I know Sonis are already good at low light performance in the
first place. And if you add something like this, it just takes it to a completely another
level.
Like right there it looks like the sun is right there, but it's actually like the sun's
gone since the sun's not here anymore.
If you were on an F4 lens, this is what it would look like
at this time. This is what you'd be working with at this
time. So this is kind of what it normally looks like in this situation.
You'd have to boost your ISO up a bunch since it's a Sony
has awesome low light capabilities.
So this is ISO 4000 right now.
Why would you need f4?
You can go to f 1.4.
It literally looks like it's daytime.
Oh, my gosh.
So here's me on camera at f1.4 Now, here's me on camera at f4.
And just for comparison, if you wanted to see F2.8, here's F2.8.
All of this has been ISO 640.
I believe it is so cool that I can be here at
night vlogging and you can just see me like it's daytime.
My mind is blown.
I really enjoyed shooting with this because it does alleviate the amount of decisions
you have to make in terms of composition, because you are bound by one specific
focal length of twenty four millimeters.
You end up composing your shots according to how you can fill the frame at that focal
length. So instead of having the decision to punch in to 70mm or twenty
four millimeters on a 24 to 70 zoom lens.
Now you're just bound to twenty four and you have to move yourself to compose your shots
appropriately for that focal length.
Which is part of the reason why people love shooting with prime lenses is because it
makes you think differently about how you need to compose your shot.
One thing this lens does not have is optic stabilization.
And right now, just for the sake of this video, I have it connected to my Alpha 6400
because I'm shooting with my A7iii.
I only ran into a couple instances where I put my sixteen to thirty five.
That does have O.S.S. on it just because I wanted to make sure that I had that extra
stability in my shots for certain Push ins or pullouts.
But for the most part, in a controlled environment, if you have the ability to have this
on a slider or a gimbel, whatever that may be, because it is lightweight and it's
a prime lens, it's not going to be moving at all or none of the components are gonna be
moving in there. It makes it a perfect candidate for those kind of shots.
And I use this for so many different slider shots and so many push ins and
pull outs during these past couple weeks working with it.
Another thing that I haven't really heard anybody talk about, when you're shooting at 1.4
on a lens like this is the fact that for a shot like this, you don't have to
pick up your room as much because it's blurry in the background.
So, like, right now I'm disguising the mess on my desk with these Sony
bags. But if I were to move these, there's a whole bunch of other stuff going on back
there that you can't really see. I guess you could kind of see it.
I just throw a whole bunch of stuff over there.
And when you have something like the 1.4, you know, if the work
is hard on the production and to make sure that you don't have a whole bunch of clutter
in your background because it just puts it blurry in the background in the first place,
which could be a huge time saver on set.
Most the time when you're shooting onset, you have to spend so much time getting rid
of all of the things in the background to make it look nice and neat.
And if you could set up your camera and maybe adjust a couple things as opposed to
a whole room, I think more people should be talking about how that is a benefit of having
a one point four on your lens, especially with video.
The only major drawback that I see that's a barrier to entry for this lens
is the price. It's a $1,4000 at the time of this upload.
Honestly, I think it's worth that much money, especially when it comes to
production, because I had this thing on my camera.
Most of the time I can tell you that it helps save time
shooting because of that one point four.
If you are strapped for cash and you don't have lights, or if
you're in a scenario where you don't have lights or don't have access to good lights,
that one point four can save you in post because you have access to all that light
hitting your sensor. The other part of that is you don't have to get rid of as much
clutter in the background because the one point for just blurs it out anyway.
The only argument I could see to this being cheaper is that Sony released another
G series lens. That's only like eight hundred and ninety bucks or like nine hundred
bucks. That's the 20mm prime.
It's only one point eight. But if anybody is looking to buy this lens,
they're also going to be looking at that 20 millimeter for video.
If you're a photographer and you need the focal length of twenty four millimeters, you're
probably going to be looking at this lens specifically compared to the other zoom lenses
or prime lenses on the market by like Sigma.
Those other lenses are cheaper, but I'm just talking about the Sony ecosystem of
everything that's been produced by the company Sony and the fact that they have a
close enough focal range of 20 millimeters at
such a cheaper rate. That's the thing that I would be looking at if you were looking at
another Sony lens. So in conclusion, the one point four is the best thing
about this lens. It's so crisp.
It's amazing. But with great power comes great responsibility.
So you have to be super diligent about your composition
of your shots. If you plan on really nailing the focus because
it is such a shallow depth of the field, just be weary and make sure
that your autofocus zones are set up correctly, that way the camera can
do the best for you.
Let me know what you think in the comments done below.
Is this lens worth a thousand four hundred bucks?
Is it not? If you did like this video in the whole review process, can you give me
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Until next video. My name's Javier Mercedes.
I hope you're out there living a life of abundance, bye