Hey. My name is Matt Johnson, and my two favorite lens focal lengths
for wedding filmmaking are 24 millimeter and 50 millimeter.
Find me on a wedding day and 90% of the time
it will be one of those two lenses on my camera.
This is Sony's new 24 to 70 GM-Marc two lens though,
and as its title indicates, it is capable of hitting both the 24
and 50 millimeter focal lengths that I love,
as well as everything in between and beyond.
Is this lens enough to lure me away from my prime loving ways though?
In this video, I want to review this lens from the perspective of a wedding
filmmaker and tell you if it's a good choice for you to consider.
If you are considering
filming weddings or other running gun documentary style videos with it.
Also, for the sake of ethics, I want you to know
that this video isn't paid or sponsored by anyone at Sony.
The first time they see
it is the first time you see it whenever it's uploaded to YouTube.
And this lens is going back to them very soon.
Getting right into it then. I'll be honest,
I've never been a 24 to 70 lens guy.
I don't know if that's a type of guy or not, but if it is, that ain't me.
One of my first ever gigs was making marketing videos for my college, Texas,
A&M University, and with that gig came access to the cutting edge at the time.
Canon five, DH Mark two and a Canon
EF 24 to 70 millimeters lens yes
beautiful full frame Boca with comparatively soft 1080 P video
that was still light years ahead of anything else on the market at the time.
And I have to say after filming with that camera
and lens a lot, I found myself loving the camera.
But disliking the lens.
For me, it really came down to two things.
I didn't like the size and I didn't like the F 2.8 aperture
in regards to the size that Canon EF 24 to 70 was big,
bulky and heavy at 950 grams, which is over £2.
Throw it on your camera and you could feel your arms
tilting forward from the weight,
especially when you had the lens zoomed out and it was extended.
Yes, it was weird like that.
If you were at 24 millimeter, the lens was extended
and then if you zoomed in, the lens got shorter.
It's like reverse world for canon or something like that.
I don't know why they did things that way, but it was bizarre.
Anyways, I was starting to experiment at the time in the world of prime lenses,
which were significantly lighter and smaller and putting that big 24
to 70 on my camera, even though it was a versatile zoom
made it feel like I was filling it slower with the camera
because I had to work around the size and weight of that lens in addition.
My second issue with the 24 to 74 clinked was that F 2.8 aperture,
while 2.8 is a reasonably wide aperture, especially compared
to something like 3.5 or a four a 5.6.
Once you start to experiment in the world of F 1.4
prime lenses, F 2.8 isn't nearly as fine.
So because of those two reasons, for my last decade plus of filming,
I have actively avoided using 24
to 70 millimeter lenses with the last time that I can remember.
Bringing one to a wedding
was actually whenever I photographed a wedding in 2011 for a friend of mine.
And at that wedding that was my friends 24 to 70 that they wanted me to use.
So it's been a while since I've used one of these lenses.
So imagine my surprise whenever Sony reached out to me
and said, Hey, we have a brand new 24 to 70 lens queue my skepticism.
But then they say this is the smallest and lightest
24 to 70 lens available on the market today.
Suddenly they have my interest because as I said
half of my big hang-Ups about the 24 to 70 focal length
and why haven't really recommended it to filmmakers
is the size and weight of the lens if they fix that.
This might be a much more viable all around option
that I can really get behind.
Unfortunately I do not have that canon
ef 24 to 70 that I used so many years ago.
To compare this lens to.
But I do have a lens that gets close and that is the mach one
version of the Sony 24 to 70 and as you can see Slims is pretty big.
It's also heavy at 835 grams.
And I'm not in love with the idea of having this attached to my camera all day.
Here's the new 24 to 70 mark too in comparison now
and as you will see it's about 20% smaller, less bulky
and it comes in at a weight of only 695 grams
which is a really nice weight reduction hack compared to even Sony's new 51.2.
And that lens comes in at 778 grams.
So this new 24 to 70 is nearly a hundred grams less.
And all this size and weight reduction goes a long way toward changing
how using this lens feels with the older Sony 24 to 70 as well as other 24 to 17.
I've used in the past
the size of the lens has resulted in feeling really front heavy.
I found myself having to use two hands pretty much the entire time
that I was using the original 24 to 70,
but with the 24 to 70 mark two, it actually feels comfortable
to hold in one hand
because the weight is distributed more evenly between the camera and the lens.
To be clear, fully zoomed at 70 millimeter, you will want to use two hands
but if you're filming a wedding all day
and you don't want your arms to be exhausted, the new 24
to 70 goes a long way toward making your job easier.
In addition, this new 24 to 70 also has all of Sony's newest technology
and features that they've been including with all of their newer GM lenses.
So you're getting things like a manual aperture control
ring on the lens as well as an option to make it click less with a switch.
You also get two Programable buttons and just like so many other lenses.
While this lens is focused by wire with electronic focus,
it's incredibly fast and I've not noticed any lag when using it
in regards to focus breathing.
This lens does support Sony's new rather magical focus
breathing compensation function that's found in the A7, A74,
which will completely remove any focus breathing
with a minimal crop if your camera doesn't have that compensation function, though.
In my testing I did see a bit of focus breathing, but it really wasn't bad.
And this Lindsey's totally usable for focusing in my opinion.
One new feature that Sony has included with this lens is the addition of a switch
on the side that will allow you to adjust the smoothness of the lens when it zooms.
To be clear, this lens does not have an electronic zoom like Sony's new 16 to 35.
But whenever you have this switch set to smooth,
the lens will zoom out, as the name implies, very smoothly.
But if you switch it to tight, on the other hand,
you will have to apply more force to zoom your lens.
This is going to be really useful
for filmmakers, especially if you film in a shake your handheld style,
or if you commonly film with your lens
pointed up at the sky or down at the ground with these zoom set to smooth.
If I shake the lens a little bit here, you'll see that it can actually change
the focal length because the zoom is looser.
Alternatively, though, if I set the zoom switch to tight,
the zoom ring requires significantly more force to zoom in and out,
which prevents the zoom from being changed unintentionally.
In addition, if you're someone that likes to zoom
in out of your shots often and have your zoom, be very smooth.
By flipping this switch to tight,
you can get a very smooth zoom transition with much more control
than you can get with other lenses that do not have this feature.
Unfortunately, though, in my testing,
this does not look to be a Pas focal lens, meaning that if you set your lens
to manual focus and focus on your subject, then zoom in on them.
The shot will not be in focus once you are fully zoomed in
and you will have to adjust your focus to regain focus on your subject.
Thankfully, though, this only applies to manual focus and if you have autofocus
turned on, the lens will keep the subject in focus throughout the zoom.
Speaking of autofocus, the autofocus is very fast and accurate
with Sony's newest motors in this lens, and it is great.
And whenever I film with this lens wide open and an F 2.8,
it was incredibly sharp as I would expect any new zoom lens to be.
It was quite crispy.
Lin Speck's out of the way.
In summary, this lens packs a ton of great features and all of Sony's
newest technology that you would expect from a GM lens, which is great.
Wrapping up this review, then let's talk about the competition price
and whether I think it's a good choice for you as a wedding filmmaker.
Sony has told me that this new 24 to 70
GM mark two is going to cost anywhere from 2200 to 2500 bucks.
And as I already said earlier, this is the lightest
and smallest 24 to 70 lens that you can buy today.
And whenever you compare it to the pricing of similar spec lenses, Sony has priced
this lens in line with the other options available from Canon and Nikon.
So I think that's great.
But do I love this lens as a self-proclaimed
24 to 70 millimeter hater that has typically avoided
using a zoom lens like this in favor of separate prime lenses.
For about a decade now.
I have to say that Sony has done a lot right
with this lens and them minimizing the size and weight,
which as a result has a big effect on how this lens feels on a camera.
This has gone a long ways toward convincing me
that I should consider using a zoom lens like this in the future.
So should you buy it?
I have to say that this 24 to 70 focal range is very versatile,
and if you're someone that films weddings or other documentaries and events solo
where you do not have the luxury of time to change lenses
and you need to film very quickly,
or if you're someone that does not like to have to carry around of multiple lenses
and once a good all in one solution that you can throw on
to a gimbal and get wide shots and then zoom it in for tight shots
all while still on the gimbal,
which is definitely possible due to the lightness and smaller size of this lens.
I think that this new Sony 24 to 70 is a great choice
and honestly the best 24 to 70 you can buy today.
The main thing that you're going to need to
consider is if you want this best of the best lens
or if you want to make some compromises to save money.
For comparison, the sigma 24 to 70
F 2.8 is about half the price at 1100 dollars, but it weighs
significantly more than the Sony at 835 grams while also being larger overall
or you have the Tamron 28 to 75 F 2.8 which I know
people are going to ask me to talk about so I have to mention it here.
That lens is cheaper at 900 bucks and lighter at 540 grams,
but you're losing for a millimeter on the lighter end,
which is a pretty significant compromise if you want those wide
pretty gimbal shots.
So the choice of what you buy is going to be up to you.
But as I said, I think this new Sony 24 to 70
is the best 24 to 70 you can buy today and it is definitely light years
ahead of that old canon EF 24 to 70 that I first used with that.
Thank you so much for watching this review of the new Sony 20 42 70 mark two lens.
Also if you're a wedding filmmaker that uses YouTube like me
considering that you're watching me on YouTube
right now, I would love to help you out even more
so I've created a free guide called YouTube Tips for Wedding Filmmakers.
This guy is going to walk you through some of the biggest techniques that I use
to get more views, subscribers and bookings for my business through YouTube.
And you can download this guide completely for free at the link down below.
Thanks so much for watching and have a great day