The Sony 24-70mm F2.8 G Master was one of the earliest G Master lenses that I reviewed (in the summer of 2018), as I was fairly new to the Sony space. While I found a lot of positives with the lens, I also though it twas too large and somewhat overhyped by the marketing materials. Sony must have thought it too large as well, as they have now released the MK II version of the lens – the Sony 24-70mm F2.8 GM II – and one of the first things they are emphasizing is the reduced size. According to Sony, the new 24-70 II (as we’ll call it for brevity in this review) is 191g lighter, 16mm shorter, and the overall volume has the lens has been reduced by 18%. This is just the beginning of the improvements, though, as this Mark II lens has improved features, autofocus, and image quality performance. The G Master series is supposed to be the best, and Sony has worked to accomplish that here.
Viltrox AF 75mm F1.2 in-depth review
It was inevitable. Viltrox has proven to be an aggressive new player on the lens market that isn’t afraid to take some risks, and they have been steadily stepping up their game in terms of build and autofocus. They started with the safe, traditional focal lengths, (roughly the equivalent of 24mm, 35mm, 50mm, and 85mm on full frame), but more recently have taken on a wider angle of view in the Viltrox AF 13mm F1.4 STM, a lens I considered perhaps their best yet in my review.
But now they are pushing the boundaries into more extreme (and premium) territory with the release of their newest lens: the Viltrox AF 75mm F1.2 STM. This is an APS-C lens, so the crop factor of the camera it is mounted on will affect its apparent aperture. The Viltrox Pro 75mm is first being released on Fujifilm’s XF mount, which has a crop factor of roughly 1.5x (just a bit more, actually), which will make it behave something like 115mm on a full frame camera – a very, very intriguing focal length for portrait work, particularly with that extremely wide maximum aperture.
How to get started with macro photography on the cheap using extension tubes
If you’ve always thought about dabbling in macro (and let’s face it, that’s most of us) but really can’t justify going out and spending a fortune on the usual (expensive) popular macro lenses out there like the Canon 100mm f/2.8 or Nikon 105mm f/2.8, then you’re just plain out of luck, right? Well, no. Of course, there are other third-party macro lens options out there with varying levels of ability but there are also extension tubes.
Extension tubes sit between the camera and the lenses you already own in order to turn just about any lens into a macro lens. And in this video, Dustin Abbott walks us through how we can use extension tubes to shoot macro as well as the pros and cons of using them rather than a “real” macro lens.
MTF charts – What are they? How do you read them? And why should we care?
Whenever a new lens is released, we almost always see those infamous MTF charts posted along with the product images. But what exactly are MTF charts? What are they? Why are they a thing? How do you read them? And why should you care?
In this video, photographer Dustin Abbot goes into a deep dive on MTF charges to explain exactly what they are and how they’re of benefit to photographers. While he does go quite detailed into the charts, it’s an easy to understand analysis of what they are.
Should you upgrade to the Sony A7R IV? If you have to ask the question, probably not
Sony’s recent Sony A7R IV announcement was pretty surprising, especially when most people have been expecting an A7S III announcement for far too long already. But the announcement came nonetheless. The 42.4-megapixels of the 2-year-old A7R III had been upgraded to 61-megapixels, improved autofocus, bigger buffer, dual UHS-II slots, and a bunch more. But is it really worth upgrading?
This 20-minute video from photographer Dustin Abbott provides a detailed overview comparing the Sony A7R IV with its predecessor, the A7R III. He takes a look at what’s changed, what’s stayed the same, and provides a lot of valuable insight for those considering upgrading or purchasing either of these bodies.
This is how the $800 Tamron 28-75mm lens stands up against the $2200 Sony 24-70mm G-Master
When it comes to the 24-70mm-ish range, there aren’t that many options for Sony. There’s the $2,200 Sony 24-70mm f/2.8 G-Master, of course. Or you could get the $1,300 Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 Art lens for Canon and use the $180 MC-11 adapter. But wouldn’t life be better if you could do it for $800 with a native E-Mount lens? Something like the Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 RXD?
To find out if it’s worth paying almost three times as much money for the Sony, photographer Dustin Abbott compares the two in these videos on the Sony A7RIII. The first of the two videos deals with the more technical side of each lens’s resolution. And some of the results are quite surprising.
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