Sony FE 70-200mm f/4 G OSS Review

Name: Sony FE 70-200mm f/4 G OSS
Brand: sony

August 18, 2015 | Mark Goldstein |

Introduction

The Sony FE 70-200mm f/4 G OSS is a telephoto zoom lens for the Sony full-frame E-mount compact system cameras. It features 21 elements in 15 groups including Super ED and Advanced aspherical elements, offers built-in Optical SteadyShot image stabilization, and has a near-circular 9 blade diaphragm which creates an attractive blur to the out-of-focus areas of the image. The Dual Linear Motor Autofocus System achieves quick and precise focus, the Super Nano AR coating limits glare and flaring, and it's also dust and moisture resistant. The Sony FE 70-200mm f/4 G OSS lens is available for £1199 / $1399 in the UK and the US, respectively.

This lens was supplied for review by our friends at Hireacamera - they're definitely worth checking out if you want to hire or rent camera kit in the UK.

Ease of Use

Weighing in at 840g, the aluminium alloy bodied Sony FE 70-200mm f/4 G OSS is pretty heavy for a compact system camera lens, but lighter and smaller most full-frame 70-200mm lenses for DSLR camera. It is rather large for a body like the Sony A7R II body that we tested it with, as shown in the photos below - fitting a vertical battery grip would definitely help with the overall balance.

The Sony FE 70-200mm f/4 G OSS lens mounted on a Sony A7R II

The Sony FE 70-200mm f/4 G OSS lens alongside a Sony A7R II

Build quality is excellent, something of a relief given the price-tag. The Sony FE 70-200mm f/4 G OSS has a sealed dust and moisture resistant design which makes it well-suited to life in both the field and the studio.

The Sony FE 70-200mm f/4 G OSS lens has a metal lens mount. It accepts 72mm filters via metal threads.

Side of the Sony FE 70-200mm f/4 G OSS lens

The Sony FE 70-200mm f/4 G OSS has a round Focus Hold Button which keeps the lens locked to the current focusing distance, useful if you're auto-focusing and don't want the lens to try and find focus again. The preview function can also be assigned to this button through the camera's custom settings.

Front of the Sony FE 70-200mm f/4 G OSS lens

Rear of the Sony FE 70-200mm f/4 G OSS lens

The Focus Range Limiter switch prevents the lens from hunting through the entire focusing range. There are two options - Full or Infinity to 0.3m.

The Mode switch toggles between Normal shooting (Mode 1) and Panning (Mode 2), which automatically adjusts the lens to account for horizontal movement whilst shooting.

Side of the Sony FE 70-200mm f/4 G OSS lens

The Sony FE 70-200mm f/4 G OSS has a generously wide and ridged focus ring. Manual focusing is possible by using the AF/MF switch. The lens utilizes dual linear motors to produce quiet and smooth focusing, making it well-suited to shooting video, with the overall lens length remaining constant during focusing.

The Sony FE 70-200mm f/4 G OSS lens in-hand

The Sony FE 70-200mm f/4 G OSS features optical image stabilisation, which together with the A7R II's own built-in stabilisation mean that we could successfully hand-hold the camera up to 4-4.5 stops slower than with a lens with no OIS.

The Sony FE 70-200mm f/4 G OSS lens with the supplied tripod collar fitted

The Sony FE 70-200mm f/4 G OSS lens with the supplied lens hood fitted

The Sony FE 70-200mm f/4 G OSS lens is commendably supplied with a soft case, a very good quality round metal lens hood and a removable tripod collar.

Focal Range

At the 70mm focal length the angle of view is 34 degrees.

Sony FE 70-200mm f/4 G OSS Field of view at 70mm

At the 200mm focal length the angle of view is 12 degrees.

Sony FE 70-200mm f/4 G OSS Field of view at 200mm

Focusing

The Sony FE 70-200mm f/4 G OSS lens has quite a wide focus ring. There are no hard stops at either end of the range, making it a little more difficult to set focus at infinity. Polariser users should be pleased that the 72mm filter thread doesn't rotate on focus.

When it comes to auto-focusing, the Sony FE 70-200mm f/4 G OSS zoom is a quiet and quick performer on the Sony A7R II that we tested it with, taking about 0.15 seconds to lock onto the subject.

We didn't experience much "hunting", either in good or bad light, with the lens accurately focusing almost all of the time, and it's also a quiet performer thanks to the linear motor driven internal focusing, making it ideal for movie shooting.

Chromatic Aberrations

Chromatic aberrations, typically seen as blue or purple fringes along contrasty edges, were not very apparent in our test shots, only appearing in very high contrast areas.

Light Fall-off and Distortion

With the lens set to its maximum aperture of f/4, there is some light fall-off in the corners, requiring you to stop down by at least 1 f-stop to prevent it.

There's some slight barrel distortion evident at 70mm in the RAW files - the Sony A7/A7R II automatically and successfully apply corrections to the JPG files.

Sony FE 70-200mm f/4 G OSS Vignetting/distortion at 70mm

Sony FE 70-200mm f/4 G OSS Vignetting/distortion at 200mm

Macro

The Sony FE 70-200mm f/4 G OSS offers a minimum focusing distance of 1m with a maximum magnification of 0.13x. The following example demonstrates how close you can get to your subject at 200mm, in this case a Compact Flash memory card.

Sony FE 70-200mm f/4 G OSS Close-up performance

Bokeh

Bokeh is a word used for the out-of-focus areas of a photograph, and is usually described in qualitative terms, such as smooth / creamy / harsh etc. In the Sony FE 70-200mm f/4 G OSS lens, Sony employed an iris diaphragm with nine rounded blades, which has resulted in very appealing bokeh. We do realise, however, that bokeh evaluation is subjective, so we've included several 100% crops for your perusal.