What it's Like Using the Brand New Sony 70-200mm F2.8 GM OSS II
After pre-ordering the newly updated Sony 70-200 F2.8 GM in mid December I was left waiting until mid February to actually have the lens in my hands.
My first professional lens was the Canon 70-200 F4L. This is a focal range that I believe is one of the most widely useful in professional photography.
I may go into greater depth about the technical improvements in this second version of the lens at a later date, but for now I just want to focus on my experience using the Sony 70-200mm F2.8 GM OSS II on my Sony A7III for the first time.
For my first shooting session with the lens I went to a local park and beach where dogs of all sizes and breeds frolic freely. I felt this would be a great opportunity to test out the autofocus speed and performance.
As soon as I got the lens on the camera, set my shooting mode to 10fps burst, and autofocus to continuous tracking I was blown away at how quick the lens was. If my focus point was on the subject it was going to be in focus nearly every time. The only issues I was having were with initially grabbing on when switching from extreme distance to closer subjects. This was quickly remedied however when I remembered to dive into the menus and switch the eye AF to target animals instead of people. Why this is a setting you have to change manually I will never know, but once on this setting mad a huge difference.
I don’t think there is a lot to say about the experience of shooting with this lens before a potential full review. It’s sharp, fast, lightweight, and feels comfortably rugged.
On this occasion I shot almost entirely dogs playing on the beach. The light was fairly pleasant being later in the day in winter, and I felt that most of the images barely needed any work to get to a great place. The colors and bokeh produced by this lens are exceptionally pleasing.
Two of my favorite images from the day were down by the water, the way the light fell on the water, catching droplets suspended in the air in this first shot, and the natural glow of the wet moss really makes these two images stand out to me. The ability to get this fantastic depth of field and subject isolation while standing far enough away to be safe from getting wet is one of the huge selling points of telephoto lenses like this one.
Recently I have been getting more and more into street photography. Trying to capture truly candid moments out in the world. Personally, as someone with social anxiety, taking the traditional route of getting knee deep in the action with a 35mm lens is definitely not my style. The 70-200mm is perfect for trying to get the subject isolation and candidness of real moments without having to be too close.
This image in particular I enjoy because it tells a story. You have a dog breed that often is discriminated against because of a bad reputation of being violent. This dog looks so happy, without a care in the world, despite the owner seemingly holding them back. In reality he was just fixing the dogs collar, but the story that an individual imagines when they see an image is all that counts in photography. Reality takes backseat to the perception of the image.
Take a look through the rest of the images of this shoot and let me know your thoughts. Do you think images like this are worth the $2,799.99 investment?
