The GetDPI Photography Forum

Great to see you here. Join our insightful photographic forum today and start tapping into a huge wealth of photographic knowledge. Completing our simple registration process will allow you to gain access to exclusive content, add your own topics and posts, share your work and connect with other members through your own private inbox! And don’t forget to say hi!

Sony 70-400 G

Eoin

Member
It arrived earlier in the week but I haven't had a chance to even take it out for a spin except for this mornings walk to the park to feed the ducks.
Here is my first impression, sure to change when I fully understand the lens.

Overall the colour isn't so bad, silver or white it'd still stand out.

The hood is very flimsy and a good tap and I'd say it's gone missing or even cracked.

Zoom ring is quite tight, causing slight rotation of the lens in it's mount.
No zoom creep.

Front extends with zooming, good and solid, no movement in the barrel.

Overall seems center is very sharp wide open @400mm with slight distortion towards the corners.

70mm suffers a little from purple fringing in high contrast areas 400mm seems better controlled.

Very alarming bokeh in the viewfinder, must have been the focus screen causing the diamond patterns because when viewed on screen it was smooth.

Focus seems zippy enough, however miss the target and the lens will continue to infinity and back again which can take a little time. Good thing there is a focus range limiter switch.

Sample images below through Aperture no adjustment except resize for web @900x900, crops and sRGB output.
 

Eoin

Member
same scene zoomed to 400 @ f:5.6 shows a little distortion in the edges. I wouldn't worry about the bricklaying, obviously he had a bad day!.
 

Dale Allyn

New member
I agree, it looks nice in these samples.

The brick wall shot looks almost like 'mustache distortion', but one would want to know how bad of day the mason had before calling it that. ;)
 

Eoin

Member
I remember looking at the brickwork thinking it was a pretty poor job, perhaps my eyes are suffering from this mustache distortion also.

Here's a crop of the area from the 70mm setting
 
Top