A superzoom can be a fantastic way to cover all your bases without having to carry around an entire bag of lenses with you. If you are looking for such a convenient lens for your own work, check out this great review of the Sony FE 24-240mm f/3.5-6.3 OSS.
Coming to you from Christopher Frost Photography, this fantastic video review takes a look at the Sony FE 24-240mm f/3.5-6.3 OSS lens. The thing to remember with superzoom lenses is that you will never approach the kind of performance you would see in a top-level professional zoom or prime lens, but with a good superzoom, you can still get decent images, and the convenience is simply unmatched, especially for things like traveling. Sony's version comes with a variety of features, including:
- One extra-low dispersion element for reduced aberrations
- Five aspherical elements for reduced distortions and increased sharpness
- Optical SteadyShot image stabilization
- Linear autofocus motor with quiet performance for both video and stills work
- Dust- and moisture-sealing
- Rounded seven-blade diaphragm for smoother bokeh
Altogether, the 24-240mm f/3.5-6.3 offers good image quality in an extremely versatile package. Check out the video above for Frost's full thoughts.
This was one of the first 2 lenses I picked up when I bought an a7rii in 2015 (the other was the 16-35 f/4). I’ve got 9 lenses now and this is definitely the one I use the least. As in, not at all.
The review pretty much echoes my experience with it. Image quality is decent at the wider end of the range, especially when stopped down, but it falls apart as you zoom.
A couple of quirks the review didn’t mention:
The manual focus ring is really awkward to use because it’s behind the zoom ring, which throws the balance way off. You can’t hold the end of the lens while you focus, especially when the barrel is extended to the longer focal lengths. Most of Sony’s other lenses have the focus ring on the outside of the zoom ring, which makes much more sense.
Speaking of focus, this lens doesn’t seem to focus all the way to infinity (at least my copy doesn’t) when using the ring at longer focal lengths, but seems to work ok on auto as long as it actually attempts to focus at infinity (but it can be inconsistent).
I dislike variable aperture lenses in general because they make shooting in manual a pain. I don’t want my exposure to change just because I zoom in or out. Not a big issue if you mostly shoot auto modes.
I just don’t really see the point in using a lens like this on a full frame camera. It’s got too many compromises to be any use to someone who’s looking to do anything other than shoot a kid’s birthday party on a cloudless, sunny day, and for that purpose there are plenty of superzoom type cameras in the budget space that buying a full frame camera is a waste.
Basically it’s an average lens if you shoot auto-everything. If you want any control at all you’re probably going to be frustrated with it.
But it does come with a lens hood (reviewer said he didn’t think it did). So there’s that.
Completely agree, probably worst zoom for Sony e-mount. On other hand Tamron 28-200 is an excellent superzoom for SONY e-mount.
I recently bought the Sony a7R IV. I impulsively picked this lens with the camera before any research. I decided on this camera for detail, and it turns out this lens was basically the worst choice I could have made. Turns out testing reviews gave it horrific results. I returned it quickly. I decided on the Sony FE 24-105mm f4 for general purpose needs. Since the camera is packed with pixels, I can get a bit more reach using the APS-C function and still have decent resolution.