The most important lens Sony has made

I bought the Sony 70-200mm F:4 macro lens and I'm in love. It is wonderfully sharp, well made and light. This lens also allows me to reduce the number of lenses I carry. The 70-200mm F:4 becomes a very sharp 280mm lens with the addition of a 1.4x extender or a 400mm sharp lens with the 2x extender. Add a 14mm to 24mm Sigma F:2.8 DG DN and I've pretty well covered the focal lengths I need for my photography. All carried as a fairly light package in a smaller Lowepro over the shoulder camera bag.

Excellent to see for Sony. I love the size and f4 will do fantastic in most shooting situations (especially for landscape shooters!). The smaller and lighter lens will be carried rather than left at home when hiking. Nice. I shoot Nikon and hopefully we will see a 70-200 f4 at some point. Thanks for doing what you do!

I'm a recent convert to Sony (A7lv + 50 1.4 GM from Leica M8 M9 M10 m10-R M11 + 50 Summilux asph) and I'm very happy. IQ is fantastic, auto focus is a revelation and shooting one handed arms loaded up with shopping bags is a boon!

I tried that lens in the store, supersharp corner to corner, the only lack is low light performance for indoor sports. All lens hve a trade, this is regularly high weight and high price for luminosity, this is anew breed of lens for its macro performance! One of a kind. Innovative.

Great review! I was comparing this vs 2.8. I will order this. Thanks!

This could be an incredibly useful tool for someone building a kit and being able to hit two birds with one stone. If I was a wedding/portrait photographer who already had an 85 but knew I needed a macro as well as something longer than 85 for some weddings, this lens would be an obvious choice. Do both of those things, and then decide later if you want to upgrade to a 2.8 zoom or a dedicated macro.

I received mine in August. I love it. It's such a nice size I leave it on the camera most of the time, and images are superior.

that looks like an amazing hiking and travel lens.

That's a great review. I actually own the original 70-200 f4 and would never trade it for anything. Looking forward to getting my hands on this gem 💎

Thank you for the video. Finally decided to buy this lens and found a mint used copy for $1399 or a savings of $400 which I hope is a reasonable savings. I do already have the f/2.8 GM II version (also owned the version 1 of the f/2.8). I also used to own the original f/4 when I first bought into Sony more than 10 years ago. My current plan is to use this with my compact A7CR and A7CR and maybe for MACRO even though I only have a 1.4X teleconverter at the moment. Also some experienced Landscape photographers have convinced me that f/4 is fine for landscape and f/2.8 is not needed. I’ve mostly been an event, portrait, and sports photographer most of my life so my trinity zooms have always been as fast as I can get. Really like the approach you take to lens reviews. Take care and wish me luck.

The result on sunsets and on the details of a coin is impressive. Thanks for the presentation

Thanks Ted. Loved your video. 🎉

Grabbed one Friday so far I’m happy I’m mainly going to be using it for automotive work

What a beauty!

Really appreciate your analysis especially the argument regarding the quality compared to the 2.8 GM. and how innovative this new design is. You’ve sold me on this lens instead of the 2.8 gm Ii for the size and quality.

Canon shooter here, and when first hearing about this lens I was like, "whatever... Sony hype train blah blah... the Canon version is even smaller and lighter!" I DID NOT know about the macro capability... Very nice!

With that teleconverter it's like a 70-200 + 100-300/400 for less $! Amazing deal really.

Thank you

Looks very nice

This reminded me of the Vario-Sonnar 80-200mm f/4 in Contax/Yashica Mount, which had always been praised for its close focus ability. So I checked, and found out that it focused down to 1m throughout the zoom range -- not bad at all. THIS new lens, though, focuses down to 0.089m （！）, which is insane!