Sony FE 70-200 mm f/4 Macro G OSS II review - Summary

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Sony FE 70-200 mm f/4 Macro G OSS II

17 July 2023

Maciej Latałło

11. Summary

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Pros:

solid, shapely, lightweight body, which is also weather-sealed,
excellent image quality in the frame centre,
good image quality on the edge of the APS-C sensor,
sensible image quality on the edge of full frame,
low longitudinal chromatic aberration,
negligible lateral chromatic aberration at 135-200 mm focal lengths,
slight vignetting for the APS-C/DX sensor,
very good coma correction,
low astigmatism,
silent, flash-quick, accurate autofocus,
very efficient image stabilization unit.

Cons:

weak performance against bright light,
noticeable vignetting on full frame,
a bit too high distortion,
noticeable lateral chromatic aberration at the shortest focal length,
high price.

When, during the presentation of the new lens, I found out that it would feature as many as 19 elements, two more than its faster brother that in our tests fared exceedingly well, I admit my expectations were very high. On the other hand, though, I also noticed the fact that the producers tried very hard to ensure low weight and small physical dimensions. Such a trend always leads to compromises and it would be difficult to overlook them here – giving up on distortion correction, some problems with lateral chromatic aberration at the shortest focal lengths, and finally slip-ups when it comes to the performance against bright light.

Fortunately, the Sony FE 70-200 mm f/4 G OSS II also has a lot of assets. Images are very sharp, not giving you any reasons to complain, the autofocus unit is very accurate and fast, image stabilization is very efficient. All these features are closed in a relatively light, solid, weather-sealed barrel.

The suggested EU price of the new Sony lens amounts to 2000 Euro. Taking into account the fact that the smaller, and lighter Canon RF 70-200 mm f/4 IS USM can be bought for less than 1750 Euro I personally think that Sony went over the top with their pricing.