Konnichiwa PetaPixel viewers, it is Chris Niccolls here coming to you from beautiful metropolitan Tokyo, and we're here to play with a very interesting lens. I'm very excited about this. Look at this, a Sony G Master, 20 to 70 F2 zoom.

Cue the obnoxious and jarring cut from beautiful Tokyo to freezing cold Calgary. I just wanted to take a moment to talk to you guys about getting a membership at PetaPixel.com. It's only $3 a month or $30 for the year, and this gets you some really nice benefits.

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Now let's go back to the video, back to Tokyo, Japan for a glorious nighttime montage. Now, before we head into beautiful Ueno Park, full disclosure, Sony did not fly us out here to Tokyo, actually. We're here for a separate event, but why not kill two birds with one stone?

So we happen to be here in Tokyo, decided to bring this lens because I think it's perfect for just walking the streets of Tokyo. Let's head to the park and see what we can find. Now, you may know me from such illustrious YouTube shows as TCSTV,

DPReview TV and now PetaPixel. And if you've been watching those shows, you might know that one of my favorite lenses of all time is the Canon RF 28-70mm f/2.0. I love the fact that it's optically fantastic, very sharp, 

and basically gives you a whole bunch of f/2 primes in a zoom. But as much as I love that Canon lens, it's a lot to carry. I mean, it's over 1,400 grams, basically 3/4 of a Noct.

It's a pain. And so I was wondering, you know, is this gonna be the same? Well, the first thing I noticed is that this is substantially lighter, okay? This is 918 grams, under half a Noct, and you really do notice that, because as bulky as it is, 

it really doesn't balance awkwardly on this camera and it's not heavy to carry around. So it doesn't weigh a ton, but if you want f/2 aperture all the way through a zoom, it's gonna be big. And so we do have 86 millimeter

filter threads here on this lens, and that's unfortunate, because it's gonna be expensive to find those. It's gonna be difficult to find those, but at least we can put filters on the front here. I love push-button style hoods, and this has got a really nice locking mechanism with a push button.

We also have the door here if we want to be able to adjust said expensive polarizing filters. Oh, we've got customized buttons on here, really nice smooth manual focus ring. The zoom is interesting because this is one of the first Sony lenses to now have a smooth or tight option here.

I can click this switch and have a stiffer zoom here, that is nice if you don't want to creep out on you while you're walking around, but I do prefer just a nice smooth ring. Aperture ring as well, I can lock that up too.

It's a really well-appointed lens and the aperture does have the option to turn the click on or off. And of course, though this being a G Master lens, you know, it's gonna be solidly built, very rugged, and it does have four XD linear motors.

That's a good thing because you got a big chunk of glass here to move quickly, and it does, as you can see with our auto focusing test, very quick from near to far. So, of course, I want to talk about bokeh because this is the kind of lens that's gonna

deliver shallow depth of field all the time with that up to aperture. So shooting wide open here, first off, let's take a look at specular highlights, nice and clean, very little soap bubble effect. You know, we're shooting focus transitions, that looks very smooth, and

I like the softness of the backgrounds that we're getting here. And what about stop down a little bit? Well, then you can see that the specular highlights stay nice and round. We're not getting that polygonal aspect at all, so this lens is doing a beautiful job.

Now, what about LoCA? You know, a fast lens like this, you'll often get longitudinal chromatic aberrations. I'm not wearing the shirt, so that's where you get the color fringing the foreground and background out of focus areas.

and it's a hard thing to get rid of in post, so it's a real pain, so you don't want it. Well, you can see here pretty classic Sony lo-ca, just a little bit of that green color in the background out of focus and that sort of orange magenta in the foreground.

It's not terrible, but you will notice it when you're shooting wide open. Okay, so this scene might be quite different from Shinoazano ponds that we were just at, the tranquility and peacefulness of that. It's probably a little bit noisier here, so I hope you guys can hear me all right. But Itino Bazano was interesting.

We had all those beautiful lotus plants, water droplets all over them, so it gave me a good opportunity to test the close up capabilities on this 28 to 70. It's actually quite versatile, so at 70 millimeters, you're

getting basically one to four life size reproduction. I mean, that's pretty respectable for just a general purpose zoom. This is the face that Jordan makes on the inside when he has got a lot of work to do. Well, specifically when, like, embargo is tomorrow. And it and he has to edit it now.

Yeah, yeah, and then that's and on the outside, he's just So, we just had a quick boo there into Tokyo Camera and Nakabara, and their junk camera area actually has a perfect spotlight for us to do a flare test because, you know, it's been a very cloudy trip here.

So, looking at the results here wide open, actually nice and clean, slight loss of contrast, but very good, considering the light is blasting right in the lens. And even stopped down, we're not really getting a ghosting. Contrast is still well maintained, so good coding is on this lens.

Okay, let's talk about sharpness, because this is gonna be a pretty easy talk. So, let's take a look at our test charts here shooting 28 millimeters at F2 in the center. Fantastic detail, really good contrast, honestly, when you go down to F4, 

don't really notice much improvement at all, so this is very sharp, wide open. Looking at the corners, you will see a little bit of softness there in the extreme corners. Stopping down the lens does help with contrast a little bit.

Now we go to 70 millimeters, it's basically the exact same story. Again, ideal detail wide open at F2, stopping down to F4. I really don't notice any improvement, and those corners again, just a touch soft, wide open at F2.

a little bit better at F4. The corners never quite get super sharp, but they're good, and I think that's largely just because this lens does have a lot of distortion being corrected for. With that all being said, though, I think this is a very sharp lens, even to

the corners, it's really decent performance. Compared to the Canon 28 to 70 F2, for example, basically the same detail in the center, but I would say this Sony does have sharper corners. So, you know, this particular lens might turn out to be the unicorn

of lenses because it just does everything. We're getting great general purpose range, F2 aperture, it's very sharp, but there is one thing I want to test because if this is truly going to be the unicorn of lenses, it's gonna also have to be good for videography,

and that means we're gonna test lens breathing. So here we're looking at our examples, you can see, first off, actually at 70 millimeters, very well controlled, minimal breathing as we focus from near to far. And again, this is where you're

gonna see that field of view changes as you're pulling focus. We're not getting much here. When we go to 28 millimeters, we do get a little bit more lens breathing. You can see that field of view changing now, but again, it's very

well controlled and compared to something like the Canon 28 to 70, a way better result. I've had a really good time with this lens and it's been a pretty glowing review. I haven't really found a lot to complain about with this and I do

really like this kind of set up, a really fast, general purpose lens, but there are a few issues that I absolutely want to point out. So first off, yeah, it's not as heavy as I expected, but it is still physically quite large.

That being said, we have to consider that a lens like this is sharp at F2 throughout the range, so this can absolutely replace having a 28, a 35, a 50, and a 70 millimeter prime lens very effectively.

The other thing I want to point out is much like this beautiful golden statue, you're gonna need a lot of gold to buy this lens. It's pretty expensive. That's par for the course of the lens, it's gonna have a wide aperture like

this, but it does cost a pretty penny. Some of the things you want to point out, there is no image stabilization in this lens. You're absolutely gonna wanna pair it with bodies that have capable IBIS. And then the other obvious glaring thing here is you're not getting that

24 millimeter wide angle that we normally associate with general purpose zooms. And, you know, the difference between 28 and 24 millimeters is not huge, but visually it is substantial, and there's been plenty of times on the streets of Tokyo.

I wish I had just a little bit more range, a little bit more wide angle to get coverage. But I do absolutely love 28 millimeter as a focal length. I can make it work in most situations. And so for me, I really love this lens.

But the natural comparison is going to be to something like the 24 to 70 2.8 G Master version two. That lens is absolutely fantastic, optically, even wide open. It is much lighter and much smaller than this particular lens to carry around.

It's not actually that much less expensive, though. You know what, this is a unique lens, and it's not a lens for everybody. I happen to really love this focal range. I loved it on the Canon RF. I mean, I still do.

That's my favorite Canon lens, but I like this even more and it looks like Sony's just pulled out all the stops when it comes to optical performance here, given the huge range and the fast aperture. And so hopefully this video helps you guys decide if a

A strange lens like this is best for you, and I hope you guys, regardless, had a fun time joining us walking the streets of Tokyo here. If you have any comments, leave them below. If you have any questions, we'd love to answer them. 

Otherwise, though, do check out the PetaPixel podcast. It's on this exact same channel, or you can listen to it on all your favorite podcasting apps. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you soon with more PetaPixel.

Is This the Best Zoom Lens EVER MADE? | Sony 28-70mm f/2 GM Review

Welcome to PetaPixel, the home of Chris Niccolls and Jordan Drake! We make videos about photography, cameras, technology, and everything in between. 