Sony 70-400 G SSM II

I’m in love with the image quality that the A99 gives me in the studio, on the street and…. well about always.
But how does it perform with sports?
During my first test with sports I was less then impressed with the A99, but found out that this was a know problem and 100% the fault of an error on my side, I left the E-shutter active which results in bad images with high shutter speeds, so when I got the chance to go out this weekend for a little less than an hour to shoot some Motocross I was determined to not make that mistake again. Sony send the their newest 70-400 G SSM II lens to test so I was also curious how this lens would perform.

Let me start by saying that I don’t really like these kind of lenses, now don’t get me wrong they can be great but I always want something faster, on the Canon I used the Sigma 120-300 f2.8 for which I would kill on the Sony mount (please Sigma), the main disadvantage from the 70-400 (kind of lenses) is the maximum apertures which, also with this lens, is F4 – F5.6 which for sports is not ideal if you want ultimate speed, but hey we have to work with it, so let’s go.

The first thing you will notice from the lens is it’s weight, this is a very well build lens, it’s heavy, but not too heavy, it’s white (even the sun hood) and it just feels all very solid and smooth. The lens looks great on the A99 but that’s another story.

So how does it perform….

Let me start with saying that the A99 is a beast of a camera, during this shoot the conditions were not ideal, rather annoying backlight meaning the drivers were very dark if you wanted to keep some detail in the sky from most angles, but with the A99 I’m now accustomed to just shoot and fix it in Lightroom, just pull down the highlights, add the shadows and voila everything is back, the dynamic range of the A99 is (still after all this time) stunning and something that I enjoy a lot.

Test 1 : hello here we are
I already know the Sony is a great performer for tracking subjects, just set the focus on spot or wide (whatever rocks your boat) and engage the object tracking and there you go, especially with the lenses supporting the new focus system in the A99 it’s like stealing candy from a baby. But how QUICK will it jump into focus, that’s another story, it’s great that you can track, but how fast will something be in focus is of course just as important, so for the first test I decided to stand just behind a large jump, meaning I would see the riders come up from the side but there was no way I could track the riders, meaning if they appeared in the frame I had to shoot right away, no time to wait…. I never thought this would be this good, from this setup I got well over 90% keepers, meaning images that are within 100-90% optimum sharp, very impressive… I did a similar setup with the 5DMKIII and the Canon 70-200 f2.8 a while ago and scored not higher than maybe 75-80% keepers. And that is already not a bad combination.

Some examples from this location:

After this setup I just started with some panning shots to see how object tracking would keep up here, although the tracking went fine, this is something I would LOVE to see Sony improve the follow up to the A99, the spread of the AF sensor is too small. If something comes straight at you it’s no problem at all, but as soon as you have something jumping past you the spread of the AF sensor is just too small, still I managed to nail most shots with easy for the simple reason the camera is really responsive and I know a little bit how to time these shots 😀

Conclusion
I was skeptical about this lens, I really wanted the Sigma 120-300 f2.8 for my A99, but decided to buy the 70-400 G SSM version 1 if I could get one cheap enough just to use occasionally if I needed the extra reach, this opinion has changed for a full swing to… I really want this lens for my own use and I’m gonna buy the V2 without any doubt in my mind. The AF is incredibly fast, the images I got were pin sharp even wide open, I did not see any chromatic aberrations on the shots although they were the classic shots to have them.

Now for some people sports is the domain for Canon and Nikon…. well I agree to a certain point.
Sony doesn’t have a lot of support at this moment, if you break something you can borrow a Canon or Nikon part without any problem, forgot a lens? there is always someone who has it with him during an event, Canon and Nikon have some great lenses suited for sports that are “affordable” and for the “hobbyist” there is the amazing Sigma 120-300 f2.8 which in my opinion was a game changer for my work. So if you’re a pro well ok Canon and Nikon are great.

However if you are like me not shooting sports as my main activity I have to be honest that the Sony really surprised me, the WYSIWYG display is great to see the backlight situations, the EVF was fast enough for me (again I got over 90% keepers from this session), the frame rate is more than adequate, I never ran into a buffer problem (Sandisk extreme 32GB) plus the AF just simply rocks. If Sony would add more coverage to the AF sensor I think most “Nay-sayers” will have little argument to claim that Sony is not a great sports cam. And let’s be honest in the end the difference in dynamic range makes more than up for this in my opinion. The 70-400 lens might nog be regarded as a sports lens due to it’s slower aperture but it’s pin sharp wide open, the images shot on high ISO (6400) were very good noise wise so I really don’t see a reason why someone that has sports as a hobby or is starting out in sports and doesn’t need the f2.8 to throw the background out of focus wouldn’t be more than happy with the 70-400. Now if you’re shooting in the Zoo, Safari etc. you will have a BLAST with this lens.

I really HIGHLY RECOMMEND it.
It Rocks!!!

The complete album from the Motocross test.
Click on one to open the album.