Story of how I justified financial irresponsibility in the name of pixels.
What's a GMaster
For the uninitiated, G Master (GM) is Sony’s top-of-the-line family of pro-grade lenses. If you ever spot a Sony camera with a "G" logo encased in a red rectangle on its lens, you'll know that
- It's a SHARP lens
- That is technically very advanced and very well built
- And the person behind the camera has spent ungodly amounts of money on a camera lens with diminishing returns.
In particular, this is a 24mm to 70mm constant f/2.8 zoom lens.
FE 24–70 mm F2.8 GM II
How did we get here
I like photos that looks sharp. Very very sharp. I want to zoom into it, pixel peep, crop, the works. That's the Sony brain.
You very quickly get addicted to ridiculously crisp images thanks to incredible auto-focus that Sonys come with.
The camera I had before my current one (A7c2) was an APS-c camera – The Sony A6400.
The problem with an APS-c sensor is that I'm very restricted when it comes to my choice of lens: if I want sharp nice and useable lenses, I have to use a prime. Zooms that do not open wide are absolutely terrible on an APS-c.
I started with a 16-75 Carl Zeiss f/4 – which was lovely in daylight, but the moment I went indoors or went to places with a lot of shade, or at night, the photos would turn absolute whack.
I then switched to primes (Sigma f/1.4 trio – which are amazing btw) – but the issue now was that I had to juggle between 3 different (albeit small in dimensions) lenses everywhere.
And if I was travelling, I could not really carry around extra lenses, so I'd have to choose my choice of focal length before hand. This was rather frustrating to me.
So my search for the "one true lens" began – one single lens that could handle everything in the non-specialised category (no wildlife lenses like tele or macro, or ultra wides). I was also planning to switch to a full frame at this point, so looking at this one made sense.
Why this one tho
This particular zoom range is called the "standard zoom" – a bit before and after 50mm. That is, wide enough for landscapes and cramped interiors, and tele enough for portraits and detail shots.
As my previous primes were 16, 30, 56 (24mm, 45mm, 84mm on crop sensor respectively), this was the perfect replacement. These are called the "holy trinity".
The 2 other options for this were the Sigma 24-70 and Tamron 28-75.
I could honestly have saved a LOT of money. Sigma in particular, gets me 90% of what this could at 1/2 or 2/3 the money. BUT I wanted that "one true lens". One single lens that'd make me lose the FOMO– making me wonder if there was something better every time.
This way I'd know for SURE that if the shot is bad, I'm solely responsible – and not the lens.
Also IMO the GMs hold good value, so when GAS strikes and there's a new fancy 16-150 f/1.4 in the future or something, I'll know I can get some good money from this.
GAS = Gear Acquisition Syndrome.
Cons
There is a popular saying– "Limitation is the catalyst for creativity" ..which I strongly agree with.
The problem with this lens is that its SO sharp, SO perfect, SO clinical, SO versatile, my brain kinda stops being creative. The photos no longer feel "earned" to me. When something is SO stupidly good, the fun kind of starts fading away. That's the issue for me.
Also it's a chonker, and f/2.8 isn't the fastest aperture. If I want creamy bokeh I need some distance.
But still, every time I press zoom after I take a shot to pixel-peep and see the tack-sharp magic, I'm reminded of why it was a good idea to blow this kind of budget.
Ah, and if you're curious, this lens retails at 2,00,000 INR.