Sony’s lightweight 70-200mm zoom has features designed for video creators

Sony has unveiled the FE 70-200mm F2.8 GM OSS II zoom lens that looks to be an interesting option for hybrid video and photo shooters. Designed for the company’s full-frame Alpha-series mirrorless cameras, it’s the lightest 70-200mm F2.8 lens on the market at 1,045 grams, Sony said. It also offers a number of features aimed at movie creators not usually seen in a lens like this. 

While large zoom lenses tend to focus slowly, Sony said the new model uses four XD linear motors to deliver reliable focus that’s up to three times faster than rival models, and four times faster than the previous model on Sony’s Alpha 1 camera. Tracking with continuous autofocus while zooming has improved by 30 percent compared first-gen model, too. It also focuses quietly, so the motor sound is less likely to be picked up by a camera’s microphone. 

Video shooters often need to pull focus between subjects, but lenses designed for photography usually exhibit “breathing,” or zooming in and out while changing focus. Sony said it designed the FE 70-200 F2.8 GM OSS II to curtail that, while also reducing focus shift while zooming. Such features are usually only found in cinema lenses that cost considerably more.

The lens should deliver nice bokeh thanks to the wide, continuous F2.8 aperture, while offering good handling with dual lens elements that move internally. It also offers three separate rings for focus, aperture and zoom, making it easier to rig for cinema use. Other features include high resolution, extra-low dispersion, aspherical glass to suppress chromatic aberrations, Sony’s Nano AR Coating II to reduce flares and ghosting and a new 11-blade aperture that produces softer, more circular bokeh. 

Sony also offers FE 1.4x and FE 2.0x teleconverters ($548 for each) that extend the lens’s focal length up to 400mm at F5.6. The FE 70-200mm F2.8 GM OSS II zoom lens will go on sale in December for $2,800, or $3,500 CAD in Canada.