Sony lenses
My collection of FE lenses for my α7R IV
When it comes to looking for lenses I don't obsess over every professional review. I am not a professional photographer. I do this purely for fun. It's my passion. My photos end up on this website downsized and compressed so I don't exactly care about a bit of lens distortion, chromatic abberation, edge sharpness or any of the other things professionals fret over. I want something I will be able to trust to get the job done while traveling.
24-70mm f/4.0
One of my first lenses, the relatively lightweight 24-70 has been my all-around performer for years. It provides a versatile zoom range that suits the vast majority of my travel shots. If you're just starting out, this is among one of the lenses I would get first if you're looking for a general purpose do-it-all lens.
24-105mm f/4.0 G OSS
Fast-forward several years and Sony added the higher-end 24-105mm G lens. While it's more expensive and heavier than the 24-70, this thing achieves sharper images. But mainly I like the improved zoom range. That extra 35mm of zoom is very noticable and appreciated.
35mm f/2.8
This is about the closest you can get to a slim pancake lens on the a7 system. I use the tiny Sony 35mm when I want a lighter camera, usually when walking around at night exploring a new city or when I'm not sure if I'll need my camera and just want to have it in my bag. And at f/2.8, this prime is fairly capable in low light situations as well. That being said, it's a fairly unremarkable lens. You don't have the zoom range of one of the lenses above, nor do you get the lovely depth of field achieved by the 55mm. As such, if I was just starting out with an a7 camera, this would not be my first pick.
16-35mm f/4.0
After a few trips I ended up wanting a wide-angle lens to capture more of some dramatic landscapes and architecture. While there are plenty of wide-angle primes that are faster, I opted for this 16-35mm zoom to reduce the need to change lenses while out shooting. At the furthest reach of 35mm, this can almost pass as general purpose travel lens to have around.
55mm f/1.8
The 55mm was added when I wanted better portraits (with more bokeh!) of family. It has become one of my most used lenses due to its compact size, sharpness and good low light performance and now I find it handy for everything from product shots to general walking around shots while walking around a new city.
85mm f/1.4 GM
I then added the massive 85mm GM lens to add on to this interest of portraiture while at team outings and while shooting product shots for this site. It is a very heavy lens so I unfortunately rarely travel with it.
90mm f/2.8 Macro G OSS
One of the most recently added lenses to my collection, I got this for close up product shots. I wish I had it when photographing some items in my Lightroom PC post, so when I began writing my next post I made sure to get it.
70-200mm f/4.0 G OSS
At some point I got the 70-200mm out of my curiousity for better city skyline shots from afar. Despite being a long lens it's still fairly compact and I really got to love the range (and the lens compression effect) when I took it to Newport, New York and New Zealand.
There is a larger and heavier version of this lens that is f/2.8 but I already have a hard enough time trying to pack light and a telephoto like this isn't always a requirement to pack so I figured I should stick with the lighter one that I would be more likely to travel with.
100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 GM OSS
This one probably needs the least explanation and just speaks for itself. I got it for my trip to Tanzania where I was shooting wildlife out of a safari vehicle for days. Sometimes we would get fairly close to the animals but often were were quite a bit of distance out. I wanted to avoid having to change lenses too often in such a dusty environment while on game drives and the 100-400 was such a convenient range. The pictures were just stunning.
I also purchased a 1.4x teleconverter for this that I used when shooting the Super Blue Blood Moon we had in San Francisco in early 2018. That made the 400mm closer to 560mm.
