Sony FE 100mm F2.8 Macro GM OSS Review | The New Gold Standard

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[Music]
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Hi, I'm Dustin Abbott and I'm here today to give you my review of the newest lens from Sony, the new 100mm f/2.8
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macro GM OSS. Yes, we finally have a G Master macro lens. Something that many
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of us have been asking for for years. The question was whenever that discussion came up however is how is a G
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Master going to distinguish itself from Sony's own excellent 90 millimeter macro or excellent alternatives from Tamron or
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Sigma LAA and the like? Well, the answer came by Sony leveraging what is one of
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the unique firstparty advantages for their platform. Namely, that the G
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Master Macro can utilize both the 1.4 four times and two times teleconverters
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here on Sony. That opens up a world of new possibilities. While the lens has a
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higher than average 1.4 to one level of magnification or 1.4 times macro
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magnification, you throw on the 1.4 times teleconverter, that focal length becomes 140 mm and you get a two times
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level of magnification. Throw on the two times converter and you're up to 200 millimeters of focal length and your
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magnification jumps up to 2.8 times. Obviously, that's a lot of additional
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versatility as to what you can do with this lens, the kind of working distance you can have. And of course, you have
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outstanding autofocus with it all. This is a lens that is packed with features.
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It has all kinds of controls on the body itself. It has a thorough weather
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sealing. It has the unique clutch mechanism that allows you to have true manual focus. It does a lot of stuff
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really well. And on top of that, it's got amazing autofocus and the best optical performance that I've ever seen
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from a macro lens. Now, it is going to cost you. The MSRP is $1,500.
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And for a GM lens, that is not particularly expensive, but it is going to be more expensive than either the 90
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mm G macro and considerably more than either the Sigma or Tamron macro
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alternatives. So, is this new G Master lens worth it? Well, we're going to dive in today and explore whether or not this
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truly is the gold master of macro lenses. So, in full disclosure, this
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lens was sent to me by Sony USA for evaluation. Uh however, it will be going
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back to them at the end of this review period and they have had no input in my findings. This is a completely
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independent review. All right, so let's talk about the build and design of this new lens. This is the 23rd G Master
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lens, but the first of their macro lenses. And one of the things that I am
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impressed by is that while they have obviously dramatically expanded the capacity of this lens, it really isn't
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significantly heavier than what the existing 90 millimeter macro is. In fact, at 646 g, it is only 42 g heavier
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than that lens. Despite having a longer focal length, higher magnification, more space here, it's 17 mm longer to allow
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those teleconverters to fit inside, and has additional features throughout. I think that's pretty impressive the way
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that they have managed this to where this is still a very usable weight. In fact, it's lighter than the Sigma 105mm
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uh f2.8 macro lens, despite that lens having, you know, far less feature set than what this lens does. So, those di
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dimensions are 81.4 mm or 3.2 2 in in diameter and 147.9
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mm in length and that is 5.8 in. So it is a fairly long lens. However, and as
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mentioned that's 17 mm longer than the 90 mm lens. But a big part of that is the fact that they have more depth here
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to where teleconverters can fit at the back. And that is I think in my estimation that is well worth it. And I
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would take more lenses that are a little bit longer if they could be used with Sony's teleconverters. And so that
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weight, 646 grams, that's 22.8 ounces for those of you who speak imperial.
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Now, to give you a little bit of idea, this lens has the capacity to do 1.4 times or 1:4 or 1.4 to one level
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magnification on its own. So that right there gives you some advantage over, you know, your typical 1 to1 macro lens like
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this Tamron 90 millimeter that I use almost every day. But you put the uh the
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1.4 times teleconverter on there and that focal length changes to 140 millimeters. The magnification goes all
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the way up to two times potentially. And then if you throw on the two times teleconverter, the focal length is an
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effective 200 millimeters and your magnification is up to 2.8 times potentially. Now, the other advantage
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there, however, is that uh maybe you don't need that level of magnification, but what that gives you is the ability
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to move a little bit further back and have more working room and still get one one or higher levels of magnification.
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And that can make all the difference in the world if you're working for a subject that might get scared off, you
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know, like living dragonflies or uh insects, things like that. And so, it
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definitely gives you some extra potential in that regard. Your minimum focus distance is 26 cm. And so
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remember, this is a fairly long lens. And so there's not necessarily a ton of working distance out in front of it, but
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you throw on those teleconverters, you can move the lens a little bit further back and thus expand that working
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distance as you go. Another thing that stood out to me is that this lens, if you look at this diagram, has an unusual
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amount of weather seal points inside. I went through and counted and I saw 19 seal points plus four flooring coating
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on the front element. So you could argue that there are 20 different seal points as a part of that design. That is
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definitely a G Master standard. Very very high level of weather sealing that you know the other brand lenses like
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this Tamron how be it an excellent lens but it's not going to match that degree of performance. Again that's you know
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they're setting the gold master standard and that is what we are looking for. Now, I was delighted to see in the Sony
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press briefing the m moment that they noticed this, and that is the ability to clutch out of your typical mirrorless
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autofocus, uh, which is then manual focus, you know, focus by wire, no hard
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stops, you know, no definite focus positions, but you have this clutch mechanism that drops you down into a
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true manual focus environment. And that has hard stops, that has permanently defined focus positions. It is so
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refreshing and so valuable for macro work. There is 170 degrees. That's my
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estimation of focus throw here. Now the one limitation is that most of that
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focus throw is between that 26 cm minimum focus distance and about 2 m.
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Beyond that 2 m mark, you've only got about 30 degrees of focus rotation. I did find that a little bit hard when I
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was manually focusing for my test chart test because you have to be really precise because just a tiny bump makes a
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significant difference in the overall quality of focus here. So, this is a lens I would say that outside of macro
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range, stick with autofocus because autofocus is awesome. But in macro range, if you're looking for an amazing
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manual focus experience, this is gorgeous. This is the best way to do things right here. And I really, really
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love that design. Now, interestingly, they still give you a lot of additional features on the focus by wire side. You
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have an AFMF switch. You have a fulltime DMF or direct manual focus. And so, at
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any point, you can grab that focus ring and turn, but remember that's focus by wire. It's not going to be as precise as
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fantastic as this clutched uh section down here, but still, you're getting very full feature to that. Likewise,
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you're getting the full G approach to aperture. So the you have the option of clicks with one-third stops. You have
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the ability then also to declick the aperture and so to smoothly rack through it and you can do focus racking as you
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can see here. Performs that very aly and you have an iris lock and so you can either lock into or out of that manual
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aperture range depending on what your preference is. All good there. Additional features include other
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switches are a three-position focus limiter. I didn't actually use it at all really in my test other than just to
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test it because I found that autofocus is so good I didn't feel like I needed to worry about it. So, I was either manual focusing or just letting
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autofocus do its thing. It's always fast enough. The other thing we've got here is an on andoff switch for the OSS or
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the optical steady shot. The lens based stabilization. This is a very effective stabilizer because it is the first that
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they have ever had that is actually designed the stabilizing system itself is designed around macro photography and
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so it gives you some additional um controls of axes including depth control and so it's actually reading how far
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your distance is from your subject and it is you know controlling stabilization based on that. In other words, this is a
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lens that really is designed in a way that maybe no macro lens has been before around the idea of doing handheld macro
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work. And for example, even with the uh the 1.4 times teleconverter attached uh
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and so I was shooting at 140 millimeters, I was able to handhold this macro shot at 130th of a second. I just
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don't know if there's other macro lenses that I would be able to pull that off, at least with any kind of repeatability.
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And so that is uh that's very impressive on that front. Likewise, we have a couple of focus hold buttons. And so, if
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you're shooting in, you know, your typical landscape position, you've got one. But if you're shooting in the horizontal position, one will be close
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to hand there as well. Up front, we've got 67 millimeter front filter threads. We have 11 rounded aperture blades.
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I don't love wide open uh geometry. It's a little too pinched in the corners, but if you look at the aperture rack here,
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as you begin to stop the lens down, it does do a really effective job of keeping a circular aperture shape thanks
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to those uh iris blades there. Included here, we have a lens hood. And the lens
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hood itself is actually fairly shallow. Um, and so that kind of uh it helps to
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level off the distance length of these two lenses because while the native lens is longer than the Tamron lens by a fair
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bit, when you throw on the lens hoods, it actually reverses because the Tamron lens hood is so much deeper than the
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Sony one. But I do like the Sony has that padded front edge, making it a nice stable place to set the lens down like
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that. It has a lock on it as well and so you can feel confident in making sure
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it's not going to come loose on you. So all good. It also comes with a nice zippered padded case as well. The MSRP
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is as mentioned $1498. That's it'll come for $17.99 Canadian.
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And so those of you in the Canadian market, that's a really competitive price relative to the US price. It's by
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the way that's $300 more than what the 90 millimeter G macro is. I would say if you're just shopping purely on the Sony
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platform, looking for first-party Sony lenses, it's pretty easy to justify that extra 300 bucks for this lens with all
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that it adds. However, there are much cheaper alternatives. The Sigma is a good value. And then a particular good
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value is this Tamron 90 mm, which you can get for around 700 bucks. So, less than half the price. So, I mean, that's
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obviously going to be a consideration to think about. These lenses will start to ship in mid November according to Sony,
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so not too long. And so if you want to get a pre-order in, you won't have to wait too long, assuming that all goes
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well in delivering those things. Altogether, this is a really impressive package. It's it's a little bit of a
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busy lens because there's a lot going on here, but it's a lot of good. A lot of valuable control points to making sure
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this really is a fabulous lens to use for your macro photography. So, let's
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talk autofocus. Out of all the brands that I test, I would say that Sony has done the best job that I have ever seen
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of putting together a combination of focus motors that allow their lenses to really have the premium autofocus
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experience. That's definitely true here as the 100 millimeter GM macro has been equipped with four XD linear motors and
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those working in concert allow you to have just lightning fast autofocus. It's not unusual for macro lenses to have
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slower autofocus because there are so many additional focus possibilities and you can help that by using a focus
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limiter and eliminating some of those. But in this case, we have so much thrust that it's really not an issue at all.
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And you can see going from close to uh distant subjects, it is essentially an instantaneous process. And throughout my
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whole test period, I felt like in all situations, autofocus just flew. It was always fast, always silent in operation,
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always very smooth. And so that meant that I could use the lens in a wide variety of situations. You could uh
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continue to use it for uh autofocus, for example, at macro distances, unlike the recent LA 180mm f4.5 that I reviewed.
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You could use it for focus stacking and things like that. And um you producing
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really great end results from that. Uh, I found that I could use it for portrait work and I used it at a wedding and of
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course it was lightning fast in those situations. I was able to even nail some
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shots of the bees going in and out of the hive and able to track that and achieve that. Basically, this is a lens
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that really doesn't have any kind of limits to its potential because it has such fantastic autofocus and that's not
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something that you can say of a lot of macro lenses. So, they really have equipped this with what I would say is
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the G Master standard for autofocus, and that is in this instance the very best
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you can possibly get in 2025. So, how about video autofocus? Well, as
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you probably have seen on all of these outdoor segments, I have been filming with the lens mounted on my new Alpha 1
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M I, which I will give you a review of somewhere in the near future after I've had enough time with it to give you a
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good evaluation. However, you can see that it has no problem tracking me in these kind of situations. We'll give it
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a quick test right now to see how it does if I drop out of frame and I pop back in again
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and back in. And I suspect you are finding that it has no problem picking me up and tracking me because as we've
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already seen, it's got tons of thrust for its autofocus system. Now, when it came to other type test, I found that
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for my video pools, it was really nice and smooth. It actually has a nice level of damping and so a nice transition
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without any kind of visible steps, no hunting, no pulsing, none of those things. And of course, it is completely
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silent in operation. When I did my hand test, it really did well overall. There
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was a couple of times where it didn't want to transition away from my face, but that is largely because of that
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predictive algorithm that knows that the main focus subject needs to be my face, and so it's trying to continue to track
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that. But when it did the transitions from my hand to my eye, it was all nice and smooth and so no concerns about
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that. You'll find here if I go backwards a little bit and then in a moment I'll
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come back forward, you can see that it has no problem as it tracks me as I get
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closer into the frame and closer to the camera itself. And so I don't really see
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any real kind of reservations there. I found that in my clips I got good results. I also found that there is
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focus breathing obviously, but most of that focus breathing happens in the macro range. And what I did find is that
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like for example in my hand test or in that focus pull test at those more normal normal distances, focus breathing
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is of course quite well controlled. And yes, you can in fact employ the focus
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breathing compensation if your camera is so equipped. that does come at the cost of a crop factor, but it will eliminate
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some of that additional focus breathing out of the equation. So, at the end of the day, again, this is a really
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excellent lens and I will add to that uh because you have such great manual focus. In this case, you have a true
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manual focus because of the clutch mechanism that we have talked about. And so, what that allows you to do is that
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in video to really do nice, nicely damp focus pulls with really good precision
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and macro range. a little less precision if you're out at this kind of distance. However, if you're in that macro range,
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manual focus is really, really fantastic if you're in the clutch true manual focus mode. So, at the end of the day, I
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think autofocus for video is as good as you're going to find on a macro lens. Okay, let's talk optics. This is an
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optical design of 17 elements in 13 groups. That includes two of the Sony
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specific XA elements, which is extreme aspherical elements. And then also they
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have two of the extra low dispersion elements as well. If you look at the MTF chart, the MTF chart is exceptionally
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good. Over the first half of the frame, it is pretty close to perfect and then it's only a mild fall off towards the
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corners. In fact, this is a lens that's sharper in the corners than what many lenses are in the center of the frame.
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It's a really really exceptionally sharp lens. You can see stopping down to f8, it's it's pretty close to perfect. a
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little bit of a stigmatism, but outside of that, it is really fantastically sharp. And I found that this is a lens
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that that sharpness really showed up at macro distances. I was really impressed by how much the textures popped. I don't
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know. With macro lenses, I tend to be I have high expectations of them optically. And so when I see a little
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bit of haze on textures, macro lenses, it really turns me off. And I would find
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say that the textures pop from this lens in a way that I just don't remember any other macro lens matching before. It is
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exceptionally good. And that's even at the high levels of magnification. I found also that when it came to testing
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for distortion and vignette, there is no distortion, no measurable distortion that I could see. And there is almost no
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vignette. I used about a plus 22 to correct a little tiny bit in the corners, but you could easily leave
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those uncorrected and never notice. When I added the 1.4 four times teleconverter. It added a little bit of
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barrel distortion. It was a plus three to correct for it and added a tiny bit more vignette, a plus 29 rather than
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plus 22. In both cases, that's no big deal. I don't own the two times teleconverter and so I can't test for
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that, but I would suspect you're just going to see a little bit of exaggeration of both of those qualities. Kind of scale that up a bit and it
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should give you a sense of what you're going to see with the two times teleconverter. I also saw no frringing
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in any of my test or in any of my shots. Um, and that's hugely important for
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macro type work with a lot of shiny surfaces. And so it also allows you to have, you know, allow that to have that
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really great micro contrast because you're not having any kind of blooming on textures that is robbing you of
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contrast. And so all of that was perfect. Uh, no lateral style chromatic aberrations in the corners as well. All
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really, really awesome there. When it came to doing the test, and this is just a quick overview. If you want the deep
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dive, that's going to be at the end of the video. But I found that it was basically perfect. wide open. Center is
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perfectly sharp. Mid-frame is exceptionally good and the corners really, really look great. I was
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interesting to see how it compared to the 90 millimeter macro from Tamron because I think that this is actually a really, really sharp lens. And what I
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found is basically the GM is kind of like a one step further in terms of performance. The Tamron is good. The GM
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is great and that was true all across the frame. It just had that consistent advantage everywhere that I looked. So,
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really, really impressive on that front. I found that when I stopped the lens down, I really didn't see much of an
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improvement as I stopped down. So to mostly use stopping down for depth of field, I could see a tiny bit maybe in
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the corners at f8, but I mean it really isn't much difference to note. Starting
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at f11, you'll start to see a bit of defraction. Your minimum aperture is f22 and defraction will be a little bit more
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pronounced by that point particularly on a high resolution body like the 61 megapixel a7r mark 5 that I have done
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these tests on. There's a few other things that I tested. I did test to see if focus bracketing and then stacking
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would work with the native lens plus teleconverters. And what I found is that
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it did a it did it worked perfectly. I could get, you know, shots like this to where uh this is actually a stack of in
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one case 20 and then another case 15 shots. Just allows me to increase that depth of field a bit, but still have the
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strongly blurred out background, which is really, really useful. And and so I was really pleased to see that because
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that just adds the ability to automate and thus kind of perfect that technique. And so that's really great. As far as
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the sharpness, uh, when you add the teleconverter on there, I did notice a bit of a hit to sharpness, but it's
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still great. It's probably actually pretty comparable to the level that the Tamron is at, even with the teleconverter attached. And so, that's
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really, really great. Again, expect a little bit more of a hit with the two times um, uh, teleconverter on there,
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but still, it's going to be a really strong performance. When it comes to the bokeh, I've already mentioned that I
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don't love the wide open geometry. As you can see here, it's just kind of pinched a little too much in the corners. Stop down to f4 and a lot of
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that clears up. By f5.6, that is all perfectly clear. But that really was my only complaint when it comes to the
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quality of the bokeh. I at close focus distances, it's really beautiful uh fall off to where you're transition from
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focus to defocus is really lovely. I found that a little bit further out, you're really strongly blurring out
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backgrounds. And then a little bit further out, still backgrounds are still, you know, nicely blurred here and
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they don't get harsh or busy. And then even at a longer distance, like for full-length portrait work, I found that
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while it's not obliterating the background like a faster maximum aperture would, what I found is that at
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f2.8, I had a really nicely pleasantly defocus background and the subject stood
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out really nicely. And so overall, I was really impressed with all of those things. Flare resistance I would say is
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good but not great. Um there certainly were instances where I saw some ghosting
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artifacts and you can see as I pan back and forth there's a little bit of a pattern but what I will say is that it
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never gets particularly strong strongly defined and thus harsh causing any kind
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of major problem there. Finally, the colors are really beautiful. I mean, this is a lens that is just it's it's
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nailing it optically. And so, I think that Sony has done a fantastic job of showing us what a next level macro lens
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can be capable of. The new Sony FE 100 millm F2.8 macro OSS really does set the
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gold standard for macro lenses. I would say that in every area that I tested,
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this definitely stands out as being a better product than any macro lens that I've used. I didn't know quite what Sony
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would do to set itself apart when they did release a G Master macro lens, but I'm really impressed by the choices that
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they've made and the fact that while I'm not crazy about the fact that they have
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excluded other brands from using teleconverters on their platform, I'm at least glad to see them utilize
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teleconverters. And you know, I've owned the 1.4 times for quite a while and I
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primarily have used it in some tests and then in one lens that I own, the 200 to 600 millimeter G lens. So, I'm really
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delighted to see even the potential of more lenses that take advantage of that. And it's one thing if you're going to
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restrict it from third-party lenses on your platform, but if you produce relatively few lenses and even take
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advantage of it yourself, you aren't going to sell a lot of teleconverters. Truth be told, I see one of the
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advantages of this new G Master lens is not only is it going to kind of give a
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permission structure to those who already might own televerters to say, "Hey, here's another lens that takes advantage of something I've already
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invested in, but also I can see it having the reverse effect that people, some of you who have never owned any of
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Sony's televerters, look at the potential of what it could add to this lens and say, "This might be something
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that I could invest in to dramatically expand my options for this." I think
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that Sony has also done a great job of checking a lot of boxes that matter to real macro photographers. There's a lot
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of versatility here for how you get shots. And of course, the ability to really do things like focus bracketing
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and thus focus stacking is going to allow those of you that are truly exceptional macro photographers to get
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mind-blowingly good macro images. The fact that this lens is so incredibly sharp, even when teleconverters is
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attached, is extremely extremely useful. I'm really impressed with this lens. And while I'm very happy with my daily
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driver macro right now, which is Tamron's 90mimeter f2.8, this is a lens
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that I'm going to be personally thinking about long and hard because I do use macro lenses all the time for my product
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photography, uh, for showing off, you know, little details for my lens reviews. It's just a lens that I reach
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for all the time, and this is a lens that I could see additional potential for. And so I think that really uh Sony
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has checked the right boxes and they have delivered a sufficiently superior package that even though it's pricey at
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$1,500. I can suspect I can see a lot of people saying hm it feels like this
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might be a lens that's worth the money. We'll see if that's true. Now if you want more information you've got a
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couple of options. You can check out my full text review which is linked in the description down below on the newly
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resigned dustinbott.net. or if you want a deep dive into the optical performance, well, jump in with
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me right now and let's take a look together. So, let's start by taking a look at vignette distortion. It may look
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like I have the same thing side by side, and that's because this lens has no distortion and very, very little
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vignette. You can see I've corrected a tiny bit of vignette in the corners. No correction for distortion, just a plus
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22 to correct for the vignette. Now, if we add on the 1.4 times teleconverter, you can see that it does create a little
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bit of barrel distortion. Fortunately, it is nice and linear and not difficult to correct. And there's just a tiny bit
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more vignette, but not enough to really be statistically significant. Chromatic aberrations are basically perfectly
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controlled. I don't see anything before or after the plane of focus in this. If we zoom in on the SLR, even to 200%
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magnification, you can see if we look back at these shiny textures, there's just there's nothing to see there. It's
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just perfectly controlled. No issues at all with that. Neither is there any kind of fringing around specular highlights.
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Likewise with the lateral style chromatic aberrations. All clear here at the corner of the frame. No problem at
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all with that. So let's take a look at our sharpness and contrast in the center of the frame. You can see even at 200%
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magnification. It looks fantastic. Mid-frame is looking excellent down all
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the way into the corners. It looks excellent all the way there. Likewise, we have nice consistency looking at both
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sides of the frame in all four corners everywhere. It just looks awesome. So,
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for a quick point of reference, here's what the Tamron here on the right looks like. You can see if you look at the
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sails, for example, there's just not the same level of detail there in the Tamron. The Tamron looks good, but it is
27:16
just not as perfectly crisp as what the Sony lens is. We have a different chart
27:22
on there, but take a look here. this mid-frame zone. You can see it's just this looks a little bit muddy on the
27:27
Tamron by comparison. Perfectly crisp there on the um the Sony result.
27:33
Likewise down here, same kind of thing. Everywhere that we look, the Tamron is
27:39
good, but the Sony is great. Now, likewise, if we throw the the 1.4 times
27:45
teleconverter, which is the only one I have, it's the only one I can test. You can see that the focal length changes to
27:51
140 millimeters. maximum aperture is f4 now because it does lose a stop of
27:56
light. Likewise, the two times you're going to drop down to a maximum aperture of f5.6.
28:02
So, if we compare these two lenses, we can see that really this is every bit as good, if not a bit more than what the
28:08
Tamron was um just with the bare lens. And so, that's really impressive there. We can see it's still looking good in
28:15
the mid-frame. You know, it's it's dropping a little bit. And likewise into the corners. You can see that the
28:20
corners are a little bit softer, but overall it's still holding up really quite remarkably well. Now, what I found
28:27
when I begin to stop the lens down is that frankly there's not really a whole
28:32
lot of improvement here. And so here from f2.8 to f4 and if we go from f4 all
28:38
the way down to f8. I mean, I do think f8 is a little bit better in the corners, but really you're not getting
28:44
much more than what you got at f2.8. At f11, you'll start to see some effect
28:49
of defraction. Though you can see this is still a very very usable result. So don't hesitate to use f11. F-22,
28:55
however, the minimum aperture I say is a different story. You can see just how much softer it is due to the effects of
29:01
defraction. Now here you can see the highest level of magnification with the barrel lens. This is 1.4 times. If we
29:07
pop in there and take a look at this, you can see the weave of the paper. Like it's really, really great. Even with the
29:13
1.4 four times on there. You can see the magnification level is jumping up to two times magnification. That is a very
29:19
noticeable difference. And it'll be even more noticeable going from that to f2.8 with the two times on there. And we can
29:25
see still again while it's not as perfectly crisp in the area here. You can see it's looking really, really
29:31
sharp. As noted before, you can get really good handheld macro results. This
29:37
shot here, um, this is a handheld macro shot with the 1.4 times on there. And
29:42
you can see it's looking really really fantastic. Here's another and that is once again that's a handheld macro uh to
29:50
that with the 1.4 times teleconverter on there. So pretty impressive in the results you can get with it. Now I've
29:56
talked about the geometry that I don't love wide open but here this is at f8. And so a lot of times at macro distances
30:03
you're going to want to stop down anyway because depth of field is just so small. And one thing I notice is number one I
30:09
mean it's it's great macro performance. But here as we watch the going towards
30:14
defocus, we can see that it's holding up nicely in terms of the geometry towards the edges there. Likewise here, nice and
30:22
round. And so for macrotype work, I think it's going to do a beautiful job. Here's another macrotype shot. And here
30:29
you can see a transition from before to after in terms of um the just defocus.
30:35
But then also look at there's just no longitudinal style chromatic aberration. really really great transition there.
30:41
Likewise here, I'm really impressed by just how much detail is rendered there.
30:47
And that's that really kind of stands out to me. That's that's a lot of fun to play with right there. So, great stuff
30:53
there. You can see that standard defocus towards the background. The background here is nicely blurred out. I like that
31:00
a lot. Here for portrait type work, you've got nice dimensionality of the subjects. You can see that they're
31:06
standing out really nicely. great detail and texture on them. But as we look past them towards the area that's defocused,
31:12
you can still I mean if you step back, you can still see everything that's there, but it's nicely defocused.
31:18
There's no harsh edges, nothing grabbing the eye. Here's another where we can see looking towards the distant background.
31:24
Everything just has a nice transition to defocus. And you can see that the detail on the ladies here looks really
31:31
fantastic. Here's another handheld macro shot that just shows off all the good stuff here. Great detail, great
31:38
contrast, very steady shot. And then as you transition to defocus, just looks fantastic. So I wanted to experiment
31:45
here with a bit of the focus bracketing and to see how that worked out with this lens, both of the bear lens. So starting
31:51
here. So what I I've done is I've just done enough frames to where you can see all of the graphites are in focus. And
31:59
so that just makes a real difference here. I wanted that very shallow depth of field to be maintained, which you can
32:04
see it has. But now we've just got all of this in focus, which makes for a more compelling image. And of course, I could
32:11
do all of that automating within the camera to where the camera was making the focus adjustments. So, I wanted to
32:17
know if you could do the same thing with the teleconverters on there. Can the camera still do all of that bracketing without problems? Well, the answer is
32:24
yes. And so you can see here that rather than just having one of the screw heads
32:30
in focus, now I have enough depth of field to where I've got the front two in
32:35
focus and all of that really, really crispy detail showing up there. And then to start that transition towards defocus
32:42
and as you look towards the area where the images are defocused, they look the exact same. And so that's a really
32:48
useful thing once again. And that was done. That's 15 frames taken with the teleconverter attached with the camera
32:55
doing all of the bracketing. Super useful for macro work. Now, if you're just looking at still images for the
33:01
flare resistance, you can see there's a little bit going on there wide open. Um, if I stop down, there's a little bit
33:08
more of a ghosting pattern. You can see a bit more here. it's really going to be composition specific, but as you saw
33:14
when we pan back and forth across the sun, there's just more noticeable flare
33:20
at different points. So, I guess word to the wise is just be careful with your composition and you'll probably be just
33:26
fine. So, thanks for sticking around until the very end. I hope that that deep dive into the optics helps to give
33:32
you the information that you were looking for. As always, thanks for watching. Have a great day and let the
33:38
light in.

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