![](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/models\/anastasiya\/sony-24-105mm\/NV900336.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The 24-105mm f\/4 range of lenses seem like a compromise between size & weight, and the range, and the so-so aperture. We get a great range from wide-angle to short telephoto. Perfect for travel or just any kind of general photography. But we miss out on the fast aperture. There is often a compromise in the sharpness of these types of lenses – the greater the range of a zoomoften implies a loss in lens sharpness with greater chance of optical distortion and smearing. With this review of the Sony FE 24-105mm f\/4 G lens<\/a>\u00a0 (B&H<\/em><\/a> \/ Amazon<\/em><\/a>), we’re going to look at some of those things from a practical point of view – actually using the lens. I have to say upfront that I was pleasantly surprised by this lens. Optically it performed so well that I’m going to keep this as my main lens on my Sony system.<\/p>\n I use the\u00a0Sony 24-105mm f\/4 lens<\/a>\u00a0(B&H<\/em><\/a> \/ Amazon<\/em><\/a>) on my\u00a0Sony A9 camera<\/a>\u00a0(B&H<\/em><\/a> \/ Amazon<\/em><\/a>) as my silent camera when I need it during weddings or corporate events. I also use it on a gimbal to shoot video. For the example photos in this review I met up with Anastasiya<\/a> for a photo session in New York. I was mostly interested in seeing how this lens works in the portrait range, and specifically, when used wide open at f\/4<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n First of all, the sharpness at 105mm at f\/4 really surprised me. Below is the 100% crop of her eyes, to see the detail in her eye-lashes, with Sharpening set to a default of 20 in LR:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n To check on the lens sharpness again, I photographed part of this wall art at 24mm and 105mm at various apertures. You can download the\u00a0RAW files via this link.<\/a>\u00a0(These specific files are the ones named NV9.)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n If you need something less subjective to see the lens sharpness, email me for photos using this test chart, photographed at 105mm and 50mm, for f\/4 and f\/5.6 and f\/8. \u00a0(Then also look at the barrel and pincushion distortion.)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n In the main photo above, and this image below, look at the bokeh – the way the background is rendered. There are no harsh double lines or donut circles to the highlights. The Canon 24-105mm f\/4 has harsh bokeh. The Sony in comparison looks remarkably smooth for a lens of this range.<\/p>\n I want to reaffirm again that shallow DoF isn’t directly related to a pleasant bokeh. This article has an example of harsh bokeh from a lens with a wide aperture:\u00a0Bokeh vs shallow depth-of-field (DoF)<\/a>. So don’t fall into the trap of thinking that f\/4 implies poor bokeh, and a fast aperture implies good bokeh. It doesn’t correlate like that.<\/p>\n Again, the 100% crop of her eyes:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Another example of the bokeh of this lens. This time, zoomed to 60mm focal length. If we look at the\u00a050% crop of an area on the right hand side, you’ll see that the lines are rendered smoothly. I don’t see that double edges that are typical of lenses that have a harsh bokeh.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n In the few images where there was a chance of flare, with a much brighter area within the frame, it looked like the lens handled it very well.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Most (all?) zooms exhibit barrel and pincushion at the extreme ends of the range. This is especially noticeable when the zoom range is large. Therefore with zooms in the 24-105mm range, you will see barrel distortion at the wide end, and pin-cushion distortion at the longer end. With easy correction in software, this isn’t a problem any more – although, there will be some reduction in resolution as pixels get shifted around to correct for optical distortion.<\/p>\n Here are two examples – Lens distortion: Sony FE 24-105mm f\/4 G<\/a>\u00a0– to show the extent of the distortion at 95mm and at 24mm, and how it compares to the optical distortion fixed in post-production \/ Lightroom. To my eye, the distortion isn’t especially disconcerting with this lens. I think it is pretty mild, considering the range of the zoom. For architecture though, where we expect straight lines, this would be an issue. But as mentioned, this is easily corrected.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The lens feels solid and well built. It gives you a wide focal range, with superb optical quality. \u00a0And it has built-in stabilization via Sony’s Optical SteadyShot (OSS) Image Stabilization. The nine-blade diaphragm and optical design, gives a surprisingly pleasing bokeh. Clearly I am very impressed with this lens, and I highly recommend it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n review: Sony FE 24-105mm f\/4 G OSS Lens The 24-105mm f\/4 range of lenses seem like a compromise between size & weight, and the range, and the so-so aperture. We get a great range from wide-angle to short telephoto. Perfect for travel or just any kind of general photography. But we miss out on the Read more inside…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46220,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13,705,453],"tags":[11603,11604],"yst_prominent_words":[11605,11623,11631,11628,1021,11641,11632,11629,11622,11620,11627,11633,11630,3937,3913,11640,10976,11615,11619,11617],"class_list":{"0":"post-46151","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-equipment-review","8":"category-equipment-reviews-sony","9":"category-sony","10":"tag-review-sony-24-105mm-f4","11":"tag-sony-24-105mm-f4","12":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46151"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46151"}],"version-history":[{"count":52,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51757,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46151\/revisions\/51757"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46151"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=46151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/sony\/24-105mm\/Sony_24-105mm-f4.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n
\n![](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/sony\/24-105mm\/NV900183.jpg\")
<\/p>\nLens sharpness\u00a0of the Sony 24-105mm f\/4 G<\/h2>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\tmore: Lens sharpness<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t
![](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/sony\/24-105mm\/NV900183-crop.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\n
![](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/sony\/24-105mm\/NV902067.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/sony\/24-105mm\/lens-test-chart.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n
\nBokeh of the Sony 24-105mm f\/4 G<\/h2>\n
![](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/sony\/24-105mm\/NV900111.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t\t\tmore: Bokeh<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t
![](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/sony\/24-105mm\/NV900111-crop.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\n
![](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/sony\/24-105mm\/Sony_24-105mm-f4_bokeh.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/sony\/24-105mm\/Sony_24-105mm-f4_bokeh_crop.jpg\")
<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n
\nFlare<\/h2>\n
![](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/sony\/24-105mm\/NV900248.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\n
\n\t\t\t\t\tmore: Flare<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t
![](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/sony\/24-105mm\/NV902050.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\n
\nLens distortion<\/h2>\n
![](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/sony\/24-105mm\/NV902094.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t\t\tmore: Lens distortion<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n
\nMore images<\/h2>\n
![](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/sony\/24-105mm\/NV902051.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/sony\/24-105mm\/NV902063.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/sony\/24-105mm\/NV902093.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/sony\/24-105mm\/NV900283.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\n
\nand the\u00a0Sony A9 camera<\/a> \u00a0(B&H<\/em><\/a> \/ Amazon<\/em><\/a>).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nSummary<\/h2>\n
Related articles<\/h2>\n
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