NEW: SONY SEL 16-35 GM II LENS | 7 days exclusive use in Norway
Not long ago Sony called to ask if I would be willing to test a new lens that will be released in late August 2023.
Best thing…on top they wanted to not only to have photos but also a film about me using the lens, my work and my adventure in the far north…
Sanna Kosa, a professional filmmaker and like me Sony Europe Imaging Ambassador - you might already know her from for example her fantastic commercials for Merida Bikes or the short film „Carolina“, was the perfect choice for this job.
Films about Me and the Lens:
Finally the film and the “Behind the scenes” on SONY’s webpage:
CLICK HERE!
After a short talk we decided to head up north to Tromsö in Norway. We both love Norway and the midnight sun should guarantee for epic light.
Tromsö is about 350 KM north of the arctic circle in Norway - a long trip, but absolutely worth it!
Working with Sanna was a real joy and we absolutely had a fantastic time in Tromso. Find Sanna’s other amazing work HERE on Youtube!
A lot of hikes, neverending light and not much sleep.
On 2 days we also had Sigurd Salberg Pedersen, our man for the “Behind the scenes”…with us on tour.
His work can be found here: Sigurd
Having only one week to produce a short film and several good quality images is quite a difficult task.
You never know how the weather conditions will be, and finding the right spots is also not always an easy task.
After signing the NDA with Sony we finally got the lenses and it turned out it’s the new 16-35 GMaster lens in Version II.
A focal range that is not something I use all the time, as I really like to use longer focal lenght for my landscape work.
Also for Sanna, filming exclusively with this lens was quite a challenge.
The lens arrived in this neutral parcel, and still is a preproduction model. So how will it perform and feel?
The build quality is amazing! It feels like a tank, the only thing that is missing is the expected weight. The new 16-35mm 2.8 lens only weights about the same as the 16-35 f4.0 Zeiss G lens and is nearly the same size.
Photographing mostly on my hikes I really always need to find a balance between image quality and weight.
That’s also the reason why I often used the G lenses instead of the G-Master lenses. The quality of the G lenses is really very good, with much less weight.
But with the version II of the GM lenses things changed. After the 70-200 GM II and the 24-70 GM II the 16-35 GM II is the third lens that has not only improved in image quality and AF speed, but also improved a lot in weight.
Now I do have the possibility of having the highest image quality of the GM lenses combined with the light weight that until shortly only the G-lenses offered.
On top it has an aperture ring, that I really like a lot. Focus- and Zoomring operate very smooth and overall the lens fits perfectly to my Alpha 7R5 and Alpha 1.
Btw. the minimal focus distance is amazing…and the sharpness of this lens is just fantastic.
Also for Sanna, using it on a gimbal was really easy, because even if you zoom in from 16 to 35mm the lens does not extend by much and so makes it easy for the gimbal to work as supposed.
We went out to several locations in the Lyngen alps and on Senja.
Hiking to Blavatnet or hiking up to Hesten with the view to Segla was just amazing.
But also on our way to some photo spots like the devils teeth we encountered wonderful moments to photograph this epic landscape.
To have a bit more flexibility I also cropped in a bit on some of the photos…having over 60 Megapixel makes it easy to do that.
I also did some (handheld) panoramas of course and after a few days I really got used to the focal range of the new 16-35 GM II lens.
This really has been such a nice week. Sanna and I had a lot of fun and her film about our time in the north is just fantastic.
If you have any questions about the lens, feel free to comment.
See you soon!
