GHarris
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 p.1 #5 · Sony 70-200 GM II vs I ? | |
You will find more experienced sources than me for sure, but I don't think the version one 70-200 GM is anywhere near as good as the version two in terms of sharpness, especially at 200mm. IMO the version one is a false economy even if it's cheaper - it's just plain worse, and there were other good (on balance, better) alternatives to it even before the Sony GMII came out.
Nowadays there are lots of options. If the GMII is too expensive, look at Sigma and Tamron - they both make lenses that are good value for money and unambiguously optically better than the GM1.
The GM1 was kind of an early, rough, first-draft lens. It was a GM from the very early days of the Sony E-mount system, before Sony had completely hit its stride and every new lens release had become a slam-dunk. It covered a gap in the lens lineup that pros demanded "had to" be filled, but it was never a great 70-200, just an okay one that filled the gap in the E-mount market until better options came along.
Apologies if I'm stating any of this too strongly... I defer to others' remarks as well... I just felt that someone ought to offer this context. Look at the Sigma 70-200 and the Tamron 70-180 (the G1 Tamron is already sharper than the GM1, I think?... but the G2 is very definitely sharper). The third-party options offer you different priorities in terms of portability and functionality, all at a better price than Sony lenses. Third-party lenses on Sony E-mount have a limit on the number of frames per second they can shoot (15fps, iirc)... but that limit is higher than the top framerate your A7RV can achieve (and the GM1's autofocus wasn't that amazing anyhow, to fully capitalise on higher framerates)... and, in any case, the framerate cap won't be relevant for your landscape shooting, while image quality may be, so the third-party lenses would be a better fit to you than the GM1.
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EDIT: Of course, the third-party lenses also don't let you use a teleconverter. There's more than one way to look at that: for one thing, your A7R5 is the camera that least of all needs/benefits from a teleconverter, in my opinion: cropping a high-resolution sensor can produce competitive net image quality to a teleconverter. Teleconverters squeeze a lens' optical qualities hard, as does tight cropping on high-resolution... at most, a 1.4x TC may make sense on your A7RV, while image quality may start to break down with such a demanding sensor if you use a 2X TC... so TCs have only a limited role IMO.
As yet another quirky alternative option, to save money and get good image quality... and especially if TCs are a priority to you... look into adapted DSLR lenses. I am not closely familiar with the Canon DSLR ecosystem, but there may be a good generation/version of 70-200 for EF mount -
...such as, after a quick search, the Canon EF 70-200mm F2.8L IS II... or maybe the Tamron SP 70-200 f/2.8 G2 VC... or the Sigma 70-200 2.8 DG OS HSM Sport (not "DN", that's the mirrorless mount version)... I am certain there'll be a sharper option than the Sony GM1, at the very least... at first glance it looks like a similar situation to on mirrorless, in fact... the image quality of all three is good, the Tamron is lighter but only "really" a 180mm when focus breathing is taken into account, while the others are the full, real '200'mm... anyway, I digress...
... and those adapt perfectly well to Sony for landscape use, and they take Sigma or Canon EF-mount teleconverters, both of whose last-generation 1.4x teleconverters for EF mount were good enough (I've used the Sigma TC with an adapted Canon lens happily on my Sony). And with everyone moving away from DSLR it'll all be affordably priced. I'm sure that an EF lens plus adapter won't be the smallest and lightest, but then, the GM1 wasn't the smallest and lightest lens either, so I don't think you'll actually be losing out much on portability.
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