AGeoJO wrote:
Unless you are doing serious macro and quite a bit at that, this lens looks superfluous to me. I still have my 90mm macro that I use occasionally and then I do have the G 70-200mm Macro that I use more often. I may look into getting this lens a year or two down the road...
When people hear "macro", often bugs and come to mind. But that's not a demanding use case for a macro lens.
The real torture test is the reproduction work on a copy stand where 100% flat focus field, even illumination and corner performance at optimal aperture mean everything. And this is where the current 90mm G lens struggles. The current E-mount champion for repro is the 105mm Sigma Art. I hope the new Sony will beat it because the Sigma relies on software correction for mild pincushion, which also affects the edge integrity. Besides, the Sigma has a habit of occasionaly misfocusing. That's why I bought the Z8 with the 105mm Nikkor macro.
And honestly, the flat-field 1:1 (or better) macros is an underserved market, as evidenced by blogs like https://www.closeuphotography.com/ - to get high quality flat-field reproductions people resort to adapted process lenses, enlarger lenses, or even pull lenses out of old film scanners. I really hope that Sony finally delivers a true modern flat-field macro with strong corners.
Can't wait to get my hands on this one.
[EDIT] And I hope Fujifilm is watching. Their GFX is the dream platform for reproduction work, but they have no suitable macro lens for it, creating an opportunity for PhaseOne $50K manual focus rigs. What a shame...
Sep 30, 2025 at 01:49 PM
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