Hailing from South Korea and based in Singapore, OlivePage is an Alpha Professional and lens reviewer who specialises in portrait, landscape and nature photography. He has published a book on flower photography and was the editor of a photography magazine.

Five years after the launch of its predecessor, the FE 24-70mm F2.8 GM II was released.

The new FE 24-70mm F2.8 GM II has prime lens-level resolution, a new AF system that satisfies both stills and video, an excellent close-up magnification of over 0.32x, G Master class bokeh, all while being smaller and lighter.

Focal Length

Focal Length: 24-70mm
Angle of View: 84-34 degrees
Minimum Focus Distance: 0.21(W) – 0.3(T)m
Maximum Magnification: 0.32x

24-70mm is versatile, offering the most commonly-used focal range.

Thanks to its short minimum focus distance, the FE 24-70mm F2.8 GM II lets you get more creative with 0.32x close-up shots, whether you're shooting an indoor cafe or beautiful flowers.

Aperture

Aperture: F2.8~F22
Blade: 11
Circular Blade: Yes

The F2.8 aperture and 11-blade circular aperture produces beautiful background bokeh. This creates beautiful scenes when you want to separate your subject from the background, such as in portrait or flower photography.

AF Motor System

It features Sony's most advanced AF system, with four XD Linear Motors. This method produces excellent image quality both up close and from afar, and enables extremely fast, quiet and accurate AF. It also improves close-up performance and makes the lens smaller and lighter.

Size and Weight

Size: 87.8 x 119.9mm
Weight: 695g
Filter size: 82mm

The FE 24-70mm F2.8 GM II is about 20% lighter than before. This is the lightest and smallest design among the currently available 35mm full-frame 24-70mm F2.8 lenses.

Design and Build

The FE 24-70mm F2.8 GM II is lighter than ever. The FE 24-70mm F2.8 GM II has carefully controlled focus rings, zoom rings, and even aperture rings.

Close-ups

For this shot, I zoomed in at 70mm and shot the water droplets close up. With some zoom lenses, image quality falls dramatically at maximum telephoto focal length. However, this lens performs very well. The image is clean and free of chromatic aberration, it looks like it was shot with a prime lens. 

Nightscapes and Cityscapes

I heard about an interesting structure, grabbed my tripod, and found sports cars stacked inside a building. I waited for a time when there were no cars on the road to create a surreal atmosphere. When shooting long exposures like this, use a good tripod and a 2-second delayed shutter to eliminate unnecessary shake from handling the camera.

The National Museum of Singapore is one of my favourite pieces of architecture. In a city filled with so many modern buildings, a classic building is a treasure.

The same moment can be captured completely differently with the FE 24-70mm F2.8 GM II. A green forest, a geometric building, a purple sky, a blue sky. Which would you choose?

Portraits

Sometimes it's nice to include details in the background for context of where a person is, such as at 24mm.

A lens that’s anything but standard

While the 24-70mm focal range is considered a standard zoom, the FE 24-70mm F2.8 GM II is anything but standard. Besides being the smallest and lightest in its class, it enables high image quality throughout the focal range with fast AF and great close-up performance. If you can only choose one zoom lens, this is it.