Sony is today announcing an upgrade of one of its most popular professional zoom lenses — the FE 70-200mm f/4 Macro G OSS II. This also marks the 50th full frame mirrorless lens that Sony has produced since the launch of the original full frame mirrorless camera, the Sony A7, ten years ago.
The Mark I version of the FE 70-200mm f/4 G OSS was introduced nine years ago and has been one of Sony's most enduring professional lenses ever since. But now Sony is bringing an upgraded version, promising higher close-up performance, better autofocus, better video, and all in a smaller and more compact body.
The headline feature of this new Mark II version of the lens is that it is capable of half macro photography (0.5x), with a close focus distancing of the lens is 0.26 m at 70mm and 0.42 m at 200mm. However, when combined with the Sony SCL20TC 2x teleconverter, not only does the lens offer a maximum 400mm focal length, it can achieve 1:1 macro capability. The lens will also support Sony's 1.4x teleconverter, but this will only offer full 1:1 macro with the 2x converter.
The lens is constructed with 19 elements in 13 groups, including one aspherical element, three ED, one Super ED, and one 1AA element. The lens has a nine-blade circular aperture for smooth bokeh and background fall-off.
The 70-200 II uses a floating focus mechanism, which separates the focus into two groups for faster and more precise focus, which Sony says allows this lens to be 20% faster in focusing than the Mark I version. The lens also has suppressed focus breathing for video shooters and supports the focus breathing compensation modes on the latest Sony cameras.
Improving on the size and weight of the previous version, the Mark II lens is 15% shorter and 46 g less than the Mark I, measuring 149x82.2mm and 749 g, compared to 175x80 mm and 840g for the first version of the lens. Like most other Sony professional lenses, this lens will also be dust and moisture-resistant and have a fluorine coating on the front of the lens to repel water and grime.
The lens has three OS mode buttons for different styles of shooting, including panning, fast movement, and a mode to allow the camera to pick the best stabilization mode. Additionally, there are three focus hold buttons, a zoom lock switch, a full-time manual focus switch, and a focus limiter for shooting in that close-up macro mode.
The Sony FE 70-200mm f/4 Macro G OSS II will be available in mid-July 2023, but can be pre-ordered starting from now, and will cost $1,699 / £1,749 / AU$2,899 at launch.
Read more: find out more about the best Sony lenses in our guide. Or if you are interested in sports or wildlife photography then check out our guides to the best lenses for sports and the best lenses for bird photography and wildlife.
