I spent a few hours using the new Sony 12-24mm f/4 G Lens during an afternoon in Italy with Sony. I used the lens in combination with the company’s newest camera model, the Sony A9.
For the trip, we were taken to the beautiful location of Laggo Di Maggiore, around an hour or so from Milan. Our hotel overlooked the gorgeous lake, with a garden promenade along the water.
We took a boat over to Isola Bella (Beautiful Island), a tiny island in the lake which features a Palace, an elaborate garden and a small fishing village. The island is a popular tourist destination, and of course we found ourselves jostling with tourists to get around.
After we’d finished here, we returned to the boat for a trip over to Isola dei Pescatori (Fisherman’s Island). It was here that I mainly used the 12-24mm lens.
The 12-24mm lens is the widest currently available for Sony full-frame cameras, and as you can see from the shots it indeed offers an extremely wide angle of view. It’s arguably a little extreme for most everyday shooting scenarios, but indeed it gives you good scope for landscape, and architecture.
Later in the day we visited Ristorante Piccolo Lago, located next to another lake, Lago Di Mergozzo. Here we were able to watch the sun go down, but weather conditions weren’t quite perfect enough to produce overly striking landscape shots. Still, the 12-24mm helped to create some lovely waterscapes, with reflections of the nearby mountains in the perfectly still waters. It’s here that you can see some flare occurring if you look closely – I was able to overcome this by shooting at wider apertures.
I was impressed by the performance of this lens, but due to just how wide it is, it’s likely to appeal mainly to those who have a specialist need for super wide-angle lens.
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