Photographer Dustin Abbott shares a buying guide for those interested in Sony full frame mirrorless – but with an eye to budget. He covers the different camera options, zooms vs primes, and what lenses are worth considering for each brand.

Ted writes:

Over the last few years, Sony has expanded their lens portfolio to include some of the best, top-of-the-line prime lenses on the market. G Master lenses usually share common characteristics such as XA (extreme aspherical) lens elements, XD linear motor autofocus, physical aperture rings, custom function buttons as well as other features.
In this video I want to share with you some of my recommendations with the 3 wide-angle, G Master prime lenses.

Spoiler Alert: The three lenses are the…
Sony FE 24mm f/1.4 G Master (Bhphoto. Adorama. Amazon).
Sony FE 14mm f/1.8 G Master (BHphoto, Adorama, Focuscamera).
Sony FE 35mm f/1.4 G Master (BHphoto, Adorama, Amazon).

SonyAlphaBlog reviewed this rather unique lens and concluded:

The AstrHori is providing better results for normal and tilt images than the Lensbaby or the Samyang while being the cheapest. If you are interested in a tilt lens that can also serve as a normal 50mm F1.4 it is the best of these 3 lenses

I don’t even know where you an buy this lens :)

Kolarivision disassembled the Sony A1 and concluded:

The A1 may look identical to its predecessors, but there are a lot of little changes inside and out that make this a very impressive camera.

It’s clear from their report that Sony improved many aspects of the camera and this is a big step forward in terms of construction. I expect the same advancement to be seen on the future A7rV and A9III.

Sony A1 at BHphoto. Adorama. Amazon. Focuscamera. FotoErhardt DE. Calumet DE. Fotokoch DE. Park UK. WexUK.

P.S.: the Sony A1 is really well built as we have seen form this Olympics video:

The lens is available at Amazon US, BHphoto, Amazon DE, Amazon IT, Amazon UK, Amazon FR.

SonyAlphablog conclusion is:

The Yongnuo 50mm F1.8S DF DSM (328 euros) is a little gem . Low price, very good ergonomics , very good AF, very good sharpness wide open on 61Mpix and excellent as of F2.8, very good background blur and color rendition , very good bokeh balls wide open , lovely rendering for portraits
The main drawbacks are : bokeh balls shape as of F2.8, build quality ok but not excellent, focus breathing important in video.
For pure video work the Viltrox 50mm F1.8 with its clickless aperture ring and low focus breathing will be recommended
If budget is not an issue then the Samyang 50mm F1.4 AF II (700 euros) will provide a bit better performances globally
Highly Recommended

Tamron 17-70mm E at BHphoto, Adorama, Focuscamera, Calumet Germany and Wex UK.

The lens got tested by Lenstip. The conclusion is:

Let’s discuss the price first. The tested Tamron is available in shops for about $800, the same as the Fujinon 16-80 mm f/4.0, by 1 EV slower. The Nikkor 16-80 mm f/2.8-4.0, a veteran lens on the market, is about $267 more expensive. The Sigma 17-70 mm is the best option from the financial point of view as it can be bought for a sum of $500. Still, taking into account unique parameters of the Tamron, the fact that you deal here with a novelty lens rivalled only by older instruments, present on the market for several years already, it seems the Tamron is priced very well. Of course it cannot be called cheap but, taking into account the current situation, you can say lenses of this class and with such parameters have similar price tags.

The constructors of the Tamron 17–70 mm f/2.8 Di III-A VC RXD faced a really difficult task. Every time a producer tries to offer something unique, a product no other manufacturer features, the bar is set very high, higher than usual. It’s nothing strange that slip-ups, like in this case are bound to happen because it is really difficult to guarantee low vignetting and good performance against bright light in a construction of such a type. Anyway the mistakes are present and you can complain as long as you like – you have very good reasons to do so.

However, this lens managed to achieve the most important task: despite a very large and very universal focal range combined with a good, fixed f/2.8 aperture fastness, it guarantees a very good image quality across the frame, no matter what focal length you employ. It seems the tested Tamron performs even a tad better than you would expect, and, as such, it fully deserves a very high final assessment it got.