Best Sony Lens for Travel Photography
When traveling to an epic destination, it can be tempting to pack all of your camera gear to help you capture your adventures. After all, you never know what photo opportunities will present themselves when you’re on the road. But camera gear is heavy - and I mean really heavy. Unfortunately, most travel photographers, including myself, forget how heavy our gear is until our backs start aching at the airport. After I suffered through another backbreaking trip, I decided to create a compact travel camera setup that included only my most essential camera gear. First, I purchased a camera sling that forced me to carry less gear. Second, I decided what lenses I needed to have on every trip. As it turns out, I only really need one lens for most of the photography I do - and that lens might surprise you.
Before I dive any deeper, I will admit that I always bring a small 35mm prime lens on every trip. Why? Because my 35mm lens uses very little space in my camera sling, offers a lightweight camera set up for walking around town, and provides arguably the best focal length for travel photography. But, despite having a great 35mm prime lens for travel, I sometimes need to take shots that are a bit wider than 35mm or much more zoomed in. This, my friends, is where the best Sony Lens for travel photography comes into play: the Sony FE 24-105 F4 G OSS lens.
Features
The Sony FE 24-105 G OSS lens features a constant F4 aperture throughout the zoom range. Though there are other zoom lenses in Sony’s lineup that offer a wider constant aperture, they are typically more expensive. Unless you’re snapping a lot of low light photos on your travels, an F4 aperture should be more than sufficient for most travel photography situations.
The main feature of the Sony FE 24-105 G OSS lens is really its focal range. Offering, of course, a zoom range from 24mm all the way to 105mm, the lens provides travel photographers with an incredible amount of versatility all in one fairly small package. Think about it. You can capture a wide angle shot of an epic mountain landscape, snap a zoomed in environmental lifestyle portrait of your travel partner, and then zoom in even further to compress the mountain peaks, making them look massive without ever changing your lens.
In addition, the Sony 24-105 lens features a 77mm filter thread size, which is a standard size, allowing you to easily find filters for your new lens. The lens also includes a focus hold button, lens hood and OSS, or Optical SteadyShot, which is Sony’s built-in image stabilization technology. OSS can come in handy when shooting photos with a slower shutter speed. If you’re into travel videography as well, OSS will help you film steadier video clips too, meaning you can likely leave your heavy gimbal at home.
Build Quality
Like all Sony G lenses, the Sony FE 24-105 F4 G OSS lens is built solidly. The body is made from a really strong and durable plastic. The zoom ring is constructed out of a really high quality ribbed rubber, allowing you to easily grip the ring and change your focal length. In addition, the lens hood is also made of a fairly strong and sturdy plastic. All-in-all, the Sony FE 24-105 G OSS lens feels like one of Sony’s premium lenses - without the expensive price tag of their G Master line.
Most importantly, the Sony FE 24-105 F4 G OSS lens is resistant to weather and dust. While you should still be careful when snapping photos in the rain, sand or snow (your camera is still an electronic device, after all), built-in weather sealing provides you with a bit more peace of mind when you’re out capturing your adventures, as you know the lens will likely be able to handle a bit of rain or ocean spray if you’re on a rocky boat ride.
Image Quality
There are a ton of reviews out there that dive into this lens’s image quality, so I won’t dive too deep into the subject. I will, however, provide a bit of feedback in regards to the Sony 24-105’s image quality for travel photography in particular.
When snapping landscape photos with a wide focal length (24-35mm), the Sony FE 24-105 F4 G OSS lens captures every detail sharply, especially if you are using a higher aperture like F8 or F11. Even if you snap wide landscape shots with an F4 aperture, the details still come out looking crisp across the frame.
When you zoom in a bit to snap portraits or detail shots, the Sony 24-105’s sharpness again comes into play. In fact, the Sony 24-105 is so sharp when snapping portraits that it has become my go-to portrait photography lens. Sure, Sony’s 24-70 F2.8 G Master lenses offer a wider aperture (for more money), allowing you to create a nice background blur behind your subject when you’re zoomed into 70mm. But what the Sony 24-105 lacks in aperture it makes up for in zoom capability. If you set the lens to an aperture of F4 and snap portraits zoomed in at 85mm or even 105mm, the lens creates, in my opinion, a level of compression, background blur and subject separation that rivals an F2.8 lens zoomed into 70mm.
If you snap your images in RAW (which you should!), the photos come out looking fairly desaturated. This isn’t a bad thing though, as it gives you more room to dial in your edits in Lightroom.
Travel Practicality
The Sony FE 24-105 F4 G OSS lens is one of the best lenses for travel photography because it offers an incredibly versatile zoom range with a constant F4 aperture. When you’re on the road, you’re typically presented with a ton of different photo opportunities very quickly. Having such an extensive zoom range all in one lens makes capturing all of your epic travel moments so much easier and faster, ensuring you don’t miss anything. As mentioned above, you can literally go from snapping a wide angle landscape shot of a mountainous scene to a zoomed in portrait of your travel partner and the mountain peaks all within a few seconds!
For what this lens offers, it’s also fairly compact. This means that you can carry it around with you all day on your adventuress without being too fussed about its weight.
As mentioned earlier, the lens is also durable and offers weather resistance. This is key for travel photography, as you may be exposed to rain, dust, snow and even (cringes while typing) sand. The Sony 24-105 allows you to capture all of your travel photos, no matter the elements, with confidence.
And, of course, because of this lens’s incredible versatility, you could literally bring just this one lens on your trip and be fine. Say goodbye to back pain!
Potential Cons
Well, maybe before you say goodbye to back pain, we should dive into a few potential cons of the Sony FE 24-105 F4 G OSS lens. To start, the lens is fairly compact for a lens with this zoom range, but it still weighs 663 grams. That is not a light lens by any means. So, if you are planning on carrying this lens around your neck all day, it could start to feel heavy. A solid camera strap can help alleviate the weight, but you’ll still likely notice the lens as you go about your day.
Secondly, the lens isn’t cheap. Sure, it’s cheaper than Sony’s G Master lenses, but it’s still around $1,750 CAD. Now, I’d argue that you get a whole lot of camera lens for that price. And, if you are planning on using this as your main camera lens, the price is more justifiable. But whether or not the lens is worth it will come down to your own budget and needs as a travel photographer.
Sony FE 24-105 F4 G OSS Lens - Verdict
The Sony FE 24-105 F4 G OSS lens is one of the best all-in-one travel photography lenses for Sony users. The lens offers an incredibly generous focal range, allowing you to snap wide angle landscape shots, environmental portraits and detail photos. Its F4 constant aperture works well in most lighting scenarios, and you can still create smooth, blurry backgrounds by zooming in on your subjects. The lens is also very durable and weather sealed, ensuring you can can bring your camera and lens on most adventures. Though the lens can be heavy if you carry it around for hours, it’s still fairly lightweight considering the zoom range it provides. And, if it becomes your one and only travel lens, your camera backpack will also become much lighter as well.
Grab your Sony FE 24-105 F4 G OSS lens here! Please note: This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.