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GEAR / 43
SONY FE 24-50MM F/2.8 G
Everyday zoom that does it all
£1149
sony.com
The new Sony FE 24-50mm f/2.8 G lens brings pro image quality to a compact form factor. At 440g, it’s the smallest and lightest constant f/2.8 zoom Sony has ever produced for full- frame. Yet it delivers sharp, contrast- rich images that rival larger optics. Of course, the compromise is its marginally different focal length range to what is the norm of ‘standard zooms’ of 24-70mm. What you lose at the long end, however, you gain at the wider end. So, it is less of a portrait lens and more of a wide-angle landscape or, dare we say it, vloggers’ selfie lens. At least now you have a choice, and the £1149 24-50mm is a lot less hefty than a £1799 Sony 24- 70mm f/2.8 G Master II. Optically, it’s built on 16 elements in 13 groups, including four aspherical and two ED (extra-low dispersion) elements, a combination that keeps distortion and fringing low while maintaining edge-to-edge resolution. When wide open, the lens renders a smooth bokeh courtesy of its 11-blade diaphragm, and it focuses as close as 18cm for near-macro detail with a 0.33x magnification. In use, it feels agile and precise. The new dual linear AF motors are fast, silent and accurate, which is a big plus for both stills and video shooters. And as it’s a Sony lens,
there’s no cap on the frame rate in stills. Mounted on the Sony A9 III, the lens can track subjects at up to 120fps, maintaining full AF performance even when stopped down. Videographers benefit from minimal focus breathing, smooth aperture control thanks to a de-clickable iris ring, and full support for dynamic/active mode stabilisation and breathing compensation on compatible cameras. Ergonomically, it’s a joy. The zoom and focus rings both move smoothly, there’s a programmable focus-hold button and the weather-sealed build inspires confidence outdoors.
The Sony FE 24-50mm f/2.8 G feels like a modern classic in the making – a compact, reliable, high- quality zoom that covers most real- world scenarios.
Verdict A stunning lens that delivers a truly unique look when shot wide open and incredibly detailed images when closed down. Fast to focus, but it is big, heavy, pricey and not ideal for video shooters Features 23/25 Sadly no image stabilisation, but a de-clickable and very fast aperture, 13 iris blades Handling 23/25 It’s a big and heavy unit that dwarfs mirrorless cameras, but does have good control buttons and hood Performance 24/25 Totally stunning and original in every way, apart from focus breathing Value for money 21/25 It’s not a lens you will use every day, but when you do it delivers in bucketloads Overall rating 91/100 Another unique optic from Sigma that could transform your images, but at a cost and weight that might be too much for some Pros Image quality, fast AF, impressive bokeh Cons Heavy, lots of focus breathing Performance in practice The large lens hood reduces flare and ghosting, even with strong backlight. The biggest caveat to the lens is its size and weight. While the build is solid, it’s not a grab-and-go lens like a small prime. Portability-wise, other models might edge it, but optically it has very few compromises. It lacks image stabilisation, but it’s not really needed. For video shooters, while it produces cinematic images at wide apertures, if you rack focus between ends the viewpoint changes significantly. This focus breathing is our only gripe about the performance of this great lens.
CREATIVE CHOICE A shot taken at f/5 (top) versus one at f/1.4 (bottom) shows the power of a fast aperture
Verdict
Overall rating: 9/10 It may be small, but it delivers a balance of portability, speed and image quality worthy of Sony’s respected G badge
EXCIRE SEARCH 2026
Next-level search in Lightroom
£199
excire.com
massive, took several days running overnight to fully ingest the info. But with almost half a million photos, that’s understandable. It’s best to do it in smaller batches, but once it’s done the software’s very fast. Search for ‘man drinking champagne’ and it finds the exact photo instantly. Excire Search 2026 adds a fresh search panel into Lightroom Classic, offering direct access to functions such as text-prompt search, face/ people search and similarity matching without leaving your catalogue. The plug-in now supports intelligent focus and sharpness detection, flagging
images where faces are in focus or eyes are open, to help you isolate the best frames. I shoot lots of high-speed frames of things such as motorcycle racing, and the software groups them into a single collection so I can quickly pick out the best. It’s a real time-saver. The freshness of using natural language rather than only keywords earns the software major points. Plus integration with Lightroom’s metadata means flagged results can appear directly in your workflow. Excire has an excellent series of video tutorials to get you going or help you dig deep.
As a long-time Adobe Lightroom Classic user but recent convert to Excire’s Foto 25 software for managing my vast photo archive, it was a natural upgrade to try out the new Excire Search 2026 plug-in. With a free trial to see if you like it and then a one- time payment of £199, it is a clever, AI-driven program that helps you find, deduplicate and cull photos quickly. Plus it now works on video files, too, which is very handy. Downloading is easy but it does run on its own separate database to Excire Foto 25. So I had to initialise all my library which, because it’s so
Verdict
Overall rating: 8/10 Excire Search 2026 brings a next- generation set of AI tools directly into Lightroom Classic, making it much easier to cull, find and organise large image libraries
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