Sony's E 15mm F1.4 G Lens (Patreon)

For those of you who follow me on Facebook < https://www.facebook.com/mark.galer/ > you will know that I have been traveling in Europe since the beginning of August. You will also be aware that I am travelling light with my A7CII and A6700 compact cameras (leaving my larger A1 back home in Australia). You will also be aware that two of my most used lenses on this trip have been the new FE 85mm F1.4 GM II lens (a pre-production copy Sony have allowed me to travel with) and, perhaps more surprisingly, Sony's APS-C E 15mm F1.4 G lens.

The reason I chose the 15mm lens is because space in my small messenger bag (the Wotancraft Pilot 7L) was running a little tight, primarily because of the larger 85mm GM II lens I am carrying on this trip (compared to either the Sony FE 85mm F1.8 or Sigma 90mm F2.8 lenses I have used on previous trips when I am traveling very light).

The E 15mm F1.4 G lens, however, is a low-compromise lens when mounted on my A6700 camera and fulfils the role that my larger FE 20mm F1.8 G lens would normally perform on a full-frame body. When mounted on my A6700 camera it means that I don't have to switch lenses quite so often when changing between portrait and landscape focal lengths. The 15mm APS-C lens has a full-frame equivalent angle-of-view of 22.5mm and has an equivalent depth-of-field of F2.1 ...but retains the low-light performance of an F1.4 aperture lens ...to ensure the ISO is always kept very low (for maximum dynamic range). The lens is extremely sharp with the aperture wide-open and razor sharp when stopped down to F1.6 (as you can see from the examples posted. At 100 ISO most people would be hard-pressed to see any quality difference between a full-frame camera with the FE 20mm F1.8 G (an exceptionally sharp lens) and the A6700 with E 15mm F1.4 G lens. The full-frame sensor has a slightly better dynamic range (on paper) but this is hardly called into play as the dynamic range of the A6700 camera at ISO 100 is usually more than enough to render full detail in the darkest shadows and brightest highlights, in the vast majority of instances.

You can see ultra high-definition examples of these images (6K) on my Flickr pro site > https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjBCNrr

One of the regular comments I am receiving on my posts is:
1) Where are all the people in these busy locations?
2) Are you using Presets or Profiles to achieve the quality I am seeing in these images.

The answers are:

1) I often photograph at dawn when very few people are moving around and the air is often clear and still

2) Choosing clear days improves sharp detail and choosing to photograph early or late in the day improves colours. My post-production editing workflows (as outlined in my numerous Patron-only seminars also ensures the images 'pop').

I will be creating a Patron-only travel seminar later this year for this trip.
Check out my other travel seminars below:
1) Mighty Mekong: Travel Photography
Traveling light with the A6700 and the A7CII (including choice of lenses)

2) Patron-only Travel Seminar 2023
An extended look at how I have perfected the art of traveling light

I will leave the comments open for the next 24 hours on this post but you can then ask more questions about this trip on the Premium Plus Q&A forum.