Decentered 24-70mm GM ii

fboss said:

talu845 said:

Pulling up an old thread, but I wanted to contribute to this discussion with my own experiences of this lens.

I'm based in the UK and recently purchased the 24-70 GM2 and my experiences are broadly in line with yours and the Ops (not to mention a number of people at Fred Miranda) - there's clearly been a manufacturing fault with this lens as my first copy was exactly as others have found; soft / blurred right side, top right corner worst between 50mm and 70mm. Stopping down made the issue worse. I returned the lens and got a second copy with a very different serial number. Same problem: soft right side between 50mm and 70mm and mushy top right corner. I returned the lens for a refund.

As an alternative, I bought a 20-70mm f4 G instead and this lens is practically flawless for a zoom. Very sharp, great edges and corners, no blur / mushy right side.

I'm realistic about consumer zoom lenses and their potential flaws. I've read many articles on LensRentals that perfectly centred lenses are rare and that all zooms exhibit some amount of optical aberration to which I broadly agree - I've had more decentred lenses than non-decentred, but my 2 copies of the 24-70mm GM2 were more than decentred, they were badly off and would be obvious on my large landscape prints.

It's a real shame, because other than the issues as described, the GM2 rendering was lovely, nice punchy contrast right from f/2.8, very prime-like. I wanted to love it, but Sony's QC fell short for me on a lens costing $2000+. If they can my a 20-70 f4 G to be nearly perfect, it's surprising that the GM2 I had was so poor. Maybe something to do with the f/2.8 or the elements used to keep the size and weight down.

I hope you got to a resolution.

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That's not what I wanted to hear as I was going to try and order the 24-70 GM2 again... I can't believe this issue hasn't been fixed, this should be a design flaw.
By any chance do you remember the date on the sticker ?

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talu845 said:

I don't sorry

If you're planning to get one, buy from somewhere with a solid returns policy. Given the price of these lenses I expect the dealers don't sell many of these, so the stock is likely to be older batches that will exhibit the same flaw. I've even spotted soft right sides on samples over on Flickr. We may need to wait until a Mk3 version (could be years away) to get away from this.

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fboss said:

talu845 said:

I don't sorry

If you're planning to get one, buy from somewhere with a solid returns policy. Given the price of these lenses I expect the dealers don't sell many of these, so the stock is likely to be older batches that will exhibit the same flaw. I've even spotted soft right sides on samples over on Flickr. We may need to wait until a Mk3 version (could be years away) to get away from this.

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I have also seen some soft right sides on Flickr samples. I'm not sure it doesn't sell well. None of the reviews mentioned the issue, they all say it's basically the best 24-70mm 2.8 on the market today... Most buyers may not notice the issue right away and can miss the return window when they see it for the first time, and/or choose to ignore and enjoy the lens anyway.

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TLopez said:

Tried 2 copies and gave up. Went with the 20-70 in the end.

So disappointed as I wanted the GMII to work, on the plus side I’m enjoying the 20-70 much more than I thought I would. Used the money saved to pair it with a fast prime.

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