I’ve been thinking about which lens is my favourite, and I understood that I don’t have a single one. However, some of the lenses I currently own are my all-time favourites:

FE 90mm f/2.8 macro G
FE 16-35mm f/4 Zeiss
FE 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 GM

Their common feature is that they render the image in a way that I recognise as just perfect. The colours, the sharpness, the general impression, the utility for the purpose I’m using them for – they are perfect in a sense that they just click with me.

There are such lenses that I used to own but I no longer do, because I’m out of that system, but the only one I’m actually missing is the ZD 14-54mm f/2.8-3.5, because it functions in a role that will hopefully now be filled by the FE 24-105mm f/4 G which is on the way. All my other favourites, for the most part, have a Sony equivalent that’s either currently in my kit, or might be soon enough.

The fact that I have 3 of my all-time favourite lenses on 3 important functions in my kit is amazing, and I’m very happy with that. Also, the FE 15mm f/2.8 fisheye is very close to being counted as the fourth, if I look at its image quality alone. It has strong coma wide open which doesn’t look good when I take pictures of stars, but colours and sharpness are otherwise excellent.

There’s another thing I’ve been thinking about those favourites: the way they solved my photographic problems has a finality to it, in a sense that they are just right, and I can stop thinking about it. When I put either of those on my camera, I know the image is going to be technically as good as I need it to be, and the rest is up to me, and the luck I’m having with light and the motives that day. I like that feeling of finality that comes with having the perfect tool for the job, and that goes for the new A7RV camera as well – the fact that it can create pictures that look like large format E100G slides with the dynamic range of Portra, but with no grain or crud that comes with scanning film, and it can shoot multiple such frames per second, is something of a miracle in itself. Its resolution that is basically equivalent to the 4×5″ film scanned on a Heidelberg also makes a final statement of a sort – it is as much resolution and image quality as I will ever need. If I take a picture with that camera, and one of my favourite lenses, and I’m happy with the picture, that’s something that I won’t have to revisit with better equipment at a later date.