I eventually pulled the trigger on this lens. For certain type of video shooting, power zoom is a must. Fashion show, performance on the stage, conference, etc. If you go to those event with a normal zoom lens, your footage is not ok. It is either you are stuck with one focal length or you try to zoom the photo lens and the result is just not acceptable. But when we look at consumer world, there is no alternative to this lens in any system (at least before canon 24-105 f2.8 with the power zoom unit) and if you do not want go with camcorder way. Buy a Sony camera with this 28-135 is the only choice. I do want to give it a 5 stars for how unique and essential this lens is. But due to the outdated design and average optical quality, I just can not. The power zoom is very slow even at maxiam speed (control it by how much force you push the leveler). The manual zoom operation is pretty much useless to me. The feedback is just too lagging. The manual focus feedback is bad (in auto focus position). And the focus tracking while zoom in and out is not always spot on. I guess it is not optimize for that back then. And the resolution just not on par with recent Sony lens. Decent for 4k. That's being said I can not live without this Lens. The price is right for what it is. And there is simply no alternative in any brand. In my lens collection, I think this is the lens that I wanted an updated version badly.

This is an excellent lens. I use to own another one but sold it about 2 years ago to my assistant who needed one. I just got my new 28-135 lens in about 2 weeks ago and as usual, I still love it. We film stage and dance productions for many different companies. We need the reach we get from this lens. It has never let me down and I highly recommend it for filming. I use my new one on my Sony PXW FS7 MK 2 camera. The quality of this lens is outstanding. It has a great look too on the camera. This is definitely a 'must buy' item if you need the reach.

I bought this lens to pair with the FX6 after having used it years ago with FS7 cameras. While it is a good general use video lens that does exactly what it is supposed to, here in the future, I think it is a bit heavy and clunky. Because it makes my camera front heavy, and seemingly requiring me to build the whole system up to a "cinema" rig with rails and all that, I am not sure if I want to keep it. On the one hand, I love using my zoom rocker, but on the other, I could live without that and cut my camera's build weight in half by running a smaller photo lens. Ideally, Sony would release an 18/24mm - 105-135mm range PZ lens that is built to the size of a photo lens, like the newer PZ 16-35mm. With any luck we see something like that here in 2023! I know I will jump on that immediately if it comes out!