Photographer Terrance Lam’s friend recently purchased Sony’s entire line of pro G Master lenses. Curious about how the cost stacks up against other ecosystems, Lam decided to do some research and find out how much equivalent camera and lens kits cost for other brands.

“[My friend] was curious about the wisdom of [his purchase],” says Lam, a marketing consultant and professional photographer based in British Columbia, Canada.

Lam looked up current non-sale prices from B&H for the most popular pro lenses and camera bodies for each system (excluding some newer full-frame mirrorless models that don’t have a wide range of equivalent lenses yet).

For each brand, Lam included the following:

• 24mm F/1.4
• 50mm F/1.2 or F/1.4
• 85mm F/1.2 or F/1.4
• 90mm or 100mm Macro
• 135mm F/1.8 or F/2
• 16-35mm or 14-24mm F/2.8
• 24-70mm F/2.8
• 70-200mm F/2.8
• 100-400mm F/5.6
• Popular Pro Body

Here are the individual and total costs that resulted:















Here’s a summary of the total cost Lam came to for each brand:

• Sony FE: $20,380
• Canon EF: $18,590
• Nikon F: $19,014
• Pentax K: $13,073
• Leica L: $39,738
• Panasonic L: $23,657
• Fuji XF (APS-C): $12,940
• Olympus/Panasonic (MFT): $12,986

“Pentax is hugely a winner as the lowest cost full frame system to buy into,” Lam tells PetaPixel. “While I only included Fuji for APS-C as I feel it’s got the best balance of pro and lens quality.”