Top 10 Sony Lenses for Every Job | Articles | Photo, video, optics

Source: thephoblographer.com

Sony is one of the first com­pa­nies to bet on mir­ror­less cam­eras. Since 2010, the com­pa­ny has focused entire­ly on mir­ror­less, devel­op­ing one of the largest lines of mir­ror­less lens­es of any man­u­fac­tur­er. Also, Sony was the first to intro­duce its line of lens­es for full-frame mir­ror­less cam­eras.

Its sys­tem not only cov­ers prime focal lengths, but boasts a range of high­ly spe­cial­ized lens­es, such as the 600mm f/4, that you won’t find equiv­a­lents from oth­er man­u­fac­tur­ers.

We have com­piled a rank­ing of the best Sony lens­es for var­i­ous tasks: the best zooms (wide-angle and tele­pho­to), uni­ver­sal primes and por­traits, as well as macro lens­es. The rank­ing includes both Sony E‑mount APS‑C lens­es and full-frame FE lens­es.*

For each cat­e­go­ry, we used our own selec­tion cri­te­ria, because what is impor­tant for a wide-angle zoom may not be so impor­tant for a por­trait lens, but the bench­marks com­mon to all mod­els were: high sharp­ness, build reli­a­bil­i­ty and uni­ver­sal val­ue for mon­ey.

* Sony E lens­es designed for the com­pa­ny’s APS‑C cam­eras can also be used with full-frame mod­els, but in this case, the cam­era auto­mat­i­cal­ly applies a 1.5x crop. When dis­abled, be pre­pared for very intense vignetting. But FE lens­es work with­out any prob­lems with both APS‑C and Sony full-frame cam­eras.

Best all-around Sony prime lenses

Sony FE 35mm f/1.8

The Sony FE 35mm f/1.8 is one of the most ver­sa­tile primes in the com­pa­ny’s line­up, deliv­er­ing excel­lent sharp­ness wide open. At the same time, it is very com­pact and goes well with both full-frame and crop cam­eras.

Anoth­er impor­tant advan­tage is the excel­lent aut­o­fo­cus speed. The lens has nice soft bokeh, but you need to watch out for chro­mat­ic aber­ra­tions — green and pur­ple fring­ing can appear in high-con­trast scenes.

Sony FE 55mm f/1.8 ZA Zeiss Sonnar T

As an alter­na­tive, con­sid­er the Sony FE 55mm f/1.8 ZA Zeiss Son­nar T*. This 55mm prime deliv­ers incred­i­bly sharp images despite being one of the first FE-lined primes. On APS‑C sen­sors, its focal length will be equiv­a­lent to 85mm, which is per­fect for por­trait pho­tog­ra­phy.

The best Sony fixed lenses for portraits

Sony 85mm f/1.8

The Sony 85mm f/1.8 is a com­pact and afford­able por­trait lens with nice bokeh and good sharp­ness. Of course, in terms of optics, it is slight­ly behind its faster coun­ter­part 85mm f / 1.4 GM, but a sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ence in size and weight, and not least in price, makes 85mm f / 1.8 the best choice for por­trait pho­tog­ra­phy.

On crop cam­eras, it pro­vides a longer 128mm equiv­a­lent field of view, which is bet­ter suit­ed for head­shots.

Sony E 50mm f/1.8 OSS

If you’re look­ing for a more ver­sa­tile por­trait lens for a crop cam­era, the Sony E 50mm f/1.8 OSS is worth a look. On aver­age, it’s $100 more expen­sive than its full-frame coun­ter­part, the FE 50mm f/1.8, but boasts a stronger build (met­al ver­sus plas­tic) and opti­cal sta­bi­liza­tion.

Sony FE 16–35mm f/2.8GM

The Sony FE 16–35mm f/2.8 GM is a lens from the pre­mi­um GM-series (G Mas­ter), which boasts the high­est qual­i­ty of optics and body mate­ri­als. The main dis­ad­van­tage is that the price for them is two to three times high­er than for ordi­nary Sony glass­es.

16–35mm is an extreme­ly use­ful focal length range for all pho­tog­ra­phers, suit­able for land­scapes, wed­dings and envi­ron­men­tal por­traits. The lens is very sharp across the frame and at almost all focal lengths, even wide open. In gen­er­al, the max­i­mum aper­ture of 2.8 allows this Sony lens to work in low light. Experts at DXO­Mark call the 16–35mm f/2.8 the best wide-angle zoom of any man­u­fac­tur­er, with sharp­ness that eas­i­ly leaves any com­peti­tor behind.

Sony E 10–18mm f/4 OSS

As an alter­na­tive for APS‑C cam­eras, the Sony E 10–18mm f/4 OSS is a com­pact wide-angle lens that will be more bal­anced with crop bod­ies, unlike the rather rather big 16–35mm f/2.8. It main­tains an aper­ture of f/4 through­out the zoom range and also pro­vides opti­cal image sta­bi­liza­tion.

Sony’s Best Telephoto Zoom Lenses

Sony FE 100–400mm f/4.5–5.6 GM OSS

Anoth­er rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the GM line in our rank­ing, the Sony FE 100–400mm f/4.5–5.6 GM OSS, like its wide-angle coun­ter­part, offers excel­lent sharp­ness through­out the focal length range. In addi­tion, it also focus­es very quick­ly, which is impor­tant for a tele­pho­to zoom, mak­ing it a great choice for sports and wildlife pho­tog­ra­phy.

Sony E 55–210mm f/4.5–6.3 OSS

And again, for a crop cam­era, you can choose a more com­pact and light­weight option, in con­trast to the almost kilo­gram 100–400mm f / 4.5–5.6. Among the advan­tages of the Sony E 55–210mm f/4.5–6.3 OSS (apart from a small weight of 345 grams) is a very afford­able price (17 thou­sand rubles at the time of writ­ing), but the max­i­mum aper­ture of f/4.5–6.3 can be a prob­lem in poor light­ing .

Best Sony Macro Lenses

Sony FE 50mm f/2.8 Macro

The excel­lent qual­i­ty of the Sony FE 50mm f / 2.8 Macro optics, excel­lent sharp­ness, com­pact­ness and rea­son­able price (50 thou­sand at the time of writ­ing) are the strengths of this macro lens. Per­haps the only tan­gi­ble draw­back is a some­what close focal length, which is not suit­able for any object (you risk fright­en­ing off a beau­ti­ful but­ter­fly).

Sony FE 90mm f/2.8 Macro G OSS

If you still pre­fer a longer focal length for your macro shots, the Sony FE 90mm f/2.8 Macro G OSS is prob­a­bly the best alter­na­tive. The lens uses opti­cal image sta­bi­liza­tion so you can still shoot hand­held, while lin­ear response man­u­al focus great­ly improves focus con­trol. The main dis­ad­van­tage of this macro lens is the high price (about 100 thou­sand at the time of writ­ing).

Pho­tog­ra­ph­er Eka­te­ri­na Mokhnache­va, author of the pop­u­lar Insta­gram project Chron­i­cles of Peters­burg, has been shoot­ing with Sony FE 16–35mm f/2.8 GM and FE 85mm f/1.8 for two years now. Here’s what she says about these lens­es:

“Sony lens­es are love. Real ter­mi­na­tors in the world of optics. Tena­cious, nim­ble, sharp as a razor. Aut­o­fo­cus is every­thing. These are the only glass­es in my arse­nal that reduce focus miss­es to zero. What gives me a com­plete sense of free­dom and relax­ation, so with them I know that any plot is under my con­trol.

The Sony FE 16–35mm f/2.8 GM has become my go-to cam­era for the past year thanks to its abil­i­ty to take on the tough­est chal­lenges of archi­tec­tur­al land­scape pho­tog­ra­phy and reflec­tions. A very ambi­tious glass with incred­i­ble detail in all con­di­tions.

The Sony FE 85mm f/1.8 was orig­i­nal­ly pur­chased as the most afford­able and afford­able por­trait lens, with­out high expec­ta­tions. A bonus was its light­ness and com­pact­ness. In fact, it became my favorite, con­quer­ing with atmos­pher­ic non-triv­ial bokeh. In com­bi­na­tion with flaw­less aut­o­fo­cus, we get real mag­ic at an open aper­ture.