Sony FE 85mm f/1.8 reviews roundup: is it worth the price?
Released in 2017, the Sony 85mm f/1.8 is a prime-lens designed for Sony Full frame mirroless cameras, with a fixed aperture of f/1.8. It’s mostly intended for portrait photographers. It features a customizable focus lock button, and it’s weather resistant.
If you own a Sony APS-C E-mount camera body like an a6400 or an a6500, you’ll be able to use it and it will give a focal range of 127mm.
Specs:
- Mount: Sony E mount
- Optical stabilization: No
- Weather sealed: Yes
- Weight: 371g
- Min. aperture: f/1.8
- Max. aperture: f/22
- Minimum focus distance: 0.8m
- Filter size: 67mm
- Wide F1.8 maximum aperture enables beautiful defocusing effects
- 9-blade circular aperture creates beautiful round defocused bokeh
- ED glass element for corner-to-corner sharpness,Minimum Focus Distance:2.63 feet (0.8 m)
What do the critics think of the Sony 85mm f/1.8?
Most of the reviews on the web say that the Sony 85mm f/1.8 is a great portrait lens for Sony mirrorless cameras. It producs exceptionally sharp images with a superb bokeh effect, it’s compact and lightweight, focusing is silent and precise, and it’s dust and moisture resistant. So if you need a very good travel lens for portraits and landscapes, that’s a must-have!
The only downside that come up most often in the reviews is that there’s no image stabilization integrated… but now most of Sony’s Full frame mirrorless cameras have in-body image stabilisation.
Most reviews like…
- Exceptional sharpness
- Smooth bokeh
- Fast and silent autofocus
- Small and lightweight
- Not expensive
- Dust and moisture resistant
Most reviews don’t like…
- No image stabilization
- Some vignetting
For more infos about the positive and negatives sides of the Sony 85mm f/1.8, check out the selection of reviews below:
Websites Reviews
Enthusiastphotoblog.com – 9/10 – (‘There is absolutely nothing negative to say about the Sony 85mm F/1.8. The build quality is a nice compromise to keep the weight down and the addition of a focus hold button is very useful. In terms of image quality, there are really no faults. Distortion, vignetting, flare, purple fringing are not significant issues even in uncorrected files.’)
Pcmag.com – 4.5/5 – EXCELLENT (‘The Sony FE 85mm F1.8 is an affordable lens in a focal length ideal for portraits. Images are crisp, with pleasing blurred backgrounds when shot at a wide aperture.’)
Photographyblog.com – ★★★★½ Highly recommended (‘The Sony 85mm f/1.8 is a very competent, lightweight and affordable portrait prime lens for the Sony full-frame mirrorless cameras. This compact optic delivers excellent sharpness in the centre of the frame almost throughout its aperture range, even performing well wide-open, although you’ll need to stop down quite a lot to get similar quality at the edges of the frame.’)
Thephoblographer.com – 5/5 Editor’s Choice Award – (‘This is in many ways, the absolute most perfect portrait lens for most Sony camera users. If you don’t need or can afford the 85mm f1.4 G Master lens, then the Sony 85mm f1.8 FE lens is a fantastic option. It’s sharp, has less saturated colors, focuses pretty well with most cameras and it has weather resistance. But it’s also small and offered at a pretty affordable price point.’)
Ephotozine.com – ✪✪✪✪½ Highly Recommended – (‘The Sony FE 85mm f/1.8 lens is superb to use, and also superb in many ways in terms of its performance. The lower cost compared to most 85mm lens does not seem to have reduced the performance at all. So full credit to Sony for achieving this. The one weakness is the tendency to flare against the light, which is a shame, but it need not be a deal breaker, depending on the sort of image making we do. To summarise, an excellent performance from a well-priced lens and one that can easily be Highly Recommended.’)
Amazon users reviews
- Wide F1.8 maximum aperture enables beautiful defocusing effects
- 9-blade circular aperture creates beautiful round defocused bokeh
- ED glass element for corner-to-corner sharpness,Minimum Focus Distance:2.63 feet (0.8 m)