{"id":6588,"date":"2016-05-19T15:51:07","date_gmt":"2016-05-19T20:51:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/?p=6588"},"modified":"2024-09-05T16:28:02","modified_gmt":"2024-09-05T21:28:02","slug":"review-sony-fe-85mm-f1-4-gm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/review-sony-fe-85mm-f1-4-gm\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Sony FE 85mm f\/1.4 GM"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today I’m looking at another lens from Sony’s new G Master series of professional-grade optics, the FE 85mm f\/1.4 GM.  This is the only prime currently in the GM series of lenses, and fills a need for many professional shooters, providing a very fast f\/1.4 aperture in the classic 85mm focal length.  The FE 24-70mm f\/2.8 GM<\/a> that I reviewed a few weeks ago was outstanding, so I had high hopes for the 85mm f\/1.4 as well. Sony has a bit of a tall order to impress with this lens, however, with the outstanding Zeiss Batis 85mm f\/1.8 <\/a>already present in the lineup, and many excellent options for Canon EF mount that can be used with adapters. With an $1,800 price tag, it’s priced in line with other fast portrait primes from Canon and Nikon, but how does it perform?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/a>
The Sony FE 85mm f\/1.4 GM on the Sony A7 II<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re not familiar with my reviews, I review from a real world shooting perspective. You won\u2019t find lens charts or resolution numbers here. There are plenty of other sites that cover those. I review products on how they act for me as a photographic tool.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Construction and Handling<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

As you’d expect from Sony’s premium G Master line, the 85mm f\/1.4 GM is a very solidly constructed lens, with an exterior construction featuring very high-grade plastics around a metal core that is extremely well put together.  This is a hefty lens, with lots of glass and a very dense frame, but it’s all very well assembled.  There is no flex or creaking anywhere on the lens body, and all the controls move smoothly and positively. The relatively large size and weight of the lens do make it a bit more awkward to handle than some of the smaller lenses for the FE system, but the body flares in towards the lens mount to prevent any issues with clearance around the grip. This is a lens that may feel a bit front heavy on the older A7 style grip, but the deeper Mark II grip feels very nice with the 85mm f\/1.4 mounted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just like the 24-70mm f\/2.8 GM, the foam rubber sealing gasket at the rear of the lens is nice in theory, but it doesn’t actually make contact with the lens mount, making it cosmetic more than functional.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Sony<\/a>
Sony 85mm f\/1.4 GM with the included lens hood<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The lens comes with a reversible lens hood that locks into place and requires pressing a button on the side to release. The front of the hood is slightly rubberized,which adds a nice touch.  The manual focus ring moves smoothly and is well damped. Continuing Sony’s oddly schizophrenic control scheme, the 85mm f\/1.4 GM features an aperture ring. I love aperture rings, and they are one of the things that I really love about Fuji’s lenses. However, with Sony, I just don’t get it.  The 85mm f\/1.4 is one of only two autofocus lenses for FE mount that have aperture rings. (The other is the Zeiss FE 35mm f\/1.4). Because of that, it’s hard to get adjusting the aperture ring into your muscle memory.  It can be good for video, though, as the lens allows you to declick the aperture ring and have smooth adjustment of aperture for video work. The other switch on the lens body is the manual \/ auto focus switch on the left side.  Finally, like many G series lenses, the 85mm f\/1.4 has a lens-mounted function button that by default will freeze autofocus functionality, so as not to refocus between shots – a handy feature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Sony<\/a>
Sony 85mm f\/1.4 GM – note the aperture declicking switch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Autofocus<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

With large glass elements to move, the 85mm f\/1.4 isn’t the world’s fastest focusing lens, but provided you’re updated your Sony camera to the latest firmware, it does a fairly decent job.  On the older firmware, it seems that phase-detect AF isn’t used, but upon updating the camera, the full hybrid autofocus system is in use, and the lens locks focus at a reasonably quick speed, though few would call it ‘fast.’  When shooting in dim light at smaller apertures, focus can slow down a fair bit, but it still maintained very good accuracy in my testing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lens focuses quickly enough to track subjects in continuous autofocus as long as they aren’t moving particularly quickly.  People walking, or moving more laterally than front to back can be tracked with sufficient accuracy to be genuinely useful, though faster subjects moving towards or away from the camera will produce a much lower in-focus hit rate than with some other, faster focusing lenses. I feel most people buying this lens will not generally be using for high-speed action, so for most shooters, this won’t be a major issue.  For typical portrait, landscape and event shooting, I think it will do just fine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lens does make noise when focusing, however.  You may have read about reports that state that the lens makes an audible scraping sound during focusing.  I’m not sure I’d describe the sound as a scraping noise, but the motor and element movement is definitely audible, which is surprising a lens of this class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continue: Image Quality<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Image Quality<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

With a $1,800 price tag, the Sony 85mm f\/1.4 GM positions itself as a professional-grade optic, and I’m very pleased to report that I found the lens to be optically stellar.  Let’s get into detail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sharpness<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The 85mm f \/1.4 GM, as you would hope, is a very sharp lens.  It’s not only sharp stopped down a bit, which you’d expect, but it is very sharp across the entire frame right from f\/1.4.  While it’s not at maximum sharpness wide open, the level of resolution at f\/1.4 is comparable to the best fast portrait primes from any manufacturer.  It’s on par with the Batis 85mm f\/1.8, it’s a bit better than the Canon 85mm f\/1.2, and should satisfy even the most picky pixel peepers for wide-aperture sharpness.  If you look at the comparison I did <\/a>between a few portrait primes, you’ll see 100% crops throughout the aperture range, showing the very good corner sharpness even at f\/1.4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"White<\/a>
White Flowers – Sony A7 II with Sony 85mm f\/1.4 GM @ f\/3.5<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Stopping down to just f\/2 brings almost the whole frame to razor-sharp territory, and stopping down further does little to increase sharpness, since it’s already on such a high level. That level is maintained until around f\/11, where diffraction effects take a small edge off. Click here<\/a> for a 100% crop of the image above, taken at f\/3.5. There is one thing to watch out for, however.  When stopping down beyond f\/2, the corners show a very small bit of field curvature, such that on a flat subject, the corners will be a bit softer at f\/2.8 than they are at f\/2. For most subjects this should be a complete non-issue, but it’s there and may be worth keeping in mind if you’re shooting flat subjects at a moderate distance for reproduction work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bokeh<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

With the fast f\/1.4 aperture and the classic 85mm portrait focal length, the character of the out of focus areas is of primary concern in a lens such as this. Often, lenses that are extremely sharp, as 85mm GM is, have trouble keeping that beautifully creamy bokeh that many crave in a fast 85mm lens.  However, the 85mm GM has simply stellar bokeh, throughout the aperture range and distance range.  Wide open, the bokeh is exceptionally smooth, with a lovely creamy quality that just looks fantastic.  Stop the lens down and the lens maintains a very even and neutral bokeh, with evenly illuminated specular highlights and no real nervousness anywhere. It’s truly an outstanding lens, and the smooth bokeh with high sharpness really makes images pop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Self<\/a>
Self Portrait – Sony A7 II with Sony 85mm f\/1.4 GM @ f\/1.4 – Bokeh remains smooth, even in this very challenging situation with dappled sunlight on leaves and branches in the background.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Color, Contrast and Chromatic Aberration<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

As you can tell from the first two image samples shown on this page, the 85mm f\/1.4 GM maintains very good contrast and rich color saturation, even at f\/1.4.  There is no loss of contrast when opening the lens aperture, and stopped down, the images are crisp and punchy.  Colors are deep and vibrant, with a neutral color cast and excellent response in skin tones.  There’s really not a lot to talk about here, as I can’t fault the lens in this department at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, like many fast lenses, there are some minor issues with chromatic aberration. Lateral CA is actually controlled quite well, with only the very slightest bit of red\/blue CA visible in some circumstances, though you really need to be on the lookout for it.  However, it does show some longitudinal CA, with a magenta fringe on out of focus areas in front of the focus point, and a green-blue fringe on out of focus areas behind the focus point. The Sony controls this better than some fast portrait lenses I’ve used, but the GM isn’t able to eliminate it entirely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Distortion, Flare and Vignetting<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The Sony 85mm GM shows a small amount of pincushion distortion that will be visible when shooting architectural subjects with lots of straight lines.  Aside from shooting architecture, I didn’t notice the distortion in my daily shooting. Applying the Sony provided lens profile in Lightroom, Capture One or in the JPEG images will quickly and cleanly remove any visible distortion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Flare is generally very well controlled with this lens.  With bright lights or the sun in the frame, in most positions, contrast is only minimally affected, and ghosting is all but invisible.  Put the sun in one of the corners, however, and you can get the lens to show some multicolored flare away from the center of the frame into the corner, as can be seen in the shot below on a hazy day. In a clear sky, the multicolored flares become even more visible with the sun in this position, but considering the type of lens this is, it’s a very minor issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Hazy<\/a>
Hazy Skyline – Sony A7 II with Sony 85mm f\/1.4 GM @ f\/11<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

One area that is quite notable is the vignetting this lens produces.  As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not one who generally minds vignetting. The 85mm GM shows a relatively high level of vignetting at f\/1.4, but in my opinion it’s also quite pleasing.  If you do not like vignetting, you’ll definitely need post-processing correction of the shading towards the corners. Vignetting improves upon stopping down, but is still slightly visible even at f\/5.6.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continue: Conclusion and Image Samples<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Conclusion<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Pros<\/h4>\n\n\n\n