A decade after the start of the E-mount camera system and Sony has become quite accustomed to making 50mm lenses for mirrorless bodies. The company’s latest effort, the 50mm f / 1.2 G Master, is the most ambitious and satisfying.
For so many 50mm lenses that Sony has released, surprisingly, it is only now that it has declared a design worthy of the “G Master” moniker and fitted it with the highest quality glass elements that the company can produce. However, good things are coming to those who wait, because unlike early G Master lenses with outdated autofocus motors and bulkier builds, the 50mm f / 1.2 GM lens is compact for its class and has the internal components that make it. protect for years to come.
Build quality
I use the word compact, but for all purposes, that might not be the word you would use. What I mean is that Nikon and Canon have already released 50mm f / 1.2 full frame mirrorless lenses, and the Canon and Sony are much smaller than the Nikon, and the Sony is thinner than the Barrel but also slightly longer at 3.4 by 4.3 inches (87 x 108 millimeters). When it comes to weight, the Sony is the lightest of the bunch at 1.7 pounds (778 grams).
It’s a new era of camera lenses, and Sony has found a way to remove all the unnecessary hardware around optical design and autofocus motors so that the lens casually adapts to your needs. most places where you have already stored your typical goals. I took this lens with me to Hawai’i inside both a Pelican holster on the plane and a Shimoda backpack on the ground, and there was no special concession to make when I placed it in places already dug for a medium sized lens. I have the feeling that the same cannot be said of the giant Nikon 50mm f / 1.2.
As far as handling the lens goes, it’s a comfortable fit that’s not very heavy with a few different touch buttons and rings to manipulate. There is a large, smooth focus ring on the front and back, there are focus hold buttons, a focus mode switch to switch between autofocus and focus manual point, and an opening deactivation switch. Closest to the lens mount is the physical aperture ring which runs through the entire aperture range in a quarter turn if you find that useful. Otherwise, it can be set to “A” and the camera regains control.
The copy I had had a problem that I have encountered countless times with rented Sony lenses, and that is that the lens hood was a bit hard to put on. The bayonet holder deteriorates either by accidentally putting the cover askew or trying to remove it without holding the release button on the side. Sony added a nice touch of grippy rubber to the outer edge of this cover, so at least we have it.
Image quality
The 50mm f / 1.2 GM features three XA elements found only in Sony’s G Master lenses, as well as the latest Nano AR Coating II. The optical performance of the lens is exceptional with both well-controlled distortion and vignetting and no hint of color fringing throughout my real-world testing. The sharpness seems to be there over the entire opening range. All lenses usually have a ‘discomfort’ to be aware of, but after using this lens for a few weeks, nothing like this developed in my mind when I pulled it out.
Its performance is solid, and that continues with the reliable autofocus system. Even at f / 1.2, the Sony lens rushes through the focus range to track the subject thanks in part to the four XD linear autofocus motors inside driving the focus group to front and back.
As you can imagine, tracking autofocus with such a fine depth of field is an all-or-nothing quest. For the most part, I used the lens paired with the Sony a7C, which wouldn’t be anyone’s first choice for the fastest autofocus. Still, the lens was able to retain moving subjects thanks to focus tracking, even at the shallowest depth of field.
The close focus distance of this lens is 15.7 inches (40 centimeters), and although it is far from macro with a maximum magnification of 0.17x, the ability to erase the background sells the effect of isolating smaller subjects even in crowded environments.
Photographers will use an ultra-wide aperture for many different reasons, but there’s no denying that the pleasing characteristics of the “bokeh ball” are a strong selling point for many. With the Sony 50mm f / 1.2 GM, there is an 11-blade circular aperture and below are comparisons of the blur characteristics taken between f / 1.2 and f / 8 at the close focus limit of the lens. . The top photo shows the full frame at f / 1.2. Underneath are planes which are the full frame vertically and the left half of the frame horizontally.
Wide open at the f / 1.2 aperture, the cat’s eye effect near the edges of the frame is most important, but hardly a distraction or enough to qualify as “adding character” to an image. At f / 2.8 we see a nice bokeh, even circular, on the frame. The whole aperture range is free from onion washer effects inside bokeh balls or any kind of pronounced impurities. Some might consider it sterile, but it’s hard to argue that it’s not impressive.
A chef’s kiss for Sony
It’s hard not to look down when Sony announces a new 50mm after the FE 50mm f / 1.8, E 50mm f / 1.8, 50mm f / 2.8 Macro, 55mm f / 1.8, 50mm f / 1.4 and 50 mm f / 2.5, but clearly the company was ready to do something really stand out with the 50mm f / 1.2 GM.
It feels lighter and smaller than it should in the hand, which only adds to the impressive performance of its image quality and autofocus. And after paying the Sony premium for years, at $ 2,000, it’s actually the cheapest full-frame 50mm f / 1.2 mirrorless option compared to Canon and Nikon.
Are there any alternatives?
No. As for a 50mm f / 1.2 full frame lens for Sony E-mount cameras, that’s it for now.
If you have a Sony crop sensor camera, there are alternatives when it comes to number matching in the $ 280 Rokinon and $ 100 TTArtisan 50mm f / 1.2 lenses, but I’m sure those companies would admit. also that they are not meant to be head-to-head competitors against a $ 2,000 Sony lens.
Is the f / 1.2 aperture the most important component of the datasheet for you? If that’s the case, there’s a full-frame Sigma 35mm f / 1.2 lens that could eventually replace $ 1,500.
However, if you are looking for a fast 50mm lens, there are more options when you lose a half stop at f / 1.4. Sigma makes the Art HSM 50mm f / 1.4 DG lens for $ 800, Rokinon has a more budget option for $ 450, and in the Sony family there’s the Planar T * FE 50mm f / 1.4 ZA for 1,500 $.
Should you buy it?
Yes. The specs are unmatched in the Sony system, there’s no disappointment with the image quality, and it’s a lens that has use everywhere you go. It’s an easy choice.