Sony FE 100mm F2.8 Macro GM OSS Review

The number of first party macro lenses on Sony’s full frame E-mount have been limited, with the 90mm F2.8 Macro G OSS standing out as the main entry. I belatedly reviewed it back in 2020, but it was already 3 years old then. That means that it has been 8 years since Sony has released a new macro lens. But they’ve done much more than that. The other frequent petition in the photography community was for a G Master level macro lens, though some of us wondered what exactly Sony could do to truly distinguish a GM level macro lens, as many macro lenses have excellent performance and even features. True innovation in the macro lens space is rare…but Sony has managed to do something very special here. The new Sony FE 100mm F2.8 Macro GM OSS manages to bring some new value to the equation: it can natively do 1.4:1 macro (1.4x), but it is also fully compatible with Sony’s 1.4x and 2x teleconverters, expanding the potential magnification to 2.0x (2:1) with the 1.4x TC or even 2.8x magnification (2.8:1) with the 2x teleconverter. Too few lenses take advantage of Sony’s teleconverters, so I’m delighted to see new practical ways for those who have invested in them to get their money’s worth out of them. And, of course, with this move Sony also provides a really solid incentive for many more people to invest in their teleconverters. Smart! There are some really solid macro alternatives from a lot of brands, and there’s no question that the $1500 USD price tag puts the 100mm Macro GM at the top of the heap, but in today’s review we’ll discover that this may just be the most versatile G Master that Sony has made to this point. Find out more in either the video review below or by reading on in the text review.

Thanks to Viltrox for sending me a review copy of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. *The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the Sony a7RV and the Sony Alpha 1M2. You can find the listing for 100mm GM Macro here.

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Macro lenses are typically by definition extremely sharp. They need to be well corrected because at close focus distances any aberrations will occupy more pixels. Seeing color fringing on those shiny textures on a coin, for example, will completely spoil the effect.

What people don’t know about macro lenses, however, is that a good autofocusing macro lens is a truly a jack of all trades. It is great for macro, yes, but also great as a general purpose lens, for portrait work, and if a lens is really fast, like this one, even for some action photography.

I use macro lenses on nearly a daily basis because I do so much product photography. The ability to get in close to key features on lenses is something that helps set my work apart and make my reviews special.

So, for the right person, investing in the new 100mm GM Macro might just be a very smart choice.

Build and Handling

All it takes is one look at the flank of this lens to realize that this is a serious optical instrument. It is loaded with important controls to help you get the shots you want.

The other that stands out to me is that the size is not bad at all. It is only 42g heavier than the Sony 90mm Macro despite having more features, 1.4x native magnification, and a longer focal length. The lens is longer (about 17mm longer), but most of that is just create extra room at the lens mount to accommodate the depth for the teleconverters. That’s a trade I would take all day.

While I don’t have the Sony 90mm Macro on hand, I do have my current “daily driver” macro lens, which is the excellent Tamron 90mm F2.8 VXD Macro (my review here). It is about 4mm shorter than the Sony 90mm, so very close, and here’s how it looks next to the new GM lens.

The 100mm GM Macro is 81.4mm (3.2″) in diameter x 147.9mm (5.8″) in length. It weighs in at 646g or 1.4lb. This is only 46g heavier than the Tamron and actually 64g lighter than the Sigma 105mm F2.8 Macro (another excellent lens that I reviewed here). The Sigma is only 12mm shorter than the Sony. Sony has done an excellent job of the keeping the weight down with this lens, as neither the Tamron nor the Sigma have lens based optical stabilization.

This is not a small lens, as you can see here, but it isn’t a heavy lens.

Before we dive into the feature set, let’s take a look at the unusually high degree of weather sealing in this professional grade lens. I count 19 seal points in this diagram, and that doesn’t include the fluorine coating on the front element to help with fingerprints and moisture resistance.

This is an unusually high number of seal points, but Sony is very serious about this lens being distinguished from all other available macro lenses on the platform as the Gold Master – the standard setter.

The single most important feature on the 100mm Macro GM is actually one retained from the 90mm Macro G. The downside of most mirrorless autofocus lenses is that they are focus-by-wire when it comes to manual focus. This means that input on the manual focus ring is routed through the autofocus motors. This means that manual focus is compromised for intense focus work like macro. There are no fixed focus positions, no distance markings, and no hard stops at minimum focus and infinity. Sony solves this via a clutch mechanism that allows you to shift into a true manual focus environment (you pull the manual ring down to shift into true MF mode) , complete with hard stops, permanent distance markings, and more precision and repeatability. Moving the ring forward (toward the front of the lens) will reengage the typical AF/MF environment.

Interestingly, there are two other manual focus related controls as well, including a traditional AF | MF switch and also a DMF (Direct Manual Focus) switch.

DMF allows you to have full time manual override, so you can grab the focus ring at any point and twist to fine tune autofocus results. Some newer Sony camera bodies have a control for this feature in-camera, but the lens-based solution means that this will work with all Sony cameras.

The focus action is excellent, with smooth, even damping throughout. As is often the case with macro lenses, the amount of focus throw in the macro range is great, but the rest of the range is limited. There’s a total of about 170° of “throw” (focus rotation), but roughly 140° of that covers from 28-62cm, meaning that from 60cm (2ft) to infinity, there is just 30° of focus rotation left. I typically do manual focus at high levels of magnification for my chart tests to ensure precision and repeatable results, and I found that I actually had a hard time focusing at that distance. The tiniest amount of rotation would radically change focus.

Unlike the recent Laowa 180mm F4.5 Macro, however, you do have the potential of using autofocus even in the macro range. What’s more, you can have autofocus while having the teleconverters attached at macro ranges as well.

Other features include a very robust approach to aperture control. This includes a manual aperture with option of clicks (one-third stop detents) or using it declicked with no predefined aperture settings and thus granting the ability to do smooth aperture racks. There is also an iris lock switch which will allow you to lock into or out of the manual aperture ring according to your preference.

The aperture iris itself has eleven rounded blades. I don’t actually love the wide open geometry from the 100mm GM Macro (specular highlights in the corners are really pinched), but stop the F4 and there is an improvement, and by F5.6 specular highlights are circular all across the frame.

There are two other switches in the main bank. The top is a three-position focus limiter. This allows you to select the full range, or to exclude distant or close focus ranges according to your preference. This helps to avoid focus racks into the area where you don’t want to focus where you might lose a crucial shot in a split second.

The other switch allows you to choose whether the OSS (Optical Steady Shot, or image stabilization) is on or off. This stabilization is specially designed for manual focus, stabilizing for angle, shift, and depth to better enable handheld macro work. Handheld macro work is extremely challenging, but this stabilizer does help a lot. I caught this handheld shot of pencils at 1/30th of a second even with the 1.4x teleconverter attached, meaning that the effective focal length was 140mm. You would have a hard time achieving a similar result with most macro lenses.

While competitors like the Tamron or Sigma have one custom/Fn button, the GM has two. One is on the side near the AF | MF switch, while the other is on the top of the lens, allowing you to have one at hand even when shooting in portrait orientation.

As is pretty standard with these type of macro lenses, the front filter size is 67mm, a very common size shared with many other lenses.

The lens comes with a nice nylon case with good padding. It also comes with a nice (fairly shallow) lens hood that has a rubberized front edge to help absorb bumps and also provides a stable surface to stand the lens on.

This is definitely a full-featured lens, loaded with a lot of controls to help you get your shot.

Minimum focus distance is 26cm, where the magnification level is 1.4x. You can get the lower 1:1 magnification level at 28cm if you need a little more working room. Using teleconverters does not change the minimum focus distance, but will allow you either higher levels of magnification or more working distance to get 1:1 or 1.4:1 magnification. Here’s what the native 1.4x magnification looks like.

While I don’t own a 2x teleconverter, I do own Sony’s 1.4x. Adding the 1.4x increases the maximum magnification to 2:1 (2x) magnification, which looks like this.

Adding the 2x teleconverter instead would increase maximum magnification to 2.8x. With the 1.4x added, a 100mm F2.8 lens becomes a 140mm F4 lens. Adding the 2x teleconverter changes the combination to a 200mm F5.6 lens.

The final consideration is price. Sony’s own 90mm F2.8 Macro currently retails for roughly $1200 USD, so the increase to roughly $1500 for the GM isn’t too bad considering all the additional features and performance it brings (including much better, faster autofocus). The lens is less of a value proposition compared to third party lenses, however, with the Sigma retailing at $879 USD and the Tamron being the real bargain at $700 USD.

Autofocus for Stills

There is no company that I’m aware of that does autofocus as well as Sony. Their camera bodies typically have excellent autofocus, and they compliment that by equipping their lenses with extremely sophisticated autofocus systems. The new 100mm F2.8 Macro GM is equipped with no less than four XD (eXtreme Dynamic) Linear Motors, with two sets of motors grouped before and then after the focusing group of elements. This combination produces autofocus speeds that, according to Sony, are up to 1.9x faster than the 90mm macro lens, which was no slouch. Sometimes macro lenses can have slower focus because they have so many additional focus options in the close range, but this high-powered design assures that autofocus is quiet, smooth, and fast in all scenarios.

Focus speed was essentially instant in my focus tests, go from close to distant subjects with no perceptible lag. What’s more, the lens is delivering excellent accuracy…even with the 1.4x teleconverter attached, like here:

I got this shot of a black faced hornet the old fashioned way – while it was still alive and doing its thing. Excellent autofocus helped make that happen.

I used the 100mm Macro GM at a country wedding, and of course focus was flawless in that setting.

Perhaps even more indicative of the quality of focus was that I handed my camera to someone who didn’t even know where the shutter button was (zero familiarity with the camera) and got perfectly focused results of my wife and I.

The Tamron 90mm is another excellent focusing macro lens, but I think it is safe to say that the GM is in a league of its own. It has the most sophisticated autofocus system I’ve ever seen in a macro lens, and has the snappiest autofocus of them all. That’s the way a Gold Master lens should be.

Video AF

That excellent performance carries over to video autofocus. Autofocus pulls were smooth and well damped. There was no visible steps, no pulsing, or settling. There is some focus breathing, but not bad for a macro lens. Mathematically eliminating the focus breathing via Sony’s Focus Breathing Compensation setting (if your camera is so equipped) comes at a fairly obvious level of crop. Most of the breathing will occur in the macro range.

My hand test went fine, with the transitions from my hand to my eye happening in a smooth, cinematic fashion. Sometimes focus did not move to my hand, but that was largely because the camera’s autofocus was trying to stay locked on my face.

I tracked quite a battle outside one of my hives as an invading bee was trying to access the treasures inside and about three of my honeybees were working hard to fight her off. I was quite close to the action (my bees mostly ignore me at this point) and focus did a great job of tracking the combatants.

Those who watch the video review will see a number of outdoor segments where focus is tracking me and doing it very effectively. I will also note that doing careful manual focus pulls for video at macro distances works better than usual due to the excellent manual focus ring.

Image Quality

The Sony FE 100mm F2.8 Macro GM OSS has an optical design of 17 elements in 13 groups. This includes 2 XA (Extreme Aspherical) elements along with 2 ED (Extra-low Dispersion) elements. The MTF chart is ridiculously good, showing near-perfect performance over the middle half of the frame and only dropping to what I would still call excellent levels in the corners. This is a lens that is sharper in the corners than some lenses are in the center of the frame. The F8 MTF is pretty close to flawless.

This allows the textures even at macro distances to really “pop” from this lens. Take a look at the grain of the metal in the crop from this shot of a fork.

So how about some of the technicalities? First of all, what I’m about to show you is pretty rare, as my before and after of manual corrections for the vignette and distortion don’t look much different.

There is no measurable distortion, and while I added a tiny bit of +22 correction for vignette, you can see from the original on the left that you could easily leave it uncorrected in almost all situations.

For example, here’s an F2.8 portrait shot, and you can see that there is no shading in any of the corners despite having zero corrections.

Adding the 1.4x teleconverter added a tiny bit of barrel distortion (+3 to correct) and a bit more vignette (still just a +29 to correct). All good on that front.

As you might suspect from the macro samples we’ve already viewed, there is no problem with color fringing…period. I didn’t see anything on my charts:

Nor did I see anything on my Dad’s old SLR:

There is no evidence of any lateral style chromatic aberrations in the corners of the frame, either.

So far what we have is one of the rare lenses that achieves near perfect corrections through the optics alone…no electronic assistance needed.

That MTF chart ought to have you licking your lips in anticipation of the sharpness results…and they do not disappoint.

Here’s a look at the test chart.

And here are the F2.8 crops from the center, midframe, and lower right corner…all shown at 200% magnification to highlight any flaws.

There really aren’t any. That’s an exceptionally good performance. For context, I think the Tamron 90mm F2.8 VXD Macro is extremely good. Sharp, high contrast. But you will see from this series of comparisons that the GM lens is in another class in terms of sharpness and contrast.

Detail for macro is awesome…even at F2.8:

So, with so much wide open sharpness, is there any further room for improvement? The short answer is “not much”. You will see a bit more performance in the corners at smaller apertures, but largely you can use stopping down to increase depth of field rather than for a need to improve sharpness. I’m not sure you’d see the tiny improvement (even in the corner) from F2.8 to F8:

Another interesting technique for macro work is to use “focus bracketing” (if your camera is so equipped), where your camera will make small adjustments to focus in between exposures. Those images can be “stacked” together in software like photoshop, and produce a composite image where more is in focus but without losing the very shallow depth-of-field look. Here’s an example:

You’ll note the whole graphite edge of the pencils are in focus in the stacked image, making for a more compelling end result.

That intense wide open sharpness is key to usefulness with teleconverters, as teleconverters introduce additional elements into the optical path and can negatively impact sharpness. At the high levels of magnification that I do my formal tests at, I can see a minor hit to sharpness across the frame, but fortunately the lens remains very sharp even with the 1.4x teleconverter attached.

I don’t own the 2x teleconverter to test with, but expect sharpness to take a further hit with that combination.

I was curious whether the automated focus bracketing of Sony’s cameras would work with the teleconverters attached, and while they didn’t have that answer in the presser, I was able to confirm that everything works flawlessly with the teleconverter attached. Here’s a look at the difference between a single image and a stack of 15 exposures.

The finished image looks great.

Diffraction will come as per usual at smaller apertures. F11 is looking a bit softer, while the minimum aperture of F22 looks considerably softer.

So sharpness is certainly not a problem. What about bokeh?

Let’s start with my least favorite part – I don’t love the wide open geometry from the lens.

I find the specular highlights in the corners to be clipped in what is – to me – a displeasing way. Geometry improves with the lens stopped down, though it isn’t fully resolved until F5.6.

For macro work, however, this will rarely be a problem. I stopped down to F8 for this shot, and you can see the specular highlights on the rim of the coin following a nicely linear pattern to defocus right out to the edge.

Images without specular highlights resolve into a very nice creamy look:

The transition from the tines of the fork to defocus is very smooth.

At a little further distance, the bokeh looks nice and smooth.

This image shows a really beautiful transition from focus to defocus.

Portrait level defocus is very smooth. It isn’t going to completely defocus backgrounds like a lens with a wider maximum aperture will, but the defocus is very pleasing.

Flare resistance isn’t perfect, but does quite well against bright lights. I did see some ghosting in some unique circumstances, but I never found it overly damaging.

Colors are very nice, as might expect, with rich rendering.

Overall this lens is optically fantastic. I can’t recall a macro lens that I’ve reviewed that has stood out as being stronger. Here’s a mini gallery of images for you to get a further “flavor” of what this lens can do.

Conclusion

Macro lens have been a bit of an underserved category on Sony E-mount, particularly when you consider just how many lenses there are for the system. There are a number of good competitors under $1000, but, until now, there has been no premium, high end option. Sony has wisely doubled down on one of the unfair advantages they have built into E-mount, namely that only Sony lenses can use teleconverters. Adding teleconverter compatibility to the Sony FE 100mm F2.8 Macro GM OSS assures it a very unique status among macro lenses on the platform, as while you can use extension tubes to any macro lens, those function by reducing minimum focus distance at the cost of infinity focus. Reducing the minimum focus distance comes with increased risk of either shading your subject with the lens or scaring off a living subject.

Having a greater than average maximum magnification is useful, and using teleconverters increases that magnification figure from 1.4x to 2x and then 2.8x with the 2x teleconverter. The fact that you can continue to use autofocus (if desired) and do auto focus bracketing is also extremely useful.

You expect to pay for a G Master lens, and you will here. The MSRP of $1498 USD sets it well above the competition in terms of price, but it also delivers in performance, versatility, and optical performance. Purchasing teleconverters is an additional expense, of course, but perhaps you already have one bouncing around. If that is the case, buying the 100mm GM Macro feels a little more compelling, as it makes you feel you are getting more value out of something you’ve already invested in. I’ve reviewed dozens of macro lenses over the years, and I can say with confidence that the Sony FE 100mm F2.8 Macro GM OSS is the best of them all.

Pros:

Teleconverter support
Native 1.4x macro
Feature rich
Extremely robust weather sealing
Fantastic clutch mechanism allows for true manual focus
Clean and elegant design
Quad XD Linear motors deliver fast, quiet, and accurate autofocus
Focus pulls are nicely damped
Exceptionally sharp lens
No distortion
Little vignette
Excellent control of fringing
Colors look great
Amazing contrast
Gorgeous bokeh

Cons:

Much more expensive than alternatives
Focus throw in the “normal” range is very small
Wide open “bokeh ball” geometry isn’t great

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GEAR USED:

Purchase the Sony 1.4x Teleconverter @ B&H Photo | Amazon

Purchase the Sony 2.0x Teleconverter @ B&H Photo | Amazon

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