Up next in 10
Sony FE 40mm F2.5 G | Standard Review
18K views
Jul 17, 2023
Photographer Dustin Abbott shares a thorough review of the compact yet premium Sony FE 40mm F2.5 G prime lens. | Read the Text Review: https://bit.ly/40GReview| Visit the Image Gallery: https://bit.ly/FE40Gpics | Purchase the Sony FE 40mm F2.5 G @ B&H Photo https://bhpho.to/3xUsLlX | Amazon https://amzn.to/3y7c1YX | Camera Canada https://shrsl.com/31y2b | Amazon Canada https://amzn.to/3ydDybj | Amazon UK https://amzn.to/3A70avI | Amazon Germany https://amzn.to/3A9omxL Purchase the Samyang AF 45mm F1.8 @ B&H Photo https://bhpho.to/2Ka0rov | Amazon https://amzn.to/2JWX7hA | Amazon Canada https://amzn.to/30YgkoQ | Amazon UK https://amzn.to/2SJBHr7 | Amazon Germany https://amzn.to/2ymfGoM | Ebay http://bit.ly/AF1845 Purchase the Sony FE 24mm F2.8 G @ B&H Photo https://bhpho.to/3A1DjSs | Amazon https://amzn.to/3A1fWIq | Camera Canada https://shrsl.com/31qyo | Amazon Canada https://amzn.to/3qsUxn4 | Amazon UK https://amzn.to/2UHNZFB | Amazon Germany https://amzn.to/3zUIqUe Purchase the Sony FE 50mm F2.5 G @ B&H Photo https://bhpho.to/35V1WCg | Amazon https://amzn.to/3Ag8j0U | Camera Canada https://shrsl.com/31y2z | Amazon Canada https://amzn.to/3du9tfA | Amazon UK https://amzn.to/3dtFdl2 | Amazon Germany https://amzn.to/3ju0KxG Check out the DA Merch here: https://bit.ly/TWIMerch ============================= Table of Contents: ============================= 0:00 - Intro and Comparison to options 4:06 - Build & Handling 9:29 - Focus Action 12:04 Image Quality Breakdown 22:31 Conclusion and Pricing ---------------------------------------------------------
View Video Transcript
0:00
Hi, I'm Dustin Abbott, and I'm here today to give you my standard review of the new Sony
0:15
Fe 40mm F2.5G lens. I'm filming on it at the moment, mounted on a Sony A6600, and this lens is
0:26
a part of a series of three lenses that Sony both announced and then released simultaneously
0:33
And these have a lot of shared DNA with identical housing, identical
0:38
exterior dimensions and very slight variations in weight. These include the 24mm F2.8G lens
0:46
the 40 millimeter F2.5 and 50 millimeter F2.5G lenses. These all share a common DNA
0:54
in that they're all metal construction. They have a very high degree of weather sealing. In this case, this lens has 11 different
1:03
seal points starting with a gasket at the lens mount and then various seal points throughout the barrel
1:09
And it has, it is a very feature rich lens, which includes basically everything that you would find
1:14
on a G master lens, multiple approaches to aperture, an aperture ring that can be declicked, for example
1:20
It's got a focus hold button. It's got the AFMF switch. And so it's got, it's got a
1:26
all of these various pieces of functionality that you would expect, except for it's just really, really compressed down into a very small package
1:34
This is a lens that is only 68 millimeters in diameter, leaving it with a 49mm front filter thread
1:42
and filters can be added either directly onto the lens or mounted onto the rather unique lens hood slash filter adapter
1:52
that we'll talk about more in just a second. And so 49 millimeter filter thread, which by the way is shared across all three of these lenses
2:00
The lens is only 45 millimeters in length, which is well less than two inches
2:07
So it's a really, really compact lens and only weighs 173 grams
2:12
So it's extremely lightweight and lightweight even compared to some other competitors like, say, the Sigma 45 millimeter F2.8DN
2:21
which is also an extremely compact lens. lightweight, but looking at it in a relative sense, it is a good 25% more heavy than what this
2:32
lens is. And so it's certainly a really amazingly lightweight, considering that it's metal
2:37
construction, weather sealed, and so feature rich. Also, positive here is the fact that you have a
2:45
really smooth manual focus ring that is fully linear, allowing you to get repeatability
2:51
And my only complaint about both of the rings, which are beautiful and metal, lots of good things to point to, but they're really, really close together
3:00
You know, partly necessary to fit all of this stuff onto the lens barrel. I get that
3:04
But although it's summer right now, I shoot a lot in winter and I know well enough to know that once I put on a pair of gloves, it's going to be really hard to have the precision to differentiate between the aperture and manual focus rings and even to get at some of the very flush and
3:21
and small buttons and switches that are on the barrel of this lens
3:25
It perhaps unavoidable when you try to you know to engineer a lens that is both incredibly small and to pack a lot of features into it And I appreciate all the features and I appreciate the small and lightweight quality
3:39
Don't get me wrong. I'm just pointing out a reality of everyday shooting that you might run into
3:44
if you're wanting to do a lot of controls and you're shooting in cold weather
3:48
But overall, this is a beautifully made lens that really is quite a joy to use in many situations
3:54
It also has an incredibly good autofocus system. It actually has dual linear motors, which frankly in this case is kind of overkill, but in a good kind of way
4:06
And that it's got tons of torque, speed, precision. It is utterly silent in operation
4:12
And when I do focus pools, you can see that even though I'm using the onboard mic in a very quiet environment
4:18
you literally can hear nothing that the camera can pick up. You'll also see that those focus pools had nice precision and confidence, no settling or pulsing
4:34
Only negative that I saw there is there's definitely some focus breathing and that objects do change shape relative to their focus position
4:41
This can be a serious downside for those of you that are, you know, video-centric and that can be a factor for you
4:48
Overall, however, auto-focus really worked excellent and whether I was, you know, using it for a quick little portrait
4:54
session with my son graduating from eighth grade or if I were just taking some pictures of
5:00
Loki. I got really, really good IEF precision. Another image that I want to show you is just this one
5:07
It's not necessarily fancy a picture of a daisy. But what you can't see is that when I recorded the
5:12
image, the wind was whipping along the shoreline and that daisy was moving all over the place under the
5:18
wind and it was tracking it perfectly. So at the moment when I clicked, it was a perfectly focused image
5:23
And of course that's really, really important. You'll also find for video tracking, obviously it's doing a good job of tracking my face
5:30
but also if I approach the camera and I'm changing position, moving in, you know, quickly and moving back out
5:37
you'll see that it does a good job not only of keeping my face in focus
5:42
but also does a good job of not showing any kind of visible stepping or, you know, kind of ugliness
5:48
It's a fairly smooth process. And it goes to show not only how, you know
5:53
how much autofocus systems and cameras have improved, but also the quality of these linear motors that are driving autofocus
6:00
So great job to Sony on that front. And by the way, those observations have been true for all three of these lenses
6:06
that I've tested all at the same time. Really, really great autofocus
6:11
Likewise, in this case, when it comes to the image quality, I did find on the 24 millimeter that when I turned off correction profiles
6:17
I saw an unflattering amount of barrel distortion and fairly strong vignette as well
6:25
Fortunately, when I turned off profile corrections here, I got no unpleasant surprises
6:30
There is a mild amount of barrel distortion. Took about a plus five to correct in lightroom sliders
6:36
but it was also nice and linear, so it corrects evenly. And when it comes to vignette, there's a moderate amount of vignette
6:43
probably right under two stops, and a plus 47 was sufficient to correct that
6:48
And so in neither case did I find anything that's going to cause any kind of real problems. Likewise, lateral chromatic aberrations are really well
6:56
controlled so almost no fringing along the edges of the frame in high transition
7:01
areas dark and light no fringing that creeps in there There is a little bit of fringing longitudinal chromatic aberration before and after the plane of focus most notably some green fringing after the plane of focus
7:15
but mild enough to where it didn't really pop up in real world shooting
7:19
and it didn't cause me any kind of issues there. And so overall, I think that aberrations there are well controlled also
7:27
I also had good results when pointing it towards the sun, in that flare resistance
7:33
The coatings on all three of these lenses have proven to be really, really good. In this case, there was a few positions that I could introduce a very mild amount of ghosting artifacts
7:42
but no loss of contrast, and nothing that's really destructive there. So overall, a very, very good result
7:48
So that odd little lens hood that goes on there, it seems to do a sufficient job
7:55
My only real criticism of this lens hood, which is identical on both the 40 and the 50 millimeter
8:00
It's more traditional on the 24 millimeter. The 24 millimeter, it's a little bit wider of a lens hood
8:05
You can reverse it for storage. In this case, the lens hood actually tapers forward
8:11
and so you can't reverse that for storage. And furthermore, it's kind of blocked in on the inside squared off
8:18
So you just can't reverse it. Fortunately, it's a small lens hood, and it's a small lens
8:22
I would just keep it in place. It provides protection all the time, and you can pop the lens cap or even filters right onto the front of it
8:30
Not really a big deal. When it comes to the overall sharpness and contrast
8:36
I saw very, very good results, very strong, very strong in the center of the frame
8:41
extremely sharp. And mid-frame also good. Corners were good with just a little bit less acuityes and a little bit less contrast in the corners
8:50
However, as you stop the lens on down, it gets extremely sharp all across the frame
8:56
And the biggest difference that I saw is that corners are sharp, or what aperture you choose, starting from F2.5
9:03
The corners and edges of the frame, you know, sharpen up at F4 and F5.6 to excellent levels as well
9:10
And so this becomes a really nice landscape lens when stopped down and just delivers really good image quality across the board in general
9:18
It has good levels of contrast, and it just has a nice punch to images
9:24
good contrast and color combination that makes for really pleasing images. and so I liked that
9:30
I also thought that the bouquet quality was fairly good from the lens
9:34
Now obviously this is not a huge maximum aperture, and so you can, however, get nice and close to subjects
9:41
In fact, like with all of these lenses, autofocus will get you so close
9:45
but if you manually focus, you can see you can get closer still
9:49
and that allows you to get a little bit more magnification. You do the manual focus, it'll get you up to about 0.22 times
9:55
which obviously is very, very useful, a figure. And so it's not quite as good as what the Sigma 45 millimeter F2.8 is, which gets you up to
10:05
0.2525 times, but definitely better than something like the Samying 45 millimeter F1.8. That only gives
10:12
you about a 0.1314 times. And so certainly a very useful amount of magnification. You can get up close
10:19
and you can get nice looking images out of that. And the bouquet quality in most situations
10:24
looks fairly good. There's always some geometric deformation, the edges of the frame, a little bit of a cat eye effect
10:31
But overall, the quality of the blur was quite good. And of course it improves even more so the better you get of your ratio from distance to the subject and then distance to the background So you want a close distance to your subject and a longer distance to the background And if
10:46
you do that, you get a really nice creamy background. But overall, I mean, image quality is really
10:51
quite nice from the lens. And so I think that there's a lot going for it in that department
10:58
So to wrap this up, 40 millimeters is not a conventional focal length, though it's become more popular for
11:05
many years I hardly ever saw a 40 millimeter or 45 millimeter lens. In the last few years
11:10
I've reviewed about a half dozen of them. So the challenge always is that this lens is relatively
11:17
cheap, relatively to other, you know, Sony lenses comes in at about $600 US. But comparatively
11:26
it is, it's on the higher end of the spectrum for lenses like this. The Sigma of 45mm F2.8 has a
11:34
fairly similar degree of very high degree of build quality, though not quite as weather sealed
11:40
as similar amounts of features, but it retails for about $50 less. Then you have an option like, say
11:47
the Samyang 45mm F1.8, which obviously has a larger maximum aperture, and it's actually the
11:53
strongest optically of these three lenses. It is basically as sharp at F1.8 as the Sony is at F2.5
12:03
if you stop them down, the Sam Yang has a bit of an advantage. The Samyang, however, is pretty plasticy and doesn't have the features or quality of build
12:12
doesn't have any kind of weather ceiling. And so, you know, that's obviously a consideration
12:16
But also to be considered is that at its full MSRP, it's $200 less
12:21
At the moment that I'm doing this review, because it's on sale, having been on the market for a couple of years
12:26
it's $300 less or 50% of the price. That's obviously going to be a factor for some people
12:31
But at the end of the day, if you prefer first-party lenses and you want a beautifully made
12:36
thoroughly weather-sealed lens for your application, a fully linear manual focus ring
12:42
maybe if you're a video shooter, this is a lens that has a lot to offer
12:46
And I've really liked it actually for shooting episodes like this. It's a great, I think, lens for those that have a YouTube channel, for example
12:56
or want to shoot video where it's just a flexible focal length, either in full
13:01
frame 40 millimeter or APSC around 60 millimeters. Both I find quite attractive
13:07
So at the end of the day, I think that maybe the lens is priced a little on the high side
13:12
but it's probably also going to offer great value to you and you'll get a lot of use out of it
13:17
Not to mention that first-party lenses tend to hold a little bit better retail value
13:21
is a resale value, I should say, instead. I'm Dustin Abbott, and if you look in the description down below
13:27
you can find link to my full text review, which is worth checking out
13:31
There's also linkage to an image gallery if you want to see more photos from the lens. Beyond that, there are some buying links
13:37
If you want to purchase one, there is linkage there to get some of my merchandise
13:41
DA, or Let the Light in themed shirts and coffee mugs and water bottles, that kind of thing
13:48
There's also a linkage there to follow me on social media, to become a patron
13:52
and to sign it for my newsletter. And, of course, if you haven't already, please click that subscribe button right here on YouTube
13:57
Be sure to ring that bell. So you get notifications when new..
14:01
content drops. Thanks for watching. Have a great day and let the light in
#Camera & Photo Equipment
#Film & TV Industry
#Online Media