Sony 50mm F1.4 GM Long Term Review: The Sweet Spot of Price & Performance?

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Hi, I'm Dustin Abbott
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Many would argue that the 50 millimeter focal length is perhaps the most important prime focal length of all
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It's what we call a normal lens. It is probably the most popular when it comes to sales
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And as a byproduct, everybody makes a 50 millimeter lens. At this stage in my career, I've probably reviewed at least, say, 40, 50-millimeter lenses over time
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And because so many of them come through my hands and on Sony E-mount alone
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I've probably reviewed at this point nearly 20, 50-millimeter lenses, a lot of them over time
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So as a byproduct, as more and more of these lenses are released, I always am doing two things when I'm evaluating lenses
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Obviously, I'm reviewing them for your sake, trying to determine the pros and the cons of each product
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But I'm also evaluating for my own kit, because above all, I'm a photographer myself
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and I want as good of possible bang for the buck at each focal length in my own personal kit
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And so I'm evaluating when I see a 50-millimeter lens. I'm evaluating, is this the one that I want myself
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I'm a little bit greedy when it comes to a 50-millimeter lens
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Essentially, all I want is the optical performance of a Zice Otis lens
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in a reasonably small, reasonably affordable auto-focusing price tag. Not much, right
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So about a year ago, after I reviewed the 50-millimeter F-1.4G master
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I made a decision that it would be my new 50-millimeter lens. And I made that determination basically because I felt like it brought a lot of the strengths
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of the 50-millimeter F-1.2G master into a cheaper, $700 U.S. cheaper, a smaller, about 20% smaller and more compact
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and a lighter package, a whopping 262 grams less. And that, of course, resulted in this lens
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that in many ways is a beautiful match for another lens that I really like
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which is Sony's 35 millimeter F1.4G master. And so a year later, do I feel like I made the right choice
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Other 50-millimeter lenses have come out since that point, and I've been able to use it in a much wider variety of circumstances
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So today I am here to report on how I have found a year of ownership
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a true long-term review of the Sony 50-millimeter F1.4G Master. More on this right after a word from our sponsor
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50 millimeter F1.4G Master mostly does that. So I wanted it to be reasonably compact
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That is an area where I think that Sony has really thrived here. The lens is 80.6 by 96 millimeters in length
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So that's 3.2 inches in diameter by 3.8 inches in length. And it has a very common 67mm front filter thread
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I love that because it can share with the 35 millimeter F1.4G master
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the 24mm F1.4 Gmaster plus a ton of other lenses. So score one there
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Just to give you some perspective, it is 15.5 millimeters shorter and 150 grams lighter
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than the Sigma 50mm F1.4 art lens. It is 12 millimeters shorter and 265 grams lighter
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than the Sony's Ice Planar, 50 millimeter F1.4. And then it is 12 millimeters shorter
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and 262 grams lighter than the 50mm F1.2 Gmaster lens. It has all of the kind of standard features that come on a Sony lens at this point
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particularly their Gmaster lenses. It's got the AFMF switch. It's got multiple focus hold or
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function buttons. It's got an iris lock. It's got the ability to declick the aperture
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Got an aperture ring. And as mentioned, that can be either clicked or declipped. Got a nice manual focus ring though I find it a little bit on the light side for my taste I do prefer a little bit more damping However you are still able to manually focus fine It just not top notch
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That's one area where I would say I did prefer the Sony's Ice Planar
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which by the way is the lens that I replaced with this one
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It has an 11-bladed aperture iris, which does help to keep things very nice and circular as you stop the lens down
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It is thoroughly weather-sealed with 11 different seal point. plus a four flooring front coating, and also something that is a priority to me
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It has decent close focus abilities. And so you can auto focus as closely as 41 centimeters, and that gets you a 0.16 times magnification
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which is one point behind what you get with the Philth 50mm F1.2G master
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However, you have the ability to get a little bit closer if you manually focus
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You can get down to 38 centimeters, three centimeters shorter, and that magnification increases up to 0.18 times
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And fortunately, it remains very competent at close focus distances, and so I have found that to be useful
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You knew all of that from my first review, however. So let me give you the update on after a year use
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How is the lens held up? Well, mechanically, it's held up perfectly. And on the exterior, it also still looks like brand new
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which is impressive because it has been in and out of a variety of cases
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pouches and backpacks hundreds of times at this point. I've carried it on straps. I've carried it on a
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peak design capture clip and so it's been with me on hikes, out through the woods, all of those things
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You know, obviously I don't try to beat up my gear, but neither can. I shield it from every little bump
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and knock and branch brushing by. Despite all of those things and shooting in over a Canadian winter at this
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point in very cold temperatures, it is held up flawlessly. It still looks and functions like a
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new. What more could I ask for at this point? I've also been very happy with autofocus. And really
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that was kind of my biggest motivation. I did like the fact that this was smaller and lighter and
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a little bit better optically than the Sony's ice plane are 50mm F1.4. But frankly, I really
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liked that lens optically. I was a little disappointed with the autofocus accuracy, however
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considering it was such an expensive lens. I expected it to autofocus better than what it did
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This lens has been a huge improvement on that. It has dual xD linear motors
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and so it is near instant speed, and you can see here that you just jump from one subject to another
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with basically no pause in between. This lens is definitely capable enough to keep up
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with things like sports action, and so zero problems there. Because of the timing and the brevity of my initial review period
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I had a pre-release copy, and often when I do that, I'm only getting them a few weeks out
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before the release date. So I don't have as much time as what I would like to shoot in a variety
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of scenarios. And so as a byproduct, I didn't have really a chance to do much in terms of
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portraits the first time that I had the lens, which was early, early March, late February
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early March of 2023. And so that was one thing that I really wanted to see with this copy. And so I've
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had now the opportunity to shoot it in maybe three or four different portrait sessions. And it
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has performed flawlessly for me, whether I was shooting young children, or I was shooting out in the woods, I shot a spring session with my wife and I last year
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and I got really, really well-focused results, even when I had stuff in the foreground
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locked onto the eye, gave me accurately focused results. So very, very pleased with that regard
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And on the video front, I have now filmed dozens of episodes
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It has been my go-to lens ever since I've owned it for filming my video episodes
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because it's a great focal length, has very, very good image quality, obviously
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but it's also rock solid in terms of the autofocus. And so I have had, I can't remember a time where I've had an issue where it started to pulse on me
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or shifted focus off onto the wrong thing. And that's really important for someone like myself who needs to set up a lens and a camera
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start filming, get in front of it, and then trust that the camera and the lens are going to do the work
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And it has done that flawless for me just dozens and dozens and dozens of times
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And so I have nothing but praise for the office. It's everything that I've wanted it to be
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Finally, let's talk about the image quality. Now, the image quality, the MTF and the Sony briefing that I was a part of
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it showed me that this was going to be an exceptionally good, exceptionally sharp lens
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And the MTF looks fantastic, and the real world results, if anything, have been even more impressive
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Now, since I did my initial review, I did the initial review on the Alpha 1, which is 50 megapixels
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and I have added an A7R mark 5 as my kind of test chart body is a variety of other things obviously And so I done a fresh update of examining how it holds up with the higher resolution point 61 megapixels of the A7R Mark 5
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Now, I'll dive into that in detail for those of you that want the detailed image quality breakdown
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at the end of the episode, but I can tell you this, no one is ever going to need more sharpness out of a 50 millimeter lens than what this provides
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It is incredibly, incredibly sharp. That, I already knew that. What I didn't have enough opportunity to do with my initial review and the first review copy that I had was I didn't get a chance to examine the bouquet quality, the overall rendering as much as what I would like. Part of that was the time of year, just not a very good bouquet season. And, you know, frankly, a little bit of an ugly season as we're at the very late stages of winter, starting to transition towards spring. But, you know, the world is not all that attractive at that point. And so I have
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been very intentional at trying to take bouquet type shot since that point, you know, through
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spring blossoms and things like that into fall. And I can say that now having looked at it and
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examined it and really kind of been critical about this for my own sake, I can tell you that
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my conclusion is, is that the bocette is not quite as magical as the 50 millimeter F1.2G Master
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If you want the best bouquet that you can get at 50 millimeters on the Sony e-mail platform, spend the money for the Gmaster
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It is really, really gorgeous and its overall rendering. The 50-millimeter F1.4 Gmaster is not quite as good
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It is very good. It's slightly less creamy, I think. I think there's a little bit more outlining and some of the bouquet highlights, but at the same time, it produces really, really gorgeous images that have very beautiful rendering and very beautiful
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Okay, and we'll break that down more in the final examination. So in conclusion, at this stage, if I were to do a Venn diagram of the three primary things
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I'm looking at a 50-millimeter lens, I'm looking for that reasonable size, great image quality
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and then a somewhat reasonable price. So far, there is no lens that I have examined that does a better job of meeting those three criteria somewhat equally
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Like I said, if you're just absolutely about the image quality, I would say that
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the 50 millimeter F1.2G Master is slightly better. This lens is a little bit sharper
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but that lens is plenty sharp enough, and the overall rendering is just a little bit better
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But if size matters to you and price matters to you, those considerations, I think
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tip the scales towards the 50mm F1.4G Master. And so my conclusion is
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I think that this is the best 50 millimeter lens that you can get
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under $1,500. We'll use that criteria. Above that, there are a few options
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that I might like a hair better, but none of them that kind of equal out to all of those things put together
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I am still perfectly happy that I made the choice to buy this lens
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It has been utterly reliable, held up perfectly, and has produced one gorgeous image after another
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If you want more information, you can either stay tuned now for the image quality breakdown
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You can check out my original coverage that dives into more elements if you want to do that
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And as always, there are buying links there in the description as well
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And without further ado, let's dive into the optical breakdown. So in this quick optical breakdown, what we're going to do is look at a few important things
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We're going to see how the lens handles the higher resolution of the 61 megapixel A7R Mark 5
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We're going to take a look at bouquet and rendering and how all of those things combined
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particularly for portrait and general purpose work. So starting with taking a look at 61 megapixels, this is at 200% magnification
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In the center of the frame, you probably aren't going to find basically any 50mm lens that is sharper than that
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That is just fantastic at F1.4. Great contrast. Midframe, just fantastically sharp
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And if we scroll down, even right down to the edge, you can see the edge isn't as crystal sharp as in the center, but it is still exceptionally good
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And if I look over on this side, we can see just an amazing amount of detail and resolution there
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And on this side, I would say that it looks even better. And so, I mean, obviously, this is fantastically, fantastically sharp, even right up into the corners
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Stopping down to F2, you can see that there's even more contrast and detail there
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It's just off the charts good. And looking here, looks amazingly good, popping over to the other side
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I mean, really, what more could you ask for? I mean, that is just fabulously sharp
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And if we look up into the corners, corners that by F2 are just really about as sharp
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as what many lenses get to in the center of the frame So incredibly good Then at F2 and f4 you can see that even in the corners it is just pin sharp zero issues there it going to remain that way
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through f5.6 and then at f8 remember we're looking at the extreme corner right now you'll see some
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softening at f11 due to diffraction and by the minimum aperture of f16 it's still very good don't get me
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wrong but it is definitely the softest that we've seen due to the effects of diffraction
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So that means that real world results, for example, this landscape shot at F5.6, anywhere you want to look right off to the edge of the frame, there's just beautiful detail
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All of those fine details are just amazingly rendered over on this side
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Obviously, you know, great detail on this side where there is depth of field
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So that just gives you a tremendous ability with high resolution bodies to crop deeply like I could crop into this portion of the frame
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And you can see it holds up perfectly well as I at a one-to-one pick
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level here on a 4K monitor. It also means that for things like event sessions
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like I've used the lens for, that you can punch into a pixel level
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You can deeply crop images because even at F1.4, allow me to keep ISO down and the image is really, really clean
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You can see the detail is just fantastic. Now, the bouquet quality, a couple of things
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First of all, you can see the geometry here that really is quite good, even at F1.4
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By F2, we've got a couple of things. near-perfect, not quite, but near-perfect round be bea-over-everywhere. And then by F-2.8
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specular highlights are all perfectly round, and it does a great job of keeping that round
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shape due to the very high 11-blade aperture count. So those things combine into just a
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wonderful conflation of sharpness, as you can see here, sharpness and contrast in the tea
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leaves that are there. But then as you look at the out-of-focus area, the bocha is very nice
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and soft. Likewise here at F1.4, you can see the detail is fabulous. The colors are rich. And then
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the bouquet is really nice. Again, I would like a little tiny bit less outlining in this
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And I think the Gmaster is a little better there. But in a little less harsh situation like this one
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you've got all of those great things working together. You've got great sharpness and detail
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You've got beautifully creamy background there. This shot here, again, it shows off how that it
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controls aberrations well. And so there is just the tiniest bit of fringing
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but we've got all the things working here. You can see that focus nailed that, you know
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in that crucial moment. I love this spark flying off here. And, you know
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and so the cheesecake looks great. And then the out of focus looks very nice. This is shot in a restaurant
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Once again here, and this allows, this is me getting very close to the minimum focus distance
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with the lily of the valley here. You can see the details there. And this, now the background is
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really strongly blurred out. With these spring cherry blossoms here, you can see that detail is fantastic
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And then look how just beautiful the bouquet quality is here. And all of that adds up for just great results
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when shooting portraiture. And so obviously at a much further distance, the background is not completely blown out
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but you can see the detail on my wife is really great. But then if you look at the image as a whole
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you can see a nice cutout of the subject. nice depth of field there. Another shot here of my wife and I. You can see once again that
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you know, the background is blurred out nicely. And again, a lot of this is in kind of a transition
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medium zone. It still looks great if you step back and look at it. And then, of course
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the detail on our faces is really fantastic. It just does a great job with that. This is from a
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portrait session that I did for a family. And I just love the beautiful detail. And look at the
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skin tones on his sweet little face. Just really, really fantastic. And then also this shot here of my daughter
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that we were just out on a hike together, but I was already thinking, this is six months ago
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I was thinking about this review. And so just shooting intentionally, putting things out of focus in the foreground
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seeing how the focus did on her face and then the transition towards out of focus beyond her
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And you can see that that's just a, it's a great looking image, really nicely executed
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So in some total, I am perfectly happy with the image quality I get here
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Sure, I would love the slightly creamier bouquet of the 50mm F1.2
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but at the value and the size of this lens, I just don't know that it can be beat at this point
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Well, thank you for those of you that have stuck around to the very end. As always, thanks for watching
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Have a great day and let the light in

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Sony 50mm F1.4 GM Long Term Review: The Sweet Spot of Price & Performance?

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