A little over a year ago Sigma released their 50mm F1.4 DN ART lens, one that I was very happy to see from them. I gave it a very positive review here. But they weren’t done – just five or six weeks later they released the 50mm F2 DN lens, which I reviewed here. Flash forward to March of 2024, and we have a THIRD full frame Sigma 50mm release…all in less than a year. This is the premium option, however, in the form of the Sigma 50mm F1.2 DG DN| ART, coming to go head to head with Sony’s own 50mm F1.2 G Master lens. Sony’s 50mm F1.2 GM is amazing, but it also retails for $2000, leaving Sigma a lot of room to operate at the much lower price point of $1399 USD ($1899 CDN). But is the Sigma 50mm F1.2 DN worth considering over either the Sony 50mm F1.2 (or excellent F1.4 G Master) lenses, or even Sigma’s own 50mm F1.4 DN? Explore that idea with me in either my video review below or by reading my text review here.
Thanks to Sigma Canada (Gentec) for sending me a review loaner 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 along with the Sony Alpha 1 that serve as my benchmark cameras for Sony lenses.
One of Sigma’s first dedicated full frame DN (mirrorless) designs was their 35mm F1.2 DG DN | ART. I reviewed that lens 5 1/2 years ago, and, while it was optically amazing, it was also HUGE. It was over 136mm long (5.4″) and weighed a whopping 1090g (38.4oz). Many reviewers felt about like I did about it; they loved the images they could with it, but weren’t sure that they were willing to deal with the size and weight. I ended up buying the wonderful (and compact) Sony 35mm F1.4 GM when it came out instead.
But Sigma has really learned to prioritize cutting down the size where necessary on mirrorless, and the new 50mm F1.2 DN is much more moderate in size. It is 81mm in diameter (with a 72mm front filter thread size) and 110.8mm in length (3.2 x 4.4″). It weighs a much more moderate 740g (26.1oz). These measurements are for the Sony E-mount version (which I’m testing here), but the L mount specs are similar. That makes this lens much more similar to the Sigma 50mm F1.4 DN (78.2 x 109.5mm | 670g) than the mammoth 35mm F1.2 DN, which is 28mm longer and 345g heavier. It is very similar in size to the Sony FE 50mm F1.2 G Master, which is 87 x 108 mm and weighs 778g. That means the Sigma is just slightly longer but a fair bit narrower and actually weighs 38g less. Kudos to keeping this beast reasonably sized. I don’t have the 50mm F1.2 GM on hand, but I do own the 50mm F1.4 GM, which you can see is smaller but not dramatically so.
The Sigma 50mm F1.2 DN brings all of Sigma’s latest technologies and features together to produce a GM fighter, and the lens is (as expected) incredibly sharp as well…even at F1.2
Keywords: Sigma 50mm F1.2, Sigma 50mm DN, 50mm, F1.2, f/1.2, #SIGMA, #SIGMA50mmF12Art, #SIGMAArt, #SIGMADGDN, Full Frame, Review, G Master, GM, Sony Alpha 1, Sony a7RV, Review, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, let the light in, weathersealing, #letthelightin, DA
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
A little over a year ago Sigma released their 50mm F1.4 DN ART lens, one that I was very happy to see from them. I gave it a very positive review here. But they weren’t done – just five or six weeks later they released the 50mm F2 DN lens, which I reviewed here. Flash forward to March of 2024, and we have a THIRD full frame Sigma 50mm release…all in less than a year. This is the premium option, however, in the form of the Sigma 50mm F1.2 DG DN| ART, coming to go head to head with Sony’s own 50mm F1.2 G Master lens. Sony’s 50mm F1.2 GM is amazing, but it also retails for $2000, leaving Sigma a lot of room to operate at the much lower price point of $1399 USD ($1899 CDN). But is the Sigma 50mm F1.2 DN worth considering over either the Sony 50mm F1.2 (or excellent F1.4 G Master) lenses, or even Sigma’s own 50mm F1.4 DN? Explore that idea with me in either my video review below or by reading on.
Thanks to Sigma Canada (Gentec) for sending me a review loaner 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 along with the Sony Alpha 1 that serve as my benchmark cameras for Sony lenses.
One of Sigma’s first dedicated full frame DN (mirrorless) designs was their 35mm F1.2 DG DN | ART. I reviewed that lens 5 1/2 years ago, and, while it was optically amazing, it was also HUGE. It was over 136mm long (5.4″) and weighed a whopping 1090g (38.4oz). Many reviewers felt about like I did about it; they loved the images they could with it, but weren’t sure that they were willing to deal with the size and weight. I ended up buying the wonderful (and compact) Sony 35mm F1.4 GM when it came out instead.
But Sigma has really learned to prioritize cutting down the size where necessary on mirrorless, and the new 50mm F1.2 DN is much more moderate in size. It is 81mm in diameter (with a 72mm front filter thread size) and 110.8mm in length (3.2 x 4.4″). It weighs a much more moderate 740g (26.1oz). These measurements are for the Sony E-mount version (which I’m testing here), but the L mount specs are similar. That makes this lens much more similar to the Sigma 50mm F1.4 DN (78.2 x 109.5mm | 670g) than the mammoth 35mm F1.2 DN, which is 28mm longer and 345g heavier. It is very similar in size to the Sony FE 50mm F1.2 G Master, which is 87 x 108 mm and weighs 778g. That means the Sigma is just slightly longer but a fair bit narrower and actually weighs 38g less. Kudos to keeping this beast reasonably sized. I don’t have the 50mm F1.2 GM on hand, but I do own the 50mm F1.4 GM, which you can see is smaller but not dramatically so.
The Sigma 50mm F1.2 DN brings all of Sigma’s latest technologies and features together to produce a GM fighter, and the lens is (as expected) incredibly sharp as well…even at F1.2
Let’s take a deeper dive into everything together.
Build and Handling
Sigma divides its lenses into three different categories: Contemporary, Art, and Sport. The Contemporary lineup gets the lowest level of build and weather sealing, while the lines are a little more blurred with the Art and Sport lenses. This ART lens is very nice built, and has a “Dust and Splash resistant structure” in the form of a gasket at the lens mount, internal seals, and a water and oil repellant coating on the front element.
As per usual with the ART series, Sigma provides a nice padded nylon case along with a quality lens hood. The lens hood has different textures to it along with a locking mechanism. Sigma does go the extra mile in the presentation of their lenses, and they are proud that their products continue to be fully assembled in Japan.
The 50mm F1.2 DN has Sigma’s unique approach to aperture, which includes several features. This includes an aperture ring with the option of using the “clicked” version (with one-third stop detents) or, with the flip of a switch, a fully declicked version that will allow for aperture racking for video. One unique Sigma feature is an aperture lock switch, which you can engage either in the manual aperture portion (this will keep you from inadvertently sliding into “A” [Auto] position, particularly important if doing aperture racks), or you can engage it when you are Auto aperture mode to make you that you don’t inadvertently bump the ring and change the aperture without noticing. Sony has since copied this feature, which they call “Iris lock”.
This really gives users the best of all worlds, as for those who don’t like an aperture ring, you can use the lock and just control the aperture from within the camera (or allow the camera to control aperture) without being concerned about an inadvertent bump of the ring. You can use the manual aperture ring with clicks (my personal preference), or declick it if preferred (typically for video work, to allow for aperture racking).
The aperture iris itself features an extremely high 13 blade count, which makes for an extremely circular shape as the lens is stopped down.
When stopped down, this also makes for an interesting (if a bit busy) 26 bladed sunstar/sunburst effect.
The 50mm F1.4 DN also sports an AF/MF switch and a custom/focus hold button which you can program to various functions in the camera, though it should be noted that the G Master 50mm lenses both sport dual custom buttons.
The manual focus ring is nice and wide, deeply ribbed, and is really nicely damped. The action feels heavier than the GM lenses, but more precise, too. The high power of the focus motor means that there is no latency when you manually focus (mirrorless lenses operate on a “focus by wire” arrangement rather than a direct mechanical coupling to the focus elements). Manual focus action is very nice and feels pretty close to the real thing. If you are using the Leica L version of the lens and the USB dock, you can tweak the behavior of the focus ring between linear focus and non-linear focus.
The build quality feels very nice here, roughly on par with the much more expensive G Master. It’s a great mix of nice materials, including some metal alloys and engineered plastics, and Sigma has long been good at using different textures as a means of keeping their lenses from being “boring” even though there are essentially no accent colors in use here.
The minimum focus distance is 40cm (15.8″), which is 5cm (2″) closer than the 50mm F1.4 DN, which results in a 0.16x magnification figure, just slightly lower than the GM’s 0.17x magnification figure. Up close performance is very strong, with good contrast and detail even at F1.2.
This opens up the possibility of some nice shallow depth of field shots with beautifully blurred backgrounds.
I’m perfectly happy with the build and feature set of this new 50mm F1.2 DN lens. The size and weight are tolerable, and Sigma has delivered a feature set that is pretty comparable to the G Master lens but at a much lower price point. That’s almost certainly going to be a winning combination.
Autofocus and Video
Last year Sigma debuted their new HLA (High-response Linear Actuator) focus motor, which is a definite improvement over the stepping motors Sigma has used in the past on their mirrorless lenses. This is a high powered linear motor which is more powerful and has the necessary torque for rapid focus changes even with the heavy glass elements in a large aperture lens like this. Sigma has employed two HLA focus motors in the 50mm F1.2 DN – one for each of the focusing groups in the optical design. And you can definitely feel the speed, as there is little hesitation when making focus changes and instead focus is essentially where you need it be near instantaneously.
Autofocus speed is definitely nice and snappy, with near instant transitions from one focus point to another whether indoors or out of doors, aided indoors by that big F1.2 aperture. Focus is quiet and smooth. Now, to be fair, Sony packs a whopping 4! XD linear motors into their 50mm F1.2 GM, so when push comes to shove, that lens is still going to be the lens of choice if you happen to shoot sports, particularly since Sony limits the burst speed of their top sports cameras with non-Sony lenses. Maximum burst speed with this Sigma on my Alpha 1 is 15FPS, whereas I can get 30FPS with my GM lens. Frankly, however, that probably isn’t going to be major factor with many photographers, as people rarely use a 50mm F1.2 for sports!
What the lens definitely provided was precision focus. I shot this hanging piece of bark on a tree, and you can see just how precise focus is here.
The most common application of a lens like this will be portrait and fine art work, and the AF system works beautifully for that. Look how perfect the focus on Nala’s iris is even at F1.2:
I was able to nail focus easily even at F1.2 on very narrow subjects, like this nail sticking out of some old barn board.
I shot a portrait session with the lens and had an effortless time tracking the eye of my subject. I got consistently good focus results, though, as always, you may need to stop the lens down to get enough depth of field to have more than a sliver of your subject in focus.
The upside to this is that you can shoot full length portraits and still have some separation from the background.
Video focus pulls are smooth and fast, with no hesitation, pulsing, or settling. I also saw smooth, confident focus transitions when I put my hand in front of the lens and then allowed focus to transition back to my eyes. Sigma has worked at reducing focus breathing in the 50mm F1.2 DN, and it shows in a stronger performance than what I saw on the 50mm F1.4 DN.
Sigma has given this lens their best autofocus technology, which makes it a very strong choice that can hold up to basically all types of photography.
Image Quality Breakdown
Sigma has done a pretty remarkable job as a third party lensmaker in that people expect a new Sigma release (particularly an ART prime release) to automatically be a very high performing lens. Their 50mm F1.4 DN proved an extremely sharp lens, as was their 50mm F2 DN lens, but you can see here than over most of the frame the 50mm F1.2 is sharper still.
The optical design is 17 elements in 12 groups, with 4 of those being aspherical elements. As is usual with Sigma designs, there is very high correction of aberrations, so the sharpness and contrast wide open is very strong.
We’ll break down the performance by first taking a look at distortion and vignette.
Distortion is quite well controlled here, and vignette isn’t severe. While there is a correction profile available, I like to do manual correction so that I can see what the actual optical performance is. I used a minor -4 to correct just a bit of pincushion distortion and a +65 (a little over two stops) to correct for the vignette.
This is definitely an area of strength relative to the 50mm F1.4, which required a -8 to correct for distortion (significantly more) and a +84 to correct for the vignette (more like 3 stops).
That’s an impressive win for the 50mm F1.2 DN, as it isn’t hardly any bigger, has a brighter maximum aperture, and yet manages to cut down on both these things.
It’s also better in controlling real world longitudinal chromatic aberrations. The 50mm F1.4 DN did pretty well in my controlled tests, but there were a number of real world shots where I was surprised at how much fringing I saw, as this is something that Sigma typically controls very well. They are back to their winning ways here, though. I was consistently impressed in real world scenarios where I would expect fringing and find very little…even at F1.2:
I also see very little lateral chromatic aberrations near the corners:
So far all is well. So how about sharpness? All of the tests and photos shown in this review are done on the 61MP Sony a7RV, the highest resolution point currently available for a full frame/35mm sensor. Here’s a look at the test chart we’re using for the tests.
We’ll start by taking a look at crops from across the frame at F1.2 (center, mid-frame, lower right corner):
We can see that not only is there impressive sharpness in the center of the frame, but also a nicely even sharpness profile all across the frame.
To put this into perspective, let’s take a look at the Sigma 50mm F1.2 DN at 200% magnification in the center and extreme corner at F1.2:
Here’s the Sony 50mm F1.2 GM at the same (the Sony was tested on the Alpha 1, which is 50MP, so the “magnification” looks a little lower.
Comparing these side by side, I would say that the Sigma has the edge in the center while the GM is better in the corners.
Here’s the Sigma 50mm F1.4 DN (also tested on the Alpha 1):
As the MTF comparison earlier shows, the F1.2 lens is better in the center and midframe while the F1.4 lens is a little better in the corners. I think that most portrait photographers would prefer the sharpness profile of the F1.2 lens, as its best performance relative the competition comes in the rule of thirds zone.
Finally, the Sony FE 50mm F1.4 GM:
This is the most apples to apples comparison, as the 50mm F1.4 GM was also tested on the higher resolution point. The F1.4 GM is the sharpest of any of these lenses in center of the frame (and mid-frame), though the Sigma 50mm F1.2 is better in the corners. This remains true if I stop the Sigma down to F1.4 to match the maximum aperture of the GM.
Bottom line: the Sigma 50mm F1.2 GM is competitive with the very sharpest of 50mm lenses available. There’s plenty of sharpness here to even shoot landscape distant images at F1.2, though you’ll probably need either a camera with an extremely fast shutter speed (like the electronic shutter on my Alpha 1 here – 1/10,000th second) or some kind of filter to reduce light.
Stopping down to F1.4 produces little change, but I see a bigger jump at F1.8:
Corners take this kind of leap at F2, where they start to look impressive, though it is at F2.8 that they achieve a sharpness many lenses never achieve in the center of the frame:
Performs peaks at F5.6, with a mild regression at F8 due to the beginning effects of diffraction. That softness will increase at F11 and then peak at F16, which looks softer than any other aperture value due to diffraction.
So no surprises here. Sigma excels at producing very sharp, well corrected lenses, and that’s what we find here. Where I was more interested in seeing what Sigma could do was in the bokeh department. My typical experience with Sigma lenses is that they tend to err on the side of corrections rather than having a few imperfections that lead to more “magical” rendering. I felt like the 50mm F1.2 GM was rather exceptional in this regard, as it is both very sharp but also has very beautiful, creamy bokeh. I love the overall package of the Sony FE 50mm F1.4 GM (I own one), but I do feel the bokeh/rendering from the F1.2 GM is top notch.
As expected, the Sigma does a very, very good, but not exceptional job in the rendering department.
Bright specular highlights are fairly clean, with no concentric circles (AKA “onion bokeh”):
Close results with slightly busier backgrounds are soft, though expect a little more outlining than on the GM lens.
Up close with clean backgrounds will look pretty creamy, like this shot of the sweet new Zhiyun Molus XC60:
Medium distance shots will show a bit more of those edges, but also show good subject separation and contrast.
On the day that I was able to set up a quick portrait shoot the light was fairly harsh, so I don’t want to draw too many bokeh conclusions. I loved the sharpness on my model (fantastic!), but I did find the backgrounds weren’t quit as soft as what I would like.
While I didn’t have the F1.2 GM lens on hand (the more obvious comparison), I did have the Sony 50mm F1.4 GM, and it is actually more similar in price. Comparing the bokeh side by side from these two lenses, I would say that the Sigma F1.2 lens offers slightly softer bokeh:
I was actually surprised by this comparison, however, as after shooting with the Sony for a year, I would say I actually prefer the Sony’s rendering (color + bokeh) in real world use. But bokeh is subjective, and I suspect that most people will be happy with what the Sigma provides.
In general I found the colors from the Sigma 50mm F1.2 DN very nice:
Flare resistance is also solid. Wide open there is little in terms of ghosting artifacts or veiling, though you’ll see a mild flare pattern when the lens is stopped down to smaller apertures (F11 examples shown here).
In short, there are no real optical flaws here. While I would argue that the Sony 50mm F1.2 G Master has a little nicer rendering, that is more of a gut impression and would be hard to demonstrate. The fact that this Sigma 50mm F1.2 DN has all the features, a similar optical performance, and great autofocus – all for $600 less – is going to make this a very compelling lens for the photographers who want that extra little bit that F1.2 provides but don’t want to spend $2000 to get it.
The Sigma 50mm F1.2 DG DN | ART is a great accomplishment for Sigma, as they have managed to give us all of the strengths of their optically excellent 35mm F1.2 DN while managing to keep the size and weight done. The fact that the lens has outstanding autofocus is just another feather in its cap. This is the kind of lens that gives Sony E and Leica L a real advantage over platforms like Canon RF and Nikon Z (at least for now). The Canon RF 50mm F1.2L is a beautiful lens, but it also costs $2300 and is bigger and heavier than the Sigma. The Nikon Z 50mm F1.2 S retails for $2100 but is bigger and heavier still (it weighs nearly 1100g and is 150mm long!). Sigma has always done an admirable job of filling this role, providing mostly similar alternatives to the premium first party lenses at a much lower price point. The fact that Sony has this as an option and Canon/Nikon do not remains a core advantage for Sony in the mirrorless wars.
I found the smaller packaging of the Sony FE 50mm F1.4 GM when it was released more appealing than Sigma’s larger 50mm F1.4 DN, but they’ve done a great job of eliminating that as an advantage relative to the slightly larger Sony 50mm F1.2. In some ways the 50mm F1.4 GM will be a more direct competitor to the Sigma as it runs $1299 USD, just $100 less than the Sigma 50mm F1.2 DN’s price tag of $1399 USD. Both lenses are very appealing, but I think some will look at the advantages of that F1.2 aperture and choose the Sigma. The list of defects on the Sigma is extremely low, but I would (subjectively) say that I slightly prefer the rendering/bokeh of the 50mm F1.4 GM and even more the 50mm F1.2 GM.
Sigma has been a prodigious lens producer on Sony and L-mount, and they now have a 50mm lens for every need. Want a smaller, lighter option? You’ve got the 50mm F2 DN. Want a premium yet affordable option? There’s the 50mm F1.4 DN at just $849 USD. Want the fastest autofocus option at 50mm for those shallow depth of field portraits and special low light situations? Now we have the 50mm F1.2 DN at $1399 USD. Talk about being spoiled for choice!
Pros:
Extremely well built lens
Thorough weather sealing
A long list of a features
Includes lens case
Slightly lighter than the GM lens
Dual HLA motors make for snappy, silent autofocus
Good focus accuracy for portrait work
Good video AF performance
Fairly low focus breathing
Competitive sharpness with the very best 50mm lenses from F1.2 on
Keywords: Sigma 50mm F1.2, Sigma 50mm DN, 50mm, F1.2, f/1.2, #SIGMA, #SIGMA50mmF12Art, #SIGMAArt, #SIGMADGDN, Full Frame, Review, G Master, GM, Sony Alpha 1, Sony a7RV, Review, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, let the light in, weathersealing, #letthelightin, DA
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Sony release the first generation 16-35mm F2.8 Gold Master (GM) lens in 2017, making it the third GM zoom lens for E-mount and completing the “trinity” of fast F2.8 zooms along with the 24-70mm F2.8 and 70-200mm F2.8 GM zooms. This lineup of zooms is pretty much considered a requirement for any platform to be considered “professional-ready”. There would be a three year gap before another GM zoom was released (the 12-24mm F2.8 GM was released in 2020), and during that period Sony was going through a true renaissance of lens design. The first generation of GM lenses were good, but far from perfect. The second generation of GM glass has consistently been some of the best lenses of their kind that I’ve ever tested…period. In 2021 Sony released the MK II version of the 70-200mm; in 2022 they released the 24-70mm F2.8 GM II, and thus it stood to reason that 2023 would be the year of the 16-35mm F2.8 GM II. The 16-35GMII returns with the modern Sony design of features, autofocus, and performance. So is it worth the nearly $2300 USD price tag? Find out by watching my video review below…or just read on.
Thanks to Sony USA for sending me a review loaner 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 along with the Sony Alpha 1 that serve as my benchmark cameras for Sony lenses.
Sony has had four priorities in their updates to the GM lenses:
Make them smaller
Modernize the feature set
Improve the autofocus speed and accuracy via multiple XD linear motors
Improve the optical performance
All of these priorities are realized here, as at 547g, the 16-35GMII is 20% lighter along with being about 10mm shorter than the first generation lens. It has the full modern feature set, included multiple focus hold buttons, an aperture ring, iris lock, and an aperture declick option. Autofocus is lightning fast due to the use of quad!!! XD linear motors. And the optical performance has been improved to the kind of edge to edge perfection that Sony’s modern GM lenses achieve.
Add to this the fact that the 16-35GMII can focus more closely than before and now gives a very impressive 0.32x magnification, which greatly adds to the versatility of the lens.
In short, this is a modern Sony GM lens, and that means that owners of the original G Master lens now have a hard decision to make.
Build and Handling
As noted in the intro, the new 16-35GMII lens is packed with upgraded features and build tweaks. That begins with a reduction in size, with the new lens being 87.8mm (3.5″) in diameter (as before) but now 111.5mm (4.4″) in length (compared to 121.6mm for the first gen lens). The most notable reduction is in weight, however, with the new lens weighing in at 547g (1.2 lb) compared to the 680g (1.5lb) of the previous lens. There aren’t any direct competitors to this lens, though Sigma’s 14-24mm F2.8 DN weighs in at 795g and Canon’s RF 15-35mm F2.8L IS weighs a whopping 840g. Even Tamron’s miniscule 17-28mm F2.8 with its reduced zoom range and featureless design weighs 420g. The 16-35GM II didn’t even feel too big for the compact a7CR camera I used it on a bit.
Here’s a look at a comparison chart of specifications with some of these lenses.
The feature set begins inside the lens, as the lens features a very thorough weather sealing that includes no less than 15 sealing gaskets by my count.
There’s also a fluorine coating on the front element to help resist fingerprints and moisture.
You can from the shot above see that the front façade of the lens is nice and clean. The filter threads are for 82mm filters (same as before). Sometimes wider lenses lose the ability to use traditional filters, so the fact that one can use common filters here is helpful.
The 16-35GMII now includes an aperture ring. This has been an increasing priority for Sony in their lens design due to the reality that more and more people are doing a hybrid of photo and video work on their Sony cameras. An aperture ring gives you more direct control over aperture along with a few extra options for what you can do with it.
Traditional aperture control comes in the form of a clicked ring with detents at every one-third F-stop. The clicks are well defined and easy to find.
Those who prefer smooth aperture control without clicks (either as a preference or for video aperture racks) will find a Click/Declick option on the right side of the lens barrel. In the declicked option you can smoothly rack through the whole aperture, though this is a “by-wire” or electronic control which will require the camera to be powered on to operate. There is also a little lag between input on the ring and the physical movement of the aperture blades.
If you find an aperture ring annoying and unnecessary, Sony also has an option for you. There is an Iris Lock on the left side of the barrel that will allow you to either lock out of the aperture ring (in Auto mode where aperture is controlled from the camera) or to lock you into the aperture ring to assure that you don’t inadvertently switch into auto mode.
These two switches are located discretely and designed in such a way that they won’t get inadvertently bumped.
The original GM lens had a single focus hold button over the AF/MF switch on the left side of the barrel. That original location for those two items is retained here.
Sony has added an additional focus hold button to the top of the lens barrel so that when one is shooting in vertical mode there is still a focus hold button close to hand.
You’ll note that the front of the lens is fully retracted in the above image despite the zoom ring being at the 35mm position. The lens will extend a tiny amount (about 8mm) when zoomed to the 16mm position.
The design is intentional to allow for a good balance point for those using the lens on a gimbal. You shouldn’t have to recalibrate regardless of the selected focal length.
The zoom action is very smooth with good damping and no sticking points in the zoom range.
The manual focus ring is located near the front of the lens and moves smoothly with weight being on the lighter side. Doing one finger focus is easy. There isn’t an amazing amount of “feel” to the ring (also “by-wire”), but it gets the job done.
There is a very shallow lens hood that is included. It is plastic and nothing fancy, though there is a lock on the side to help keep it from moving.
As noted, the minimum focus distance has been improved to just 22.1cm (8.7″), allowing for a much higher 0.32x magnification (compared to just 0.19x for the original GM lens). This allows you to get very close to the subject and achieve a high level of magnification:
You can get a bit closer still at 16mm, but the magnification level isn’t nearly as high as what you can achieve at 35mm (16mm on the left, 35mm on the right):
If we zoom into that image we find that up close performance is really quite good.
That obviously adds additional layers of versatility to the lens and the kinds of images you can make with it.
Sony has really hit on a winning formula for their modern GM lenses, and the 16-35mm F2.8 GM II is no exception. This lens does not have optical stabilization, but that’s in large part because Sony has fully committed to in body stabilization in all of their full frame cameras (unlike some other camera makers). I used the lens on three different Sony cameras and was able to get stable handheld video footage on all of them along with photos with lower shutter speeds.
The 16-35GMII is expensive at $2298 USD, but it is also the most fully realized, feature rich lens in the class. That’s kind of the point of the Gold Master series – to be the premium option for those willing to spend for it.
Autofocus and Video
I was rather astounded to discover that Sony had packed 4 XD (Extreme Dynamic) Linear Motors into the 16-35GMII. Wide angle lenses are typically less demanding on focus systems because so much stays in focus all of the time, but Sony wanted to be sure that this lens could keep up with incredibly fast bursts (like the on new Sony a9III or Alpha 1) or when recording video at 4K120.
There is no better autofocus experience that I’m aware of than GM lenses so equipped on Sony’s better camera bodies. I own the Alpha 1, and the ability to shoot 30FPS with great precision is still an amazing experience. But even on less robust autofocusing cameras like the Sony a7CR that I happened to be reviewing, capturing action shots was effortless.
The XD motors are truly silent. I put my ear next to the barrel and focused multiple times. I then looked at the camera to make sure focus was happening because I couldn’t hear anything even in a quiet environment.
Focus speed is essentially instantaneous. And focus accuracy is exceptional, allowing you to accurately pinpoint focus even on very small targets.
Let’s zoom in so that we can appreciate the precise focus and incredible resolution.
Eye AF was extremely accurate. Unlike some brands, Sony has perfected the ability for focus to be on the iris rather than the eyelid or lash.
My focus speed tests showed near instant focus transitions from near to far and back. There’s no drama there; just instant lock on a new subject. My eye tracking test showed good “stickyness” as I moved around even when using my statue model rather than an actual human subject.
In real world situations I had no problem instantly locking focus even when subjects were in motion.
Things are also positive on the video side of things. My focus pull tests were smooth and confident. There is no visible stepping, no hunting or pulsing, and the subject locked without settling. Even better was my hand test where I alternately block the lens from seeing my face with my hand and then remove it and allow focus to transition to my eye. There was perfect confidence not only in the transition to my eye (the more easily trackable subject) but also on my hand.
Focus breathing is minimal and shouldn’t be an issue.
I shot a few video clips of basketball action and saw accurate focus and smooth focus transitions as the players moved around in space. All good.
I was perfectly happy with autofocus on the 16-35GMII on all three cameras I tested it on for both stills and video work.
Image Quality Breakdown
The 16-35mm F2.8 GM II is the rare second generation lens with a LESS complicated optical formula than its predecessor. It features 15 elements in 12 groups rather than the 16 elements in 13 groups of the previous lens…and delivers much stronger image quality at the same time. Sony’s ability to manufacture exotic glass elements has improved, and that is reflected in this formula that sports 5 different types of exotic lens elements. The MTF charts look excellent, with extreme high resolution in the center and midframe and corners that are sharper than what some lenses are in the center.
The MTF on the telephoto end, in particularly, speaks of a significant improvement. And the image quality is as pristine as a fresh winter snow here in Canada.
The biggest optical flaw I can find is the barrel distortion at 16mm. There’s a significant amount (a +24 to correct), but, more importantly, it is fairly complex. There’s a mustache type pattern that means that an attempt to correct most of the inner lines results in warping the outer lines. Fortunately Sony’s correction profile does a much cleaner job of resolving the distortion. At 24mm the distortion is fairly neutral, and by 35mm it has inverted to pincushion distortion, though a minimal amount that isn’t difficult to correct. Here’s a look at the three results and the manual corrections.
And here is the information for those corrections:
16mm: +24 to correct the distortion, +33 to correct the vignette (slightly over one stop)
24mm: 0 distortion correction, +35 to correct the vignette
35mm: -4 to correct the distortion, +23 to correct the vignette
Outside of that complex distortion at 16mm, everything here is pretty well controlled.
Chromatic aberrations are extremely well corrected, with almost no longitudinal chromatic aberrations (fringing) in narrow depth of field shots:
There is also no evidence of lateral chromatic aberrations near the edges of the frame:
Frankly these days I don’t expect anything else from Sony’s GM lenses, but the lens definitely doesn’t disappoint in these tests.
So how about resolution? Here’s a look at the test chart we use for our tests:
I’ve done these tests on a 61MP Sony a7RV. Here’s a look at crops at nearly 200% at 16mm, F2.8 from the center, mid-frame, and lower right corner:
That’s pretty pristine, with great detail everywhere you look in the frame. That means that you can easily shoot landscape images at F2.8:
Here’s crops from that image from both edges and the center:
You’ll also note that contrast is pretty much perfect from F2.8 on in a real world environment, too.
You’ll get very mild improvements in detail and contrast when stopping down further, though the lens is already so sharp at F2.8 that you probably will hardly notice. Stopping down the aperture will be more useful for increasing depth of field than in an exercise to get more sharpness.
Image quality remains pristine through F8, though after this diffraction will start to soften the image, particularly on high resolution cameras. You can see there’s a radical difference in contrast between F8 and F22 (minimum aperture) in the corners:
I was personally interested in how this GM lens compares to another brilliant 16mm lens that I reviewed earlier this year – the Viltrox AF 16mm F1.8. That’s a prime lens, obviously, and so it has but one focal length but does have the advantage of being to open to a much wider maximum aperture (+1 1/3 stops). This GM lens lens is top notch at 16mm; can the much less expensive Viltrox compare?
In the center of the frame I give an edge to the GM lens. There just aren’t hardly any wide angle lenses that deliver this level of resolution, though the Viltrox is close.
There is a some give and take elsewhere in the frame, with some spots looking better for the GM and others favoring the Viltrox. The corners very slightly favor the Viltrox:
The two lenses are close in performance, which is frankly a win for both of them. That the Viltrox manages to compete with the 4x more expensive GM is impressive, and that the GM manages to equal the performance of one of the best wide angle primes that I’ve tested is also impressive.
Moving on in the zoom range, at 20mm I find that resolution is very similar, though I think contrast is just a hair off what I saw at 16mm (the bright areas are a little brighter at equivalent settings at 16mm).
Resolution remains at a very high level, obviously, and stopping down to F4 shows a more marked uptick in contrast than what I saw at 16mm (there was a little more room for improvement at 20mm). At F4 contrast is at very impressive levels.
You can capture beautiful results at 20mm for real world shots:
24mm is virtually identical to 20mm in my tests. I could scarcely spot a difference in either contrast or detail even at 200% side by side. Real world results are (as you would expect) impressive:
28mm was very slightly softer than at any point previously at F2.8:
As before, however, all it takes is a mild stop down to F4 to get into excellent levels. That means that real world images are going to look as excellent as you’d expect from this lens:
35mm proved sharper than 28mm in the center of the frame, but it was hit and miss elsewhere. 16mm seems to still be the most consistently uniform focal length in terms of sharpness and contrast, but 35mm isn’t far behind (16mm on the left, 35mm on the right):
As with most zoom lenses, my images were concentrated on the extremes, with slightly more taken at 16mm than at 35mm. In some ways I was more impressed with images at 35mm, however, for the simple reason that they tended to be closer and allowed me to appreciate the fine details more.
Wide angle zooms are rarely the source of the world’s best bokeh, but the 16-35GMII is better than most. Bokeh manages to not have too much outlining and is fairly creamy. The geometry for specular highlights also looks quite good.
Here’s another shot that shows a nice subject separation and a reasonably soft background.
Coatings on Sony’s recent GM lenses have proven excellent in resisting flare, and I did find that flare issues were basically non-existent.
A friendly clear night gave me the ability to test for coma. It probably should come as no surprise at this point that the 16-35GMII is also good at controlling coma. There’s a little bit of stretching on the edges of the frame, but little sign of coma smear. Star points are nice and crisp throughout the frame even when reviewed at 150% magnification.
Sony has really set the bar very high for their GM lenses starting at the 24mm F1.4 GM. I haven’t seen a bad one. They are expensive, yes, but they are the superlative lenses in their classes, and that’s kind of the the point.
The Sony FE 16-35mm F2.8 GM II has the most consistent performance I’ve ever seen from a wide angle zoom lens. Gone are the days when I was reviewing the premium Canon EF 16-35mm F2.8L II and despairing at the soft corners; we are in a whole new level of performance in the current era of Sony’s lens design.
Sony has achieved all the checklists here. The lens is smaller and lighter, more feature rich, has amazing autofocus, and incredible image quality.
There are cheaper alternatives, but nothing that provides the consistent performance in all areas that the 16-35GMII does. Does that make it worth $2300 USD? Only if you want the best…
Keywords: Sony 16-35mm, Sony FE 16-35mm F2.8 GM II, G Master, GM, II, MK II, SEL1635GM2, #SEL1635GM2, Full Frame, Review, Sony Alpha 1, Sony a7RV, Review, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, let the light in, weathersealing, #letthelightin, DA
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Sony release the first generation 16-35mm F2.8 Gold Master (GM) lens in 2017, making it the third GM zoom lens for E-mount and completing the “trinity” of fast F2.8 zooms along with the 24-70mm F2.8 and 70-200mm F2.8 GM zooms. This lineup of zooms is pretty much considered a requirement for any platform to be considered “professional-ready”. There would be a three year gap before another GM zoom was released (the 12-24mm F2.8 GM was released in 2020), and during that period Sony was going through a true renaissance of lens design. The first generation of GM lenses were good, but far from perfect. The second generation of GM glass has consistently been some of the best lenses of their kind that I’ve ever tested…period. In 2021 Sony released the MK II version of the 70-200mm; in 2022 they released the 24-70mm F2.8 GM II, and thus it stood to reason that 2023 would be the year of the 16-35mm F2.8 GM II. The 16-35GMII returns with the modern Sony design of features, autofocus, and performance. So is it worth the nearly $2300 USD price tag? Find out by watching my video review below or reading my text review here.
Thanks to Sony USA for sending me a review loaner 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 along with the Sony Alpha 1 that serve as my benchmark cameras for Sony lenses.
Sony has had four priorities in their updates to the GM lenses:
Make them smaller
Modernize the feature set
Improve the autofocus speed and accuracy via multiple XD linear motors
Improve the optical performance
All of these priorities are realized here, as at 547g, the 16-35GMII is 20% lighter along with being about 10mm shorter than the first generation lens. It has the full modern feature set, included multiple focus hold buttons, an aperture ring, iris lock, and an aperture declick option. Autofocus is lightning fast due to the use of quad!!! XD linear motors. And the optical performance has been improved to the kind of edge to edge perfection that Sony’s modern GM lenses achieve.
Add to this the fact that the 16-35GMII can focus more closely than before and now gives a very impressive 0.32x magnification, which greatly adds to the versatility of the lens.
In short, this is a modern Sony GM lens, and that means that owners of the original G Master lens now have a hard decision to make.
Keywords: Sony 16-35mm, Sony FE 16-35mm F2.8 GM II, G Master, GM, II, MK II, SEL1635GM2, #SEL1635GM2, Full Frame, Review, Sony Alpha 1, Sony a7RV, Review, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, let the light in, weathersealing, #letthelightin, DA
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
When I did my review of the Sony FE 50mm F1.2 G Master (an exceptional lens!), I concluded that Sony had gone the F1.2 route to help incentivize owners of the already good Sony Zeiss Planar 50mm F1.4 (my review here) to upgrade. I theorized that an F1.4 lens might not have gotten people’s attention in the way that a F1.2 lens would. I still think that’s correct, but clearly Sony also felt that there was room for a smaller, lighter, cheaper GM lens at the 50mm focal length, as their newest lens is just that: the Sony FE 50mm F1.4 G Master (we’ll call the 50GM F1.4 for short in this review).
Early reactions from my audience have been mixed, with plenty of people wondering why yet another 50mm lens was needed. I personally welcome this lens, however, as while I really, really love the 50mm F1.2 GM, it is more lens (and a more expensive lens) than many people need. I love the form factor of the 35mm F1.4 G Master (my review here), and the new 50GMF1.4 is a closer match for that lens (along with the 24mm F1.4 G Master) in size, and all three lenses share a common 67mm front filter thread. Obviously the price of every lens varies from region to region around the world, but in the largest market (the United States), there is a $700 price difference between the new 50mm F1.4 lens (at $1300 USD) and the 50mm F1.2 GM ($2000 USD).
Further muddying the waters is the recently released Sigma 50mm F1.4 DN ART (my review here), a very competent lens with very sharp optics along with very fast autofocus. It retails for $850 USD, which makes it a relative bargain. I know in some European market the price difference between the Sigma and the new Sony is nearly double, so that will obviously be a factor for many photographers.
The Sony 50GM F1.4 does have some advantages, however, and we’ll detail those as a part of this review along with demonstrating why this lens certainly has a legitimate place in the market. But should it be your new 50mm choice? Hopefully this review will help you make that decision, so read on…or watch the review below.
Thanks to Sony USA for sending me a loaner copy of the 50mm F1.4 GM. 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 a7IV along with the Sony Alpha 1 which will serve as my benchmark camera for the foreseeable future (my review here).
own.
Sony 50GM F1.4 Build, Handling, and Features
The new Sony 50mm F1.4 GM has a size and weight advantage over almost every other 50mm F1.4 option on the market. I say “almost” because Samyang’s 50mm F1.4 Series II lens is slightly more compact and lightweight, though the Sony’s build quality and feature set is more robust by comparison. Here’s a look at how these lenses compare:
As noted earlier, the new 50GM F1.4 shares a 67mm filter thread size with the 24mm and 35mm F1.4 G Master lenses, which is always very convenient. Tamron has built the majority of its Sony FE lenses around this same filter size, so you could definitely put together a quality kit of lenses that could easily share filters. These lenses are similar in size and design, though the new 50mm lens is wider in girth. Here’s a look at the 35mm (which I own) and the new 50mm side by side.
The 50GM F1.4 is 80.6mm in diameter (3.2″) and is 96mm (3.8″) in length. The weight is 516g (18.2 oz). That makes it about 15.5mm shorter and 150g lighter than the new Sigma 50mm F1.4 DN ART lens, and about 12mm and 260g lighter than the Sony Zeiss Planar F1.4, which, ironically, is about the same difference as between the 50mm F1.2 GM and the new F1.4 lens, though the F1.2 is also about 6mm wider in diameter. The ultimate winner if you want to travel light, however, is the Samyang AF 50mm F1.4 II, which is 7mm shorter and weighs nearly 100g less. You can see that difference with them side by side, but it isn’t huge:
Still, the GM lens is impressively compact when you consider the superior optics, more advanced features, and faster (multiple) focus motors that are housed in it. That smaller size and lighter weight will make a real world difference, particularly if you don’t shoot in a studio and are actually packing the lens.
Sony listed the Planar lens as being weather sealed, but they are also a little coy about the amount of seals and their location. I’ve reviewed the lens multiple times and owned one for a while, but I’ve never been able to locate a diagram showing the seal points. Sony is more forthcoming with the new GM lens, however, and the diagram shows eleven seal points by my count throughout the lens along with a fluorine coating on the front element. This is a thoroughly sealed lens that is designed for professional grade use in a variety of weather positions.
There is a lot of features packed into this compact lens. That starts with the aperture, where you have multiple options for controlling aperture. You can change it from within the camera, manually change it via one third stop detents, or have a declicked aperture by selecting the switch on the right side of the barrel. Sony has started including an “Iris Lock” switch as well, and this allows you to lock the aperture ring either into the manual control section or to lock the ring out of manual if you want to control it from within the camera. This ensures that there are no inadvertent bumps into an area you don’t want.
The lens also sports a focus hold button in two different positions (for easy access in both vertical and horizontal shooting modes) along with an AF/MF switch.
The manual focus ring is narrower than the one on the 50mm F1.2 (the F1.4 is a smaller lens!), and I measure it at right under 2 centimeters in width. It has a ribbed, rubberized texture, and moves smoothly. The damping is a little on the light side, however, and so the focus action isn’t as excellent as I’ve seen in some lenses. The focus ring is nicely linear, however, which makes for highly repeatable results.
The 50GM F1.4 has a mild advantage over the recent Sigma 50mm F1.4 DN in minimum focus distances, as it can autofocus as closely as 41cm as opposed to the 45cm of the Sigma. Both the 50mm F1.2 GM and the Samyang can focus slightly closer, at 40cm. The 0.16x magnification on the 50mm F1.4 GM is mid-pack here, as the Sigma (and older Planar lens) are 0.15x, while the Samyang is also 0.16x and the 50mm F1.2 is 0.17x. Here’s what MFD looks like for the 50GM F1.4:
The 50GM F1.4 does have one other trick here, though, as you can actually manually focus as closely as 38cm, which ups the magnification level to 0.18x. Wide open MFD performance is excellent, with high contrast, good texture rendering, and a flat plane of focus. The closer manual focus result has very slightly less contrast, but is still very good, and it does definitely make a visible difference in magnification if you put them side by side.
This opens up some additional creative options for what you can do with the lens, and using wide aperture lenses at closer distances is one of my favorite types of photography because of the dramatic results.
The 50GM F1.4 sports a high aperture blade count of 11, which is useful in maintaining a circular shape as the aperture is stopped down. You can see that the aperture is fairly circular even here at about F8 or so:
We can see from this series (F1.4, F2, and F2.8) that even at F2.8 the aperture is basically perfectly circular, and while there is some geometric deformation at F1.4 near the edges (lemon shape), the the F2 example shows near-perfect circular shape even at the edges of the frame. The specular highlights are also free of concentric circles or general busyness, which points to a nice out of focus rendering.
This attention to detail helps photographers have options in more situations. I’ve seen some 50mm lenses whose bokeh turned pretty ugly if you had things like Christmas lights in the frame, but that is far from being the case here.
The included lens hood is a fairly slim. It has a locking mechanism and a rubberized front edge to help absorb shocks. There’s also a zippered, padded case for transport included.
In short, the 50GM F1.4 basically ticks all the boxes. It is smaller and lighter than most competing lenses, has a wide variety of features, and is functionally pretty much perfect other than lacking a bit of feel during manual focus. It looks great mounted on the camera, has quality weather sealing, and functionally works very well. It is pricier than some competing options like the Samyang and Sigma, but is also a little more premium in its execution.
Sony 50mm F1.4 GM Autofocus and Video Performance
As a lens reviewer for over a decade now, I’ve learned that there is a direct correlation between the amount of power in a focus system and the accuracy it is able to achieve. It’s not just the amount of power needed to start the focus group moving, but also the power and control needed to quickly stop that movement at the perfect spot to achieve accurate focus without pulsing or settling. Sony has developed a winning autofocus formula in recent GM lenses by utilizing XD (Extreme Dynamic) Linear Motors. They evaluate the amount of power needed to drive the focusing element(s) and then employ the necessary numbers of XD motors to drive focus quickly and accurately. In this case, the necessary number is two, which is similar to the 35mm F1.4 GM. The 50mm F1.2 GM required quad XD motors due to having such large and heavy optical elements. Two is the magic number here, as that was all that was needed. Autofocus is fast, quiet, and accurate.
I had no problem pinpointing narrow depth of field subjects and getting consistently well focused results.
I bumped the ISO up to 6400 to get reasonable shutter speeds and set my Alpha 1 to full high speed burst mode, and then got Nala to walk towards me. I find that many lenses really struggle with this: a small target in unexceptional lighting that keeps moving towards the camera. At F1.4 the depth of field continues to shrink and the margin for error grows. The 50GM F1.4 nailed it, though. From 8:48:22 to 8:48:24 (a bit of overlap in the seconds) I shot 32 shots, all of which were perfectly focused. Here’s three frames from the beginning, middle, and end, and even the closest image where she was almost out of the frame is perfectly focused:
That’s a fantastic result, and while I also found that the Sigma 50mm F1.4 DN ART focused very quickly, Sony limits the burst rate with third party lenses to 15FPS, meaning that I would only have gotten a maximum of about 16 shots during that same period – half what I could get the GM lens. The Samyang just isn’t fast enough for that kind of scenario, and the older Planar lens would disappoint me at times with its random inaccuracy. The 50mm F1.2 GM also has fantastic autofocus if you want to move a little more upscale.
I set up a tea themed still life, and found that I could get pinpoint focus even on the fine trail of tea leaves I set up:
I also had my assistant use the 50GM F1.4 during a baptism service at our church, and in all of the various images the focus is completely nailed at a wide variety of focus distances.
Lenses like the 50GM F1.4 makes shooting portraits a breeze. Compose how you want and let Eye AF take care of the focusing. Gone are the “focus and recompose days” or the times when I was concerned with wide aperture lenses about using outer AF points that were less sensitive and produced inconsistent results. A modern Sony body and this lens can make pretty much anyone seem like a pro in terms of focus results.
I did my standard battery of video tests along with a few extras. The 50GM F1.4 breezed through the test where I block the lens from my face with my hand and than allow focus to snap back to the eye. There was no pulsing or settling, though I will note that focus transition speed was more smooth than fast. I went back and checked the same test from the Sigma and thought they were about equal. Focus consistency while I approached the camera was pretty good as well, though I’m not sure it is quite as “magical” as the focus speed for stills.
Likewise my focus transition test proved accurate, smooth, and quiet. There is no stepping here in focus transitions, just smooth and confident focus. There is some focus breathing (much like the Sigma), though Sony has once again baked in an advantage for their own lenses. Some of their newer cameras has a focus breathing compensation setting, and at the cost of a slight crop, the focus breathing is largely eliminated.
I also found that I could easily execute both manual focus pulls and aperture racks. The linear focus ring makes focus pulls repeatable, though, as noted, I wouldn’t mind a little more damping to the focus ring.
It wasn’t unusual in times past for large aperture lenses with heavier elements like this to have slower and noisier autofocus due to the reality of moving such heavy glass, but we have moved into a whole new reality for autofocus. The 50GM F1.4 is exceptional for autofocus.
Sony 50GM F1.4 Optical Performance
Sony has employed a relatively complex optical performance here with 14 elements in 11 groups. There are two of Sony’s XA (extreme aspherical) lenses and one ED (extra-low dispersion) lens in the design. The former, in particular, is the breakthrough in lens design that has allowed a lot of Sony’s recent success. The resulting MTF chart is pretty exceptional for a wide aperture 50mm lens. It shows a truly exceptional center performance (about 8 percentage points sharper in the center than the Sigma) but with a slightly weaker performance than the Sigma in the corner. It also looks good compared to the 50mm F1.2 GM, with a slightly lower center performance but stronger elsewhere in the frame. I’ve put a red line through the 80% mark here to give you a standard for comparing them all.
Another shot from my “tea series” at F1.4 shows how much “pop” is available right from F1.4 along with some pretty nice looking bokeh.
Some lenses are “paper tigers” and chart test well but are shown up in real world situations and lighting conditions. That’s simply not the case here. This is an optical powerhouse in terms of sharpness, but how does it hold up in other areas?
First of all, let’s a take a look at the vignette and distortion.
We find some of both, though not quite at the level of what I recently saw with the Sigma 50mm F1.4 DN. There is some pincushion distortion that isn’t entirely linear in nature. I used a -5 to correct the distortion, though you can see a mild wave after the manual correction. I used a +58 to correct the vignette, or just a bit over 2 stops in the corners. The Sigma showed a bit more distortion (-8 to correct) and almost a stop more vignette (+84 to correct). The distortion quality and amount is about similar to what I saw with the F1.2 GM lens, and the amount of vignette is lower (I used a +71 to correct vignette there). It’s worth noting that pincushion distortion is preferable to barrel distortion in a portrait lens because it is slimming, so in some cases you might be better off not correcting the distortion. JPEGs and Video will have correction in camera from both distortion and vignette, and automatic profiles for RAW images will be shortly available in editing software. The JPEG profile did a cleaner job of correcting the distortion than what I could do manually:
Longitudinal chromatic aberrations (LoCA) are fairly well controlled. I pumped light through my glass camera and put a window in the background, but I saw little fringing either on the glass of the camera or on the window frames.
This vase was sitting in a bright shaft of sunlight, so I got close and shot a wide open shot. I found minor amounts of fringing in some of the highlight areas, but nothing that you would see without looking at a pixel level as we do here in the crop:
Nothing really to be concerned about here, and contrast remains very high in all of my shots, so spherical aberrations are diminishing image quality, either.
LaCA (Lateral CA) was extremely well controlled, with no evidence of fringing along the edges on either side of black and white transitions.
The well controlled aberrations point to very strong contrast even at wide apertures, and that was certainly the case. Here’s a look at my test chart shot with the 50MP Sony Alpha 1.
And here are the crops from the center, mid-frame, and corner at F1.4:
You can see excellent resolution and contrast that is very consistent across the frame.
The new GM lens is easily stronger than the Sigma in the middle of the frame and the midframe:
The Sigma has a tiny edge in the corner, however:
If you are interested in a more in-depth comparison between these two lenses, I have a video that might interest you.
If I compare with the F1.2 GM lens I find about the same performance. The new F1.4 GM lens is the winner in resolution across the frame with the exception of the far corners.
This is an incredibly sharp lens. Very impressive. If I focus in the corner and then compare the center focus and corner focus I find that the corner is good, but the center and midframe are exceptional.
There’s not a lot more to be gained in the center of the frame or midframe, as these are essentially flawless. Stopping down to F2 shows just a tiny bit more contrast and detail in the corners.
There’s more of a contrast gain at F2.8, and by F4 the image quality is truly flawless across the frame. Landscape apertures are exceptionally sharp. Here’s a shot taken at F2.8, and you can see how crisp the detail is all across the frame.
Minimum aperture is F16, which isn’t as small as some lenses. The lens is so exceptionally sharp that it survives diffraction reasonably well, though you can see that F1.4 is much sharper than F16 when you compare them:
This will make for a great portrait lens, as skin tones are still nice despite the very high sharpness and contrast.
Where Sony has really excelled here is by designing a lens that can deliver both high levels of sharpness and contrast on the subject while also delivering very soft, pleasing bokeh. I think this image is a great case in point:
My experience is that few lenses manage to do both these things, and Sony has been doing a great job of delivering lenses that can. I love the rendering of the Samyang AF 50mm F1.4 II, but the Sony manages to extreme sharpness plus a similarly nice rendering.
I saw many reasons to be happy about the bokeh rendering from the lens. Here’s a few of them:
Sony has some of the best coatings in the business right now, and I’ve found a lot of their recent lenses to be class leaders in flare resistance. The 50GM F1.4 isn’t exempt from flaring, particularly at wide apertures, though contrast stays quite good. The flare resistance at smaller apertures is even stronger.
I also tested the coma as I got a reasonably clear night. Star points are very crisp in the center of the frame. There is some mild deformation of star points towards the edge of the frame, but the results are largely very good.
This is one of those rare lenses that is pretty much good at everything. I’m not sure the rendering is quite as magical as the F1.2 GM, but for an F1.4 lens, this is pretty special. Do yourself a favor and check out more images by visiting the image gallery here.
Conclusion
This was a lens that few people were anticipating. Sony released the 50mm F1.2 GM less than two years ago, and thus few people anticipated a second 50mm GM lens. The Sony Zeiss Planar continues to be sold (though I fully expect it so see a price cut as it currently stickers for $200 more than the new GM lens). But while few of expected the Sony FE 50mm F1.4 GM, I’m certainly happy that it is here. It’s not as exotic as the 50mm F1.2 GM, but it’s definitely more attainable for many photographers. The price point of $1299 USD isn’t cheap, but it seems to be a relative value compared to the top flight F1.2 options on mirrorless platforms.
This lens has it all: a lot of features, blazing fast autofocus, and insanely good optics that at least in some ways equal and ever surpass the magical F1.2 G Master lens. That lens’ extremely shallow depth of field and creamy backgrounds are a little more exotic than what the F1.4 lens can achieve, but in general the overall rendering and look of the images is plenty good.
The big debate for many people will be whether or not the new 50GM F1.4 is worth the premium over the new Sigma 50mm F1.4 DN. There isn’t a huge difference in features, optics, or autofocus (unless you want the fast burst rates reserved for Sony lenses), though I give a slight edge to the Sony in each category. The more compact size of the new Sony is possibly the deal-MAKER for me. I love my 35mm F1.4 G Master, and having a 50mm lens that is similar in size and performance is very welcome to me. The fact that I do own one of Sony’s sports bodies means that having the potential of fast burst rates is worth a bit more to me. The Sigma is a great lens, but I do slightly prefer the rendering of the Sony. As per usual, however, there really isn’t a bad choice here. The Sony options are great, the Sigma is great, and even the Samyang is very worthy in most situations. The winner? It’s us – the consumers, who have never been so spoiled for quality choice as we are right now.
Pros:
Slightly smaller and lighter than most competitors
High grade of build
Quality weather sealing
Good features and general handling
Fast, quiet, and accurate autofocus
Excellent wide open sharpness across the frame
Beautifully soft bokeh
Low chromatic aberrations
Good flare resistance
Better than average magnification and excellent up close performance
Cons:
Distortion is a little complex
The F1.2 lens produces slightly more “exotic” images
Purchasing your gear through B&H and these links helps fund this website and keeps the articles coming. You can also make a donation here if you would like. Visit my Amazon page for some of my gear of choice! Thank you for your support.
Purchasing your gear through B&H and these links helps fund this website and keeps the articles coming. You can also make a donation here if you would like. Visit my Amazon page for some of my gear of choice! Thank you for your support.
Receive a 5% discount on all purchases at Amplis Foto, Canada’s Leading Photographic Supplier. Please enter discount code: AMPLIS52018DA in your cart. It is good for everything in your cart, and is stackable with other coupons, too! It will take 5% off your entire order! Proceeds go towards keeping this site going and providing you with new reviews!
Keywords: Sony 50mm, 50mm, 50GM, F1.4, G Master, Sony 50mm F1.4 GM, FE, Sony 50mm F1.4 GM Review, Review, Telephoto, Action, Tracking, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, Sony a9, sony a7RV, Sony a7R 5, sony a7IV, a9II, Sony Alpha 1, Sony A1 let the light in, #letthelightin
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
When I did my review of the Sony FE 50mm F1.2 G Master (an exceptional lens!), I concluded that Sony had gone the F1.2 route to help incentivize owners of the already good Sony Zeiss Planar 50mm F1.4 (my review here) to upgrade. I theorized that an F1.4 lens might not have gotten people’s attention in the way that a F1.2 lens would. I still think that’s correct, but clearly Sony also felt that there was room for a smaller, lighter, cheaper GM lens at the 50mm focal length, as their newest lens is just that: the Sony FE 50mm F1.4 G Master.
Early reactions from my audience have been mixed, with plenty of people wondering why yet another 50mm lens was needed. I personally welcome this lens, however, as while I really, really love the 50mm F1.2 GM, it is more lens (and a more expensive lens) than many people need. I love the form factor of the 35mm F1.4 G Master (my review here), and the new 50GMF1.4 is a closer match for that lens (along with the 24mm F1.4 G Master) in size, and all three lenses share a common 67mm front filter thread. Obviously the price of every lens varies from region to region around the world, but in the largest market (the United States), there is a $700 price difference between the new 50mm F1.4 lens (at $1300 USD) and the 50mm F1.2 GM ($2000 USD).
Further muddying the waters is the recently released Sigma 50mm F1.4 DN ART (my review here), a very competent lens with very sharp optics along with very fast autofocus. It retails for $850 USD, which makes it a relative bargain. I know in some European market the price difference between the Sigma and the new Sony is nearly double, so that will obviously be a factor for many photographers.
The Sony 50mm F1.4 G Master does have some advantages, however, and we’ll detail those as a part of this review along with demonstrating why this lens certainly has a legitimate place in the market. But should it be your new 50mm choice? You can see my findings by watching the definitive video review or reading my text review…or just enjoy the photos!
Thanks to Sony USA for sending me a loaner copy of the 50mm F1.4 GM. 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 a7IV along with the Sony Alpha 1 which will serve as my benchmark camera for the foreseeable future (my review here).
Purchasing your gear through B&H and these links helps fund this website and keeps the articles coming. You can also make a donation here if you would like. Visit my Amazon page for some of my gear of choice! Thank you for your support.
Purchasing your gear through B&H and these links helps fund this website and keeps the articles coming. You can also make a donation here if you would like. Visit my Amazon page for some of my gear of choice! Thank you for your support.
Receive a 5% discount on all purchases at Amplis Foto, Canada’s Leading Photographic Supplier. Please enter discount code: AMPLIS52018DA in your cart. It is good for everything in your cart, and is stackable with other coupons, too! It will take 5% off your entire order! Proceeds go towards keeping this site going and providing you with new reviews!
Keywords: Sony 50mm, 50mm, 50GM, F1.4, G Master, Sony 50mm F1.4 GM, FE, Sony 50mm F1.4 GM Review, Review, Telephoto, Action, Tracking, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, Sony a9, sony a7RV, Sony a7R 5, sony a7IV, a9II, Sony Alpha 1, Sony A1 let the light in, #letthelightin
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Sony FE 70-200mm F2.8 GM OSS II (SEL70200GM2) Review
Dustin Abbott
March 2nd, 2023
I just finished up reviewing the Sony 24-70mm F2.8 GM II (my review here). I looked at both of these new MK II GM lenses together because A) these two types of lenses will often be paired together by professional photographers (portrait or wedding photographers) and B) there are a lot of shared design philosophies in these two MK II zooms. And, like the 24-70mm F2.8 GM II, the new Sony FE 70-200mm F2.8 GM OSS II is the finest lens of its kind that I’ve used, with some clear advantages over competitors. One of the most obvious of those is the size and weight of the two zooms. According to Sony, the new 70-200 II (as we’ll call it for brevity in this review) is approximately 29% lighter than the previous model, and you can really feel it when using the lens. The lens feels smaller, though it really isn’t much smaller. This is just the beginning of the improvements, though, as the this Mark II lens has improved features, autofocus, and image quality performance. The G Master series is supposed to be the best, and Sony has worked to accomplish that here.
I love the 70-200mm zoom range, as it allows you to go from this at 70mm:
to this framing at 200mm:
When you combine this with a constant maximum aperture of F2.8, you can see why so many portrait, event photographers, and photojournalists value this combination of focal range and maximum aperture. This is an outstanding lens (as we will see), but price tag of $2800 USD may prove a prohibitively high bar for many photographers…particularly those who don’t earn a living from their photography. Is the new 70-200 II worth saving up for? You can either read on or watch my video review to find out!
Thanks to Gentec (Sony’s Canadian Distributor) for sending me a loaner of the 24-70mm GM II and 70-200mm GM II. 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 a7IV along with the Sony Alpha 1 which will serve as my benchmark camera for the foreseeable future (my review here).
Sony 70-200 II Build and Handling
As noted in the intro, one of the primary briefs with the MK II lens was to reduce the weight of the lens. As someone who has shot dozens of weddings and events with a 70-200 lens I can safely say that the difference in weight for this lens even vs the first generation lens could be a game changer. I’ve reviewed a 70-200mm F2.8 as heavy as 1800g (Sigma ART for Canon EF mount), so the 1045g of the 70-200 II feels pretty revolutionary. The light weight actually made me think the lens itself was miniaturized, as it just felt compact and lightweight for this class of lens. I was very surprised to find that the exterior dimensions were actually pretty similar between the MK 1 and MK 2 versions of the GM lens. Both lenses are essentially 88mm (3.45″) x 200mm (7.87″). Both sport a 77mm front filter thread. So how have they reduced the weight? Sony seems to attribute the weight loss to the more efficient (and lighter) XD focus motors along with revised materials in the barrel (extensive use of magnesium alloy). However they accomplished it, the results are impressive, as the lens feels very svelte and easy to bring along.
There are (surprisingly!) no direct competitors to the Sony lenses on the FE platform. Sigma has (thus far) elected to not bring a DN (mirrorless) version of their 70-200 Sport to market, and so the closest competing lens is the Tamron 70-180mm F2.8 VXD (my review here). The Tamron is smaller and lighter, but has next to no features, doesn’t have lens stabilization, and is an externally zooming design. It remains a good value alternative (only $1200 USD), but definitely lacks a lot of what the GM offers. Tamron does have another interesting alternative, though it is even less of an apples to apples comparison. That is the Tamron 35-150mm F2-F2.8 VXD (my review here). It combines portions of the traditional 24-70mm and 70-200mm ranges in one lens and is a really intriguing one lens solution for portrait, wedding, or event work. Again, not really a direct competitor, though the 35-150mm is closer to the GM in terms of features, build quality, and autofocus performance. Here’s a look at how those general specs compare:
The 70-200 II is now the lightest 70-200mm F2.8 zoom on the market, lighter even than Canon’s RF 70-200mm F2.8L IS. I prefer the Sony design, as while the Canon is more compact, it does so by being an externally zooming lens and one that does not function with teleconverters. That’s a serious liability, as the Sony 70-200 II is fully compatible with both the SEL14TC (1.4x) teleconverter along with the SEL20TX (2x) teleconverter. Pair it with the 1.4x TC and you have a maximum focal length of 280mm at F4 and 400mm at F5.6 using the 2x TC. I unfortunately did not have either TC on hand to test with during this review, but I hope to rectify that in the future.
Most users prefer the internally zooming design employed on the 70-200 II as it means that you can make very quick zoom adjustments with just a finger.
The number of aperture blades has increased from 9 to 11, which has become the new standard for Sony’s premium lenses. That makes for a nice looking aperture when peering inside the lens:
It also allows for a more effective performance in keeping the aperture shape round for shots with specular highlights. Here’s a look at F2.8, F4, and F5.6 respectively:
It’s also worth noting that the minimum focus distance has dropped from 96cm at 200mm to 82cm (you can focus as closely as 40cm at 70mm) and the maximum magnification figure has improved from 0.25x to 0.30x. Here’s what that looks like:
That’s a very high figure for this class of lens, and one more area where the Sony exceeds the Canon RF, as it only achieves a 0.23x magnification. Nikon’s Z mount 70-200mm (which I have not tested) is even lower at 0.20x. The high magnification of the Sony really adds to the versatility of the lens, particularly since it also is a higher performer up close:
This is a thoroughly weather sealed lens, with 21 internal seal points (by my count from the diagram below) along with a fluorine coating on the front element. That’s a very high number of seals and points to a professional grade lens.
Sony has upped their game in terms of the physical controls on the MK II lenses. They have added an aperture ring. This allows you some flexibility when controlling aperture, as you can choose to manually select aperture via the ring with clicks (at one third stop detents), to declick the aperture for aperture racking, or to switch over into automatic mode to control aperture from within the camera. Sony has added the “Iris Lock” switch similar to what Sigma has been implementing on recent lenses. This allows you to lock the lens in either manual or automatic aperture modes to make sure you don’t inadvertently switch between the two.
Sony has also included a total of 3 Focus Hold Buttons to allow one to easily fall to hand whether shooting in vertical or horizontal modes. This can be programmed to multiple functions from within the camera (my current preference is to control Eye AF so I can prioritize a certain eye).
There is an extensive bank of switches on the left side of the lens barrel. This starts with an AF/MF switch, following by an ON/OFF for the full time DMF (direct manual focus) function. I like this option, as one of my persistent complaints about Sony focus has been that sometimes it is very reluctant to focus on a close foreground object and focus stays “stuck” on a background subject. DMF allows me to quickly override that and pull focus forward, where typically autofocus will then focus without issue on my desired subject.
This is followed by a focus limiter, though with only two positions (Full and 3M to ∞). Autofocus is fast enough that you probably won’t need to use this very often. There are two OSS (Optical Steady Shot) related switches that come next: an ON/OFF switch along with 3 OSS modes (1 Standard | 2 Panning | 3 Active – prioritizes stabilization of image capture rather than viewfinder).
I looked for a while but was unable to find a rating for the OSS. It’s also impossible to separate the lens stabilization from the camera stabilization, so I can’t exactly point to what is doing what. Everything seemed to function fine, but I wasn’t wowed by the performance on my Alpha 1. I got about 1 in 5 shots nice and steady at 200mm and 1/8th of a second.
That’s between 4 and 5 stops of assistance…on an IBIS equipped body. I’ve seen more impressive performances than that (most notably the recent Sigma 60-600mm DN OS Sport lens). I compared at 150mm with the Tamron 35-150mm (which has no OSS) and I saw very little difference between the lens using both OSS and IBIS and the lens relying on just the IBIS. That was true when I tested for handheld video as well.
What’s the point? I’ve seen a number of reviews that state if you choose the Tamron 70-180mm, for example, you lose the OSS. That’s true, but I’m also not sure it makes a big difference if you have an IBIS-equipped camera. Also, the nature of having both lens and camera stabilization is it is impossible to choose one or the other or to measure what each system is doing. Canon will list a figure with only the lens IS and then with the IBIS/IS combination, but at best there’s 1-1.5 stops difference between the two figures, and, frankly, I’m not sure that I actually see that difference. There’s some grey area where it comes to how these two types of stabilization interact and how much benefit there is to having both. I don’t have the answers.
Now, to clarify, I’m not criticizing the OSS here in general. It seems to work fine, but I don’t think it is particularly impressive and that could be the reason why Sony doesn’t seem to be touting the effectiveness of the OSS here. For all practical purposes, however, you’ll get plenty of stability for using the lens handheld.
Very low down is the “iris lock” switch previously mentioned. The iris lock and click/declick buttons are located where they will be out of the way but there when needed. Neither of these are likely to be switches you are using on a daily basis, so I appreciate the design philosophy that keeps the more frequently used controls closer to hand.
The 70-200 II is an internally zooming lens, so the length stays constant and you don’t have to worry about anything like zoom creep. I hiked several times with the lens on just my standard Peak Design Slide Lite strap and found the lens comfortable to hike with due to the nice balance and light weight. With heavier lenses I will often attach one end of the strap to the tripod foot for easier balance (and less stress on the lens mount), but I found that removing the tripod foot allowed for a nicer ride next to my body and also reduced the weight a bit more. This is an easy lens to use handheld.
The tripod foot is easily removable via a tension knob and a button. The rest of the collar can be rotated (another tension knob handles that) but not removed. There are markings but not detents at the cardinal positions. I have only one real complaint here, and that is that the tripod foot is not Arca compatible, so you will have to add a quick release plate before mounting it on a tripod. On a positive note, you could put a quick release plate on the mounting point for the tripod foot (on the lens) even with the foot removed.
The zoom ring is the middle of the three rings (including the aperture ring), and it is ribbed and rubberized. It moves very smoothly in that unique way that externally zooming lenses can never quite match. Moving from 70-200mm is roughly 80° of rotation – quick and easy. The manual focus ring is located near the front of the lens. It is slightly narrower, has a similar finish, and is nicely damped. It’s not quite buttery smooth like a Zeiss manual focus lens, but the fast focus motors make sure there is no focus lag in this focus-by-wire configuration.
The newly designed lens hood features a locking mechanism along with a sliding “window” to allow you easy access to rotating a polarizing filter. I was initially excited when I first encountered this feature on the Canon EF 100-400L II telephoto lens, but I realized over the long haul that it was a feature I rarely used and I was sometimes annoyed over the window inadvertently being down quite often. Your feelings will probably vary depending on how often you use a polarizing filter. It also has a rubberized front surface that allows you to stand the lens on it.
Also included is a nice zippered and padded nylon case for transport. It’s those little details that up the premium feel of a lens even if you don’t use the case all that often.
The lighter lens is a much better balance for Sony’s smaller than average camera bodies. I really, really enjoyed using this lens and appreciated the excellent ergonomics and overall form factor of the lens. The only real downside here is the price, which is a formidable $2800 USD. The original 70-200 GM has now been discounted to $2000 USD, but the new 70-200 II is so much better in so many ways that I would probably recommend just saving a little longer and going for the new lens. The reality is that this price point is the current standard for these first party 70-200 F2.8 zooms, as both the Canon RF and Nikon Z equivalent lenses are similarly priced, and I would argue that the Sony has some intrinsic advantages over both of them. The high point of entry has always been challenging for this type of lens, and that has only become more true over time.
Sony 70-200mm F2.8 GM II Autofocus Performance
An area where Sony is able to create a distinct advantage for its lenses is in the realm of autofocus. Tamron has their quality VXD focus motor (which is a fast focus motor), but Sony has employed four!! XD (extreme dynamic) Linear Motors in the autofocus system here. Sony states that autofocus is up to 4x faster on the 70-200 II than what we saw on the original GM lens. Sony also limits their top burst speeds on their sports cameras like the Alpha 1 or a9 series to Sony lenses, so while I can get a full 30FPS with the 70-200 GM II and my Alpha 1, I would be limited to 15FPS when using the Tamron (or any other third party lens) on it. Those quad focus motors help assure that the 70-200 II can keep up with the high speed action.
I didn’t have a chance to shoot sports during my review period, but I had no problem getting shots of this squirrel as he popped up on a branch.
Ferrari and Nala were wrestling on the floor in a patch of sunlight, and I got a number of well focused moments during their furious battle:
This is a lens that is taking full advantage of focus points everywhere in the frame. I shot a sequence of Ferrari walking in fairly low light (I was shooting at ISO 3200) and he hugged the objects to his left (as cats will sometimes do), so I purposefully kept him on the edge of the frame. Despite fighting with too low of shutter speeds I could tell that the lens kept perfectly focused on his eye as he moved.
Portrait and wedding photography will be a breeze with this lens and a decent camera body. It reacts instantly to focus changes. Focus was nailed in a portrait session whether at further distances:
…or up close for head and shoulders:
As noted earlier, the full time manual override does help when the camera/lens doesn’t want to focus up close. I used DMF to get focus in the right ballpark and then let the autofocus do the heavy lifting for this extremely shallow depth of field shot.
On the video front, video pulls are quick, quiet, and confident as you might expect with a first party Sony lens equipped with 4 focus motors. There is a fairly minimal amount of focus breathing (nothing extreme), and when I tested it on the a7IV and turned on the “Focus Breathing Compensation” setting there was a mild improvement. I would call the amount of focus breathing fairly good. The lens also performed well (as expected) in my “hand test”, quickly transitioning back to tracking my eye after I blocked visibility of my eyes with my hand towards the lens.
My general focus results were excellent. Focus is incredibly snappy and precise, and that allows the amazing optics to shine. Autofocus accuracy is clearly improved over the first generation lens.
Bottom line is that we have a top notch focus system here that is able to keep up with the most demanding photography or video scenarios.
Sony 70-200 II Image Quality
The optical formula in the MK II is 17 elements in 14 groups with a lot of those elements being exotic glass, including 1 Extreme Aspherical (XA) lens, 1 Aspherical lenses, 3 ED (extra low dispersion) elements, and two Super ED elements. That’s a lot of expensive glass in there, but the byproduct is that we have a very strong optical performance across the frame, with near perfect results in the center of the frame and a strong corner performance even at F2.8. The 200mm telephoto end shows a particularly impressive MTF performance.
First party lenses tend to be better at masking certain optical flaws due to more robust profile support, but I also pull back the curtain and look at vignette and distortion without electronic assistance. In this case there is very little to hide. I saw next to no distortion that needed correcting at 70mm (-1) and just about a stop of vignette (+29 to correct).
The typical correction profile either in camera or in software doesn’t have much to do.
The pincushion distortion grows by 200mm (requiring a -5 to correct), but it remains very linear and easy to correct. Vignette stays very minimal at just a +24 to correct it.
This is a lens that you could actually get away with having uncorrected results. That’s a fantastic performance.
I was unable to coax much LoCA (longitudinal chromatic aberrations) out of the lens either using a chart or with real world objects. This is an extremely well corrected lens.
I saw no measurable lateral CA (LaCA) on either my test chart or in real world images.
Everything is coming up aces thus far. This is a fantastic performance.
So how about resolution? Here’s a look at my standard test chart that the following crops will be taken from:
And here are 70mm crops from across the frame (center, mid-frame, and extreme corner) at F2.8. These are taken on the 50MP Sony Alpha 1 and shown at around 170% magnification:
You can see that the center performance is fabulous, the midframe is excellent, and the corners are excellent until essentially the last percentage or so when they soften a little. There’s plenty of resolution for any kind of photography.
When a lens is this sharp to begin with, there isn’t a lot of room for further improvement (at least in the center and midframe), though I do see some further improvement in the corners when stopping down to smaller apertures.
Very small apertures are generally to be avoided with high resolution cameras, and that’s the case here. Minimum aperture across the zoom range is F22, but diffraction has severely compromised image quality by F22, so I wouldn’t recommend going any smaller than F11 if at all possible.
Moving on to 100mm finds image quality actually improving. I see slightly more detail and better contrast all across the frame:
Stopping down to F4 and F5.6 further improves contrast across the frame to nothing short of exceptional levels.
I found the performance to be even better at 135mm. The image seems a little bright (better contrast and light transmission) with the same settings, and I could see just a little more detail across the frame:
Here’s a real world result that shows that detail is just as excellent as we’ve come to expect in this optical test:
The contrast in and delineation of the fine details in the fur is just amazing…and that’s in the midst of the cats rolling around in motion, not some staged shot with a static subject.
While I think that the 135mm range is ever so slightly the pinnacle of the optical performance, 200mm is so close as to be nearly indistinguishable. I poured across my results at 200% magnification and felt that 135mm had just the tiniest bit more “sparkle”, but I’m not sure you could ever detect it except for under those extreme conditions. You can see from this comparison just how sharp it is both in the center and in the corner of the frame.
I would easily argue that 200mm is the most important focal length in this zoom range. It will be used for close up work, will be the most commonly used focal length when a teleconverter is attached, and in many event situations will be the most used focal length to pull a subject close to the camera. I’ve reviewed a number of 70-200mm zooms that faded a bit at the end of the range, and they were generally just a little less useful as a byproduct. That is certainly NOT the case here, and this lens will be a joy to use at the extremes. Look at how amazing the detail is on this oak leaf at 200mm, F2.8:
How about this squirrel?
It is rare to find a lens that delivers such detail on a high resolution body, but the 70-200 II passes the test with flying colors. Yes, there’s even more sharpness and contrast if you stop the lens down, but realistically you can just use aperture more for controlling depth of field. You’ll get all the sharpness and contrast you’ll ever need right from F2.8 on.
I will pause for a moment to note that it is rare in my experience for zooms to be so consistent throughout the zoom range. There’s almost always a dip somewhere, be it in the middle of the zoom range or at the telephoto end. That just isn’t the case here. The optical performance is consistently good throughout the zoom range.
You might also note from our last couple of shots that the bokeh is also very nice. It is smooth and creamy and handles the transition areas in these shots very well. The high magnification means that it is easy to completely blur out a background, like here:
But the quality of the blur was also good at medium distances, too.
The 70-200 II was also to handle bright lights with minimal flare issues. There’s little loss of contrast and just a mild ghosting pattern. The stopped down shot (at F11) shows off the very nice 22 pointed sunstar:
All in all this is a really, really strong performance optically. The fact that Sony was able to shrink the lens’ weight, add more features, and also improve the image quality is very, very impressive. In times past optical improvements almost always meant a bigger, heavier lenses. I’m delighted that we have a reached a place where that is no longer true. If you’d like to see more photos, feel free to check out the image gallery here.
Conclusion
I review a lot of lenses. I own a lot of lenses. Most of the time it is a relief to return loaned gear because it clears space on my desk for the next project(s) and means that I’ve finished a job. Every now and then, however, there’s a piece of gear that is so special that I’m sad to pack it up. That’s how I feel about the Sony FE 70-200mm F2.8 GM OSS II. This is one of those lenses that is so good that not owning it is going to gnaw at me a bit. Many times lenses force you to compromise – to choose one set of strengths while accepting weaknesses as a part of the package. The only downside you have to accept here is the price, but otherwise the 70-200 II is nothing short of exceptional.
GM lenses are supposed to be the best, the “no compromise” option. That’s true here. There isn’t a finer fast telephoto zoom on the Sony platform than the Sony FE 70-200mm F2.8 GM OSS II, and I can also attest to this being the finest 70-200mm F2.8 zoom I’ve tested on any platform. If you’ve got the money and are in the market for the best 70-200mm F2.8 option, then go GM. This is the new gold standard for every other fast telephoto zoom to aspire to.
Pros:
29% lighter than the MK 1 lens, and it makes a huge difference
The most feature rich lens of its kind I’ve ever tested
Great build quality and weather sealing
Fantastic autofocus from the quad focus motors
Full compatibility with teleconverters
Exceptional resolution and contrast throughout the zoom range
Nice bokeh
Relatively low distortion and vignette
High magnification figure and good up close performance
Purchasing your gear through B&H and these links helps fund this website and keeps the articles coming. You can also make a donation here if you would like. Visit my Amazon page for some of my gear of choice! Thank you for your support.
Purchasing your gear through B&H and these links helps fund this website and keeps the articles coming. You can also make a donation here if you would like. Visit my Amazon page for some of my gear of choice! Thank you for your support.
Receive a 5% discount on all purchases at Amplis Foto, Canada’s Leading Photographic Supplier. Please enter discount code: AMPLIS52018DA in your cart. It is good for everything in your cart, and is stackable with other coupons, too! It will take 5% off your entire order! Proceeds go towards keeping this site going and providing you with new reviews!
Keywords: Sony 70-200mm F2.8 GM II, Sony 70-200 GM II, Sony 70-200, GM, II, SEL70200GM2, Sony 70-200 II Review, GM II Review, G Master, Review, Telephoto, Action, Tracking, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, Sony a9, sony a7RV, Sony a7R 5, sony a7RIV, a9II, Sony Alpha 1, Sony A1 let the light in, #letthelightin
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
I just finished up reviewing the Sony 24-70mm F2.8 GM II (my review here). I looked at both of these new MK II GM lenses together because A) these two types of lenses will often be paired together by professional photographers (portrait or wedding photographers) and B) there are a lot of shared design philosophies in these two MK II zooms. And, like the 24-70mm F2.8 GM II, the new Sony FE 70-200mm F2.8 GM OSS II is the finest lens of its kind that I’ve used, with some clear advantages over competitors. One of the most obvious of those is the size and weight of the two zooms. According to Sony, the new 70-200mm F2.8 GM OSS II is approximately 29% lighter than the previous model, and you can really feel it when using the lens. The lens feels smaller, though it really isn’t much smaller. This is just the beginning of the improvements, though, as the this Mark II lens has improved features, autofocus, and image quality performance. The G Master series is supposed to be the best, and Sony has worked to accomplish that here.
I love the 70-200mm zoom range, as it allows you to go from this at 70mm:
to this framing at 200mm:
When you combine this with a constant maximum aperture of F2.8, you can see why so many portrait, event photographers, and photojournalists value this combination of focal range and maximum aperture. This is an outstanding lens (as we will see), but price tag of $2800 USD may prove a prohibitively high bar for many photographers…particularly those who don’t earn a living from their photography. Is the new 70-200mm F2.8 GM OSS II worth saving up for? You can either read my text review or watch my video review to find out!
Thanks to Gentec (Sony’s Canadian Distributor) for sending me a loaner of the 24-70mm GM II and 70-200mm GM II. 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 a7IV along with the Sony Alpha 1 which will serve as my benchmark camera for the foreseeable future (my review here).
Purchasing your gear through B&H and these links helps fund this website and keeps the articles coming. You can also make a donation here if you would like. Visit my Amazon page for some of my gear of choice! Thank you for your support.
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