Sony FE 85mm F1.8 Review - Review 2022

Full-frame Sony mirrorless photographers have a wide range of prime lens options in the short telephoto range, merely most of them behave a premium cost tag. The FE 85mm F1.viii comes in at an attractive $599.99 cost compared with premium options similar the $1,200 Zeiss Batis 1.eight/85 and $one,800 Sony Fe 85mm F1.4 GM, both of which have earned Editors' Choice honors. The Iron 85mm F1.eight captures images that are sharper than the Batis, albeit with a stronger vignette and without in-lens stabilization. It's one-half the price, so we're giving it the same rating and Editors' Choice honors.

Design

The Fe 85mm ($579.00 at Amazon) is a squat, compact lens, measuring in at 3.2 by 3.1 inches (Hard disk drive) and tipping the scales at only 13.1 ounces. Its black barrel is aluminum with a knurled focus ring. A lens hood is included—information technology reverses for storage—and the front element supports 67mm filters. The squat, light lens balances quite well on the a7R II.

Like other FE lenses, the 85mm F1.8 covers the full-frame sensor used by cameras in the a7 Ii family, and is protected from grit and wet. It also shares the same focus-by-wire system as other Sony mirrorless lenses. When set to manual focus mode, turning the focus ring activates a motor to motility focusing elements rather than turning the elements themselves. If you prefer the tactile feel of manual mechanical focus, consider the Zeiss Loxia ii.4/85 as an alternative, simply remember that the Loxia series doesn't support autofocus.

Physical controls are scant. There's a simple MF/AF toggle switch to modify the focus mode, and a button to activate Focus Hold. Holding it down pauses the camera's autofocus organization, allowing you to recompose a shot afterwards focus is acquired without piffling with the camera's settings. The button can be reconfigured if desired—I like to set it to activate Sony's Center AF system, which identifies human eyes and locks focus, platonic for portraiture.

The Fe 85mm doesn't boast its own optical stabilization organization, so if you own an E-mount camera without in-body stabilization, y'all'll desire to think nigh spending more on the Batis, especially if you programme to apply the 85mm for handheld video. More contempo full-frame bodies, also as the APS-C a6500, include in-body image stabilization, mitigating the omission.

The lens supports a 2.6-foot (0.8-meter) minimum focus altitude. That keeps it out of macro territory—Sony has the Iron 90mm F2.8 G OSS for that—but it's a fine working altitude for portraiture, the bread and butter of a broad-discontinuity 85mm blueprint.

Focus speed is quite fast. Dual linear motors drive the autofocus system, locking onto subjects quickly and effectively. It'southward in stark contrast to the slow, plodding autofocus delivered past Sony's other budget Fe prime lens, the FE 50mm F1.eight.

Image Quality

I tested the Iron 85mm F1.viii with the 42MP a7r II using Imatest. At f/1.8 the lens scores iii,462 lines per pic summit on the standard center-weighted sharpness test, much amend than the ii,200 lines we want to see at a minimum from a loftier-resolution camera like the a7R Ii. The middle is extremely sharp (iii,898 lines), just as you lot movement away there's a drop in fidelity, with the average dipping to 2,861 lines in the mid parts and periphery. At f/1.8 the Batis isn't equally sharp, notching 2,918 lines on the aforementioned test, but its scores are much more even across the frame.

You don't get a big bump in sharpness past stopping down to f/2.8 or f/4, where scores are similar. There's a pocket-size bump in resolution at f/five.half dozen (iii,809 lines), and you lot get tiptop performance at f/eight (4,146 lines) and f/11 (4,194 lines). Scores drib at f/16 (three,870 lines) and f/22 (2,738 lines). The Batis is also at its best at f/11, but it's not as good as the FE 85mm, recording 3,565 lines.

Every bit you lot can meet from the pixel-level crop above, the lens is tack sharp, fifty-fifty at f/1.8. Depth of field is quite shallow, of course, so not all of your prototype volition exist in focus, unless you're shooting a perfectly flat field of study. The crop is taken from the mid parts of the frame, in betwixt the center and periphery. We'll have to wait for formal lab testing to run across how evenly sharp it is, just 85mm designs are typically pretty even in clarity from the center to the periphery.

See How Nosotros Test Digital Cameras

Out-of-focus highlights do take on a true cat'south-middle shape toward the edges of the frame. This is in dissimilarity to Sony's other new portrait lens, the FE 100mm F2.viii STF GM OSS, which features a special lens chemical element that adds feather blur, creating perfectly round highlights behind your subject area. But perfectly round highlights are uncommon. The pricier Zeiss Batis 1.8/85 shows a like outcome, and while the shape isn't as extreme, Sony's acme-stop FE 85mm F1.4 GM does besides.

The FE 85mm doesn't exhibit any visible distortion. It does show dim corners when shooting in Raw format or with in-camera illumination correction disabled for JPG files. At f/1.8 corners are visibly night, lagging behind the center of the epitome past 3 f-stops (-3EV). The deficit is cut to -2.6EV at f/2, -1.4EV at f/2.eight, and -ane.2EV at f/4. At narrower apertures they are within our -1EV tolerance. Enabling in-camera correction leaves a slight vignette at f/1.8 (-i.3EV) and f/2 (-1.1EV), but information technology's gone later that. The Batis is a bit better when shooting Raw, showing -1.8EV at f/one.8 and -one.4EV at f/2, and illuminating the frame evenly at narrower settings.

Conclusions

Sony mirrorless photographers have a lot of options in the 85 to 100mm focal range, and they're all adept lenses. Choosing 1 may be difficult, only the FE 85mm F1.viii certainly wins out on price, coming in at about half the cost of the Zeiss Batis 1.8/85, and bettering it in sharpness. The Fe 85mm also delivers fast autofocus, a dust- and moisture-resistant build, and distortion-free images. Corners are dim when shooting in Raw format, but that's easy enough to correct using software, and JPG photographers enjoy in-camera compensation. If you use a camera without in-trunk stabilization, yous may find it worth it to spend more on the Batis 1.8/85. Simply for everyone else, the FE 85mm F1.8 is an exceptional value, an first-class performer, and our Editors' Choice.

Best Lens Picks

• The All-time Fujifilm Lenses for 2022
• The Best Leica M Lenses for 2022
• The Best Micro Four Thirds Lenses for 2022
• The Best Pentax SLR Lenses for 2022
• More Lens Reviews
• More from Sony

Further Reading

• Tamron Details Affordable lxx-180mm F2.8 Zoom Lens
• The Best Sony Mirrorless Lenses for 2022
• The Best Nikon Lenses for 2022
• The Best Canon Lenses for 2022
• Oops! $13K Photographic camera Lens Sells for $95 Due to Prime number Day Mistake

Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/cameras/14069/sony-fe-85mm-f18-review

Posted by: nealromble.blogspot.com

Share this post