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Features

My Favorite Sony Prime Lenses: Editor in Chief Chris Gampat

Chris Gampat
No Comments
08/26/2020
3 Mins read
weather sealed primes

Last Updated on 08/26/2020 by Mark Beckenbach

If you want an honest and heartfelt answer to what my favorite lenses are, please know these are my favorite Sony prime lenses.

I’ll always say Sony’s cameras feel more like computers stuffed into a body that’s supposed to be a camera. While I’m not the biggest fan of their bodies, I’ll admit I adore their lenses. The company shows they have an investment in the photography world in many ways. Not only do they make the imaging sensors for pretty much everyone, but they also create some great technology themselves. Implementing AI into their cameras and creating some of the best autofocus around, they have changed quite a bit from a decade ago. Further, they’ve built up a fantastic selection of lenses. And though I’ve tested a whole lot of them, they’re not all my favorites. The ones that are the gems in my eyes tend to really take advantage of what mirrorless cameras are about.

Sony 35mm f1.8 FE

I was waiting for the Sony 35mm f1.8 FE for a long time when it was announced. I was very excited that I got to play with it before the announcement. This small lens has fantastic image quality, great weather sealing, fast autofocus, a small body, etc. It’s not a G Master lens, and quite honestly it doesn’t need to be. Instead, we needed something that embraced the ideals of mirrorless cameras overall. This is the perfect middle ground lens for any photographer in my opinion. The 35mm f1.4 is large, and unnecessarily so. If you wanted that extra light, then you’re better off just going for Sigma and embracing the giant size.

“And now we’re at the best part of this lens: the color rendition. The Sony 35mm f1.8 FE lens exhibits colors that I genuinely want to call cinematic. When you lock your camera to 3200K or 5500K, you’ll get incredibly cinematic colors and feelings.”

Our Review

But instead, I really like the idea that mirrorless cameras and the system overall should be smaller. It means that you carry less weight and less stuff when you’re traveling. In today’s world, that means you have more room for all the supporting products.

Sony 55mm f1.8 FE

When it first launched, I wasn’t the biggest fan of the Sony 55mm f1.8 because I thought that it was too close to being a 50mm lens. And I personally really don’t like 50mm lenses. But I was wrong. I ended up buying this lens, and it’s the most versatile one I have in my bag. It’s my favorite portrait lens of the bunch, and it lets me capture candid moments, do product photography, etc. Plus, it still ranks as one of the sharpest made by Sony. Even better, it focuses quickly and it’s small. To top all this off, it’s amazingly affordable. So why would someone not get it? As far as I’m concerned, there’s no point in getting the other 50mm lenses. This is the only one that matters.

“Above all else, this lens is sharp. Secondly, it produces accurate colors in all the right places, that is to say everywhere. Thirdly, the bokeh is creamy to the point where you’d want to take out of focus photographs just to see what this lens can create.”

Our Review

Sony 85mm f1.8 FE

“In a word, it’s pretty perfect for portrait shooters. And if you’re a fan of something like Kodak Portra film, this lens is for you.”

Our Review

The Sony 85mm f1.8 was a lens that I was pleasantly surprised by. I didn’t expect it to perform as well as it did and I also didn’t believe it would be this affordable. In fact, I was dumbfounded by a lot of things. It’s sharp, fast to focus, lightweight, and weather sealed. All of the lenses I have include weather sealing. To me, I didn’t see a major reason to get the Sony 85mm G Master. You can see and tell the difference between the lenses if you’re shooting side by side. But most people won’t. Instead, most people will be too busy focusing on the gorgeous images that can be taken with this lens. Again, this lens is also small. I can stack it and another lens in a section of my camera bag with no issues.

Best of all: the only other company that I’d expect to weather seal a lens that isn’t one of their top of the line options is Nikon. But Sony did it. Kudos to them!

55mm f1.8 image quality lenses light review sony weather sealing
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Chris Gampat

Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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