Features

The Best Sony G Master Prime Lenses for Candid Photography

Chris Gampat
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03/10/2022
3 Mins read
Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Sony 50mm f1.2 G Master review product photos 21-50s400 10

The Sony G Master Lens Lineup are the best offerings Sony makes. If you’re a Canon user, think of this as L glass. Sony goes out of their way to be clinically perfect, and it comes through in these lenses. If you’re a street photographer, wedding photographer, event photographer, or photojournalist, consider these. We’re selecting the best Sony G Master Prime Lenses for candid shooters. Take a look!

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The Phoblographer’s various product round-up features are done in-house. Our philosophy is simple: you wouldn’t get a Wagyu beef steak review from a lifelong vegetarian. And you wouldn’t get photography advice from someone who doesn’t touch the product. We only recommend gear we’ve fully reviewed. If you’re wondering why your favorite product didn’t make the cut, there’s a chance it’s on another list. If we haven’t reviewed it, we won’t recommend it. This method keeps our lists packed with industry-leading knowledge. Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

How We Chose the Best Sony G Master Prime Lenses for Candid Photography

  • Our roundups include only products we’ve fully reviewed. You’ll never see a product we haven’t fully reviewed in a roundup. We’re linking to each of our reviews as well.
  • This roundup of the best Sony G Master Prime Lenses has only lenses that deliver what a professional photographer wants. That means it’s great for passionate photographers who just want to shoot candids too.
  • All of the best Sony G Master Prime Lenses are weather resistant. Our torture tests are often some of the most renowned in the photo industry.
  • We’re really recommending these lenses for candid shooting because of the laws of physics. Wider angles should just move faster.
  • The product images and sample images in this roundup of the best Nikon cameras for photojournalists were all shot by our staff of photographers.

Sony 35mm f1.4 G Master

Pros

  • Lighter than competing lenses
  • Fits in the palm of my hand
  • Spectacular images
  • Weather-sealed
  • De-click aperture ring

Cons

  • Pricey
  • Some photographers won’t like the bokeh.

How’s the Autofocus?

In our review we state:

“An f1.4 lens is made for dark scenes and bokeh. Thankfully, the autofocus can keep up in dark conditions. With this lens, the Sony A7R IV focused on a dark corner of a closet relatively quickly.”

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Sony 24mm f1.4 G Master

Pros

  • Compact and lightweight
  • Weather sealed
  • Superb image quality
  • Outstanding edge to edge sharpness, even when shooting wide open
  • Dreamy, circular bokeh
  • Impressive minimal focus distance of 0.79 feet (0.24 meters)

Cons

  • Slight color fringing (easily mitigated in post processing)

How’s the Autofocus?

In our review we state:

“The autofocus system in the Sony 24mm f1.4 G Master consistently acquired focus quickly, and while we did experience some hunting when using the lens in extreme low light and low contrast scenarios while we were evaluating it, pretty much any autofocus lens will exhibit that behavior to some degree. Instead of conventional rotational actuators used in most of the other lenses in this segment currently on the market, the Sony 24mm f1.4 G Master features a linear actuator that helps to ensure swift focus acquisition under most conditions. While the Sony 24mm f1.4 G Master is primarily marketed towards photographers specializing in landscape photography and astrophography, Eye Autofocus works flawlessly with this lens, making it perfectly suitable for environmental portraiture and street photography as well.”

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Sony 50mm f1.2 G Master

Pros

  • Fast to use on both the Sony a7r III and the Sony a7r IV
  • Weather sealing
  • Nice render
  • Very sharp
  • Wow, Sony actually listened to us and allowed a little bit of flare in. Bravo!
  • I actually think over $2,000 is a fair price.
  • Pretty lightweight

Cons

  • A few autofocus issues with strong backlighting
  • Two different hard function buttons are a bit odd.
  • Still has this render that’s nowhere as gorgeous as Canon’s

How’s the Autofocus?

In our review we state:

“Luckily, in low lighting, with your subject being front-lit, the autofocus is much better. The Sony 50mm f1.2 G Master and the Sony a7r IV were able to lock onto walking subjects and nail the focus each and every time. What’s more, it was able to do it at f1.2 with moving subjects. One would say that that’s impressive, but Canon has been doing this for a while now.”

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autofocus candid G Master prime lenses reviews sony Sony 24mm f1.4 G Master sony 35mm f1.4 g master sony 50mm f1.2 g master Sony cameras Sony G Master
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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.